Libra season often comes with a flurry of forward momentum. Back-to-school energy charges me, even though I’m neither a full-time student, nor an educator anymore. I love beginnings (I’m an Aries woman), and there’s something about attacking a school year that puts me in an organizational and vital state of mind. I printed out my syllabus and reading materials, stapled everything, and spent a little too much time trying to source the most non offensive 3-ring binder (—why is this so inexplicably hard?)
October started off with my coaching program with Christine Garvey, and shooting a screen test in 35 mm for my motion picture class with Mono No Aware, a non-profit devoted to the education and preservation of analog cinema techniques.
I started pre-production on a short film, and the entire process feels exciting and frightening. This represents a healthy initial step towards my dream of becoming a writer/director of films, and I can already feel the slow creep of perfectionist tendencies muddling my thinking about the project. I want to pursue excellence from an empowered place (“Let’s see how far I can take this!”) vs. a fearful place (“god, I hope I don’t embarrass myself.“)
My major creative roadblock is tunneling, or an obsessive state of work where I focus on a task for hours at time with no break. At first this seems like exactly what I should be doing— concentrating my attention on the task at hand; however, through journaling and a series of prompts from Christine, I learned that the act of drilling deeper and deeper into a task tee’d me up for burnout. Not only was I refusing to take breaks, I was barely taking a breath, eating regularly, or going outside. I need to flow from an empowered place, and walking away.
Walking away ensures a more sustainable creative practice. My eyes need time to readjust to distance. Kinesthetically, my body wants me to switch up using different muscle groups. Just like a farmer needs to rotate the crops, I need to rotate activities. If I have a deadline, I usually neglect every other aspect of my life: sleep, diet, routinely connecting with friends, and travel. The act of stepping away and coming back to a task demonstrates trust in myself to be able to complete an important task. These days, I’m trying to cultivate trust in myself, defend my right to rest, and opening myself to a sense of discovery by surrendering (some) control.