On Rekindling Creativity After Burnout

And a roundup of sewing patterns!

On Friday Mr. Domestique and I walked down to a park where our city organized a holiday lights festival. All the trees were lit, there was a big ice skating rink, popcorn and hot chocolate was sold, fire pits were lit, and the night finished off with fireworks. There were a lot of people there, and it was fun to see all the kids running around enjoying the festive atmosphere.

Last week’s newsletter was actually me preparing for our walk down there. The park is only about a mile from our home so we like to bundle up, bring something warm to drink, and meander through the neighborhoods to get to the heart of downtown. Part of me posting all the recipes was me trying to amp myself up to make our drinks from scratch, because I’ve always liked doing that.

Speaking of which, the poll results from last week’s newsletter are in! Hot chocolate was the clear winner, with apple cider in second, and a tie for third between egg nog and mulled wine. Thanks for participating!

But I didn’t make homemade drinks. Something about doing more than simply opening a packet and dumping it into warm milk felt like it was too much for me that day. So I went to my local Natural Grocers, bought 2 individual-sized packets of “drinking chocolate” along with a small box of coconut creamer and a big box of oat milk, and came home and dumped it all together in a saucepan over medium heat.

The hot chocolate was actually yummy (and extra thick with the addition of the creamer), but I felt bad for not making something from scratch, especially since I had all the ingredients like cocoa powder in my cupboard already. Then I felt bad about making myself feel bad.

I tell people all the time that making everything from scratch is not the point of modern home economics, so why couldn’t I ease into that sentiment myself?

I sat with the double-bad feelings and realized it actually wasn’t because I was putting pressure on myself to make something homemade, it was that I actually do enjoy making things from scratch but could not muster the energy to do it.

And then I realized that my lack of creative energy wasn't just about cooking, but was that all of my creative outlets were feeling like chores (besides this newsletter, but I’ll get to that in a bit).

Ah, this is burnout.

So, how do I rekindle my creativity?

And now that I’ve recognized the burnout for what it is, I can give myself permission to feel it and be with it. I know now that sometimes I’ll feel like cooking something special for dinner, and other nights it’ll be takeout and that’s ok too.

And also now that I can name the burnout feeling, I can name other feelings like the feeling of wanting to do something creative again. My Tiktok feed has been filled with knitting and crochet projects lately. The algorithm knows me pretty well, so that proves to me that I want to do something creative, I just need to start pulling myself out of the burnout bit by bit.

I actually think starting this newsletter was my first - unknowing - step in the direction of reframing my feelings of burnout around creativity. It’s really helping me process everything by coming here weekly and sharing things that are going on in my head, and hopefully they resonate with you too. But I also want to explore other ways keep this creativity-rekindling ball rolling.

I asked Canva’s Text-To-Image AI to create a “mid-century graphic inspired by the idea of creativity after burnout” and this was one of the things it came up with. Pretty spot-on I’d say.

We recently went to see Wakanda Forever. In it, Angela Bassett’s character talks about being busy, or distracted, but forcing herself to take the time to come somewhere to just sit with her thoughts. This isn’t exactly the same as finding specific creativity time, but it has the same essence I think. Sometimes you have to put time for yourself into your calendar, even if it’s just a few moments.

And sometimes it’s giving yourself permission to buy a refrigerated pack of take-and-bake chocolate chip cookies from the grocery store. I just did this yesterday because I wanted to bake something but didn’t have the energy (I jazzed them up by sprinkling sea salt on top before I baked them and they were actually pretty good!). This way, I got to smell the cookies baking and I got to feel like I did a little something creative, but I did not have to come up with the energy to actually make them, nor did I have to deal with all the dishes.

Finding ways to inspire creativity without having to actually do something might be another good first step for me. Like looking at sewing patterns I’d like to sew, and coming up with ideas of what fabric I’d like to use, etc. Thinking through the project without having to commit to actually making it might just be where I’m at right now.

Have you ever experienced anything like this? What did you do to be gentle with yourself while also trying to encourage creativity?

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A roundup of sewing patterns that are inspiring me

Here’s some of my sewing inspiration that I was talking about above. It’s been cold here lately so I’ve been wanting to make warm things like coats, sweaters, and layer-able things. I’ve included links to some patterns on my radar below, including 3 free patterns!

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