Hi. I'm Alessandra White and we are back with Maybe It's Just Me. This is a little podcast that's brought to you in 30 bite sized pieces where I'm going to talk to you about creativity, the stuff that gets in the way, including how we get in our own way and how we can free ourselves up. Today, I want to talk to you about being stuck creatively and the kindness that's required to get it flowing again. Because being stuck, well, it's a frustrating experience, isn't it? And frustrating is a soft word. Four angry. Angry about being blocked at the goal of getting the damn creative thing done. It's a demanding ness that's characterized by that bratty kid with s that doesn't want to wait their turn. But sometimes the body, the mind and the muse doesn't want you having your turn yet. This has been one of those days for me. Now I'm recording this for you and it is 6:00 in the evening and I have been trying to get this thing done for 10 hours. So this is the perfect example. I've been frustrated. And then I just got angry. And at that point, I recognized my state. So I took a breath. I'm like, okay, let's just back off of this little. Let's dial it down. Let's use kindness. What does that mean? Well, let's pull patients out of the box, wherever that is. Because the patient gives you a chance to take time to attend. And to open one's hands on one's lap. To slowly blink. To let the eyes moisten. To let the breath slow down, to let heart rate decrease. And in so doing, we show up in a way that we couldn't do before when we were smacking around irritated that it wasn't getting done. But here we are. Less than 60 seconds has passed since I told you what time it is. And there's plenty of time left. There's plenty of time. There's plenty of space. Don't let it be stolen away from you by making it scarce. Let's try this. Instead, let's consider another great creative, the artist Agnes Martin. Agnes was a minimalist. And she also experienced her own history of mental illness. Sometimes she would break with reality. And the thing about being in a state of broken reality is you don't know which end is up. Literally, you don't know what's real and you don't know what's not real. But to Agnes's great credit, despite what state she found herself in, there was a ritual that she observed no matter what. Each day, she would seat herself before canvas. And she would attend the time and the space with it not knowing. Not knowing which thing was real, which thing was not. She would simply show the f up and sit. And wait and wait it out in the not knowing. Likewise, when we're stuck, we may not know what's what. Then when we do, we may irritatingly charge in there and find ourselves dead wrong, messed up. So I'm going to go straight to it. I double dog. Dare you? That's right. I jumped right to the double dog. Dare I double dog dare you to pick kindness over impatience. And to allow yourself to sit. And wait. For the thing to do to come to you the obvious next thing, and then allow it to compel you to begin. This has been the getting unstuck episode of Maybe It's Just Me. This episode has been brought to you with love by the community of Creative Work Hour. Join us any day at 3 p.m., UTC 10 a.m. Eastern. You can visit us at https://Lu.ma/CreativeWork That's Lima Uniform Dot Mike Alpha Forward slash creative work.