Hi Mystics!
Today I open the door a little more in my creative journey and creative burnout recovery. In her book, Tarot for Creativity,
titles her essay on today’s card “Avoid Creative Burnout with Temperance.”This has been a recurring topic I’ve written about as I’ve made my way through Chelsey’s book. The best part, so far, is I’m beginning to find my way back to joy and passion with writing since creative burnout.
Yep, didn’t avoid it…I smacked right into it. Well, maybe not smacked. Might have slowly dwindled into it with plenty of opportunities to change course and didn’t take said opportunities…
Anyways, I had some tough reflections come through with the Death card last week, and previous cards, too. But, this is all part of the process of coming back home to me!
I’ll begin today’s journey into the Temperance card with a quote from Chelsey:
Temperance buffers the hard stuff by providing a moment of soft, slow refreshment. It’s a much-needed, much-deserved sliver of light in the darkness.
We need the light in the dark. We need that moment of reprieve and softness. I’m finding myself in a cycle where the voice of self-judgment and pressure come through more than the voice of love and self-compassion. A pattern that arises when difficult truths come to light. When I notice the voice, I still bring a gentle awareness to it, allow it, but don’t get lost in it (which has been hard).
I’ve needed some light this week. And Temperance has shown up in different ways personally and professionally.
I’ve always loved the Temperance card. I see it as an integration card with an ask for balancing and harmonizing. Now that I’m looking at the card more closely, and with Chelsey’s words guiding me, I see how it’s also a card of refreshment and pause before the journey continues.
It’s that moment of peace where we can be the held and the holder of our experience.
It’s no mystery that part of my creative burnout came from cutting out all other forms of creativity like poetry and other short stories or novel ideas. I felt like I needed to be doing this one creative project, and I did lose myself in the pressure and need to show up to it.
The need to meet my goals and achieve creative success.
To achieve the dream I’ve had since a young age.
As we’ve seen with last week, part of this focus on the past version of myself as a writer has kept me stuck. This week, I’ve been giving myself permission to just create because I can. To invite some of that childlike joy in.
In today’s culture, we get very focused on productivity and producing. We forget to create for ourselves sometimes because we’re so busy creating for others.
Chelsey talks about this, too, in her Temperance essay:
But there’s no denying that when we’re constantly on the go and under pressure to deliver creative work and solutions, the time and space we have to actually be creative shrinks. And the time and space we have to enjoy our creative process threatens to disappear.
I stopped enjoying writing—not the act of creating—because I walled myself into a strict and rigid form of being a writer, even who I was as a writer.
I’ve been experimenting with different poems, short stories, even writing stories based off of a single tarot card or many, and seeing where it leads me. No pressure, just fun. My soul wants to create, and I’ve been ignoring that because I’m scared to. I’ve been so stuck in pressure and tension (dare I say shame) that I’ve paralyzed myself from creating in the first place.
One of the things I’m really excited about, though, is I recently got my copy of The Art of Manifesting: A Meditative Drawing Practice to Rewire Your Brain and Create Your Reality by Colette Baron-Reid and Anna Denning. I got myself pencil crayons, a sketchbook, and pens to have fun manifesting with art!
And it has been fun!
It’s this new beginner’s mind I want to bring back to my writing.
Here’s one last quote from Chelsey’s essay:
Practicing the values of temperance in your creative life—learning how to take breaks, make the most of what’s available to you, and stop pressuring yourself to do the next hard thing right away—will help you to understand your creativity better and foster more meaningful creative work in the long run.
This really spoke to me, especially after last week’s reflection.
I can be so hard on myself. And my partnership with creativity has shown me where I need softness, where I need rest.
I can say without a doubt writing will always be in my life because I can’t imagine a life without it. I just need to get out of my own way (and not burnout again).
Temperance: The Reflective Pause Spread
Risk Ahead
Interestingly, the Six of Embers (Wands) denotes victory could be a risk for burnout…but that’s a very literal interpretation 🤭
What I see here is the finish line.
Reaching the goal where my novel draft is complete.
I’d say it’s my vision and thirst for “victory” when it comes to finishing my draft and eventual publication (and proving naysayer’s wrong, which isn’t a good motivator, I know) is what’s stopping me from continuing forward.
And, of course, it’s a risk for burnout. I have a tendency to push rather than rest because I want it so bad.
Even looking at my current position on my journey, it’s the shininess, the desire to go faster and reach that victory when I’m in recovery that can spin me right back into burnout. So let’s not do that, and take it easy!
Pause & Refresh
The moment my mind begins to swirl with the thoughts of the inner critic is when I take a step back from the metaphorical ledge and give myself a moment. To remind myself of my creative accomplishments, how far I’ve come, and how proud of myself I am. This will refresh me wonderfully!
I think I’ve said this a couple of times, but the Nine of Birds (Swords) has come out again!?
I’m not surprised to see it. Tells me there’s still work to be done, but there’s hope to find my way past it, too. The medicine is in the card. And by taking myself off the ledge, and not firing arrows wildly as the person in the card is, I can make better choices when I’m clear.
Benefits of Pause
When I look at this card, at the shape of a person enveloped by light on the other side of the bridge, a kernel of hope ignites in my chest.
The Bridge, also known as the Star, acts as a reminder in a way: that right now, I’m crossing the bridges to unknown territory but to enjoy the journey (something that also came from last week’s post).
When I’m “there,” wherever “there” might be, I’ll know it. I’ll feel it. But the more I try to dim my light or not listen to the creative part within, the more I hurt myself.
The traditional image of the star shows a woman pouring two jugs of water: one back into a pool and the other on grass which then returns to the pool. I see this card and moment of pause as a way for me to reconnect with my light.
To reconnect to what’s always been there, never lost, only hidden.