Besides containing our ideas, we need to protect those fledgling ideas from the outside world. People, activities, to-do lists, can be overstimulating and the result is stress from sensory overload. Bells were going off while I read this.
How many times do you get a chance to read in print what was happening to you in real life? Like I said in that previous post, Bingo! Again and again! We need to find a way to cope with the “ceaseless inflow and outflow of distractions, distress, attention and emotional involvement” of people, places, things. This is so true. There was way too much chaos and static in my environment and my head.
The chapter goes on to say that artists are generous people, but we can be susceptible to others’ pain and need. We can try to pull away, but feel guilty and risk our “creative energy to ebb out of our life and into theirs”! Is this a Wow moment or what? “This creates exhaustion, irritation and rage.” I could relate. Whether aware of it or not this shut down my own art working.
Setting boundaries is the focus. Contain and protect ideas and creative energy. Dump the bad stuff and the hangers on. Get a secretary to shield time and space like executives do. Well, I don’t think I’m getting a secretary any time soon, although it sounds great. I’ve stepped away, but if I knew then what I know now I may have protected my sanity, my art and just said “Not now”.
