For your learning style preferences I have both written and recorded this article! Please feel free to listen or read :) Thank you and Enjoy!
Hello Substack Readers!
It’s been awhile! I’ve been on hiatus from all online output to recover from “Hurry Sickness.” Hurry Sickness is something most of us are likely familiar with, even if we haven’t heard the term. It’s basically the default way of living in America - going too fast, doing too much, and as a result having a lot of anxiety, being irritable, or getting sick frequently.
At the end of February I got a cold, my period, and a migraine all on the same day. It was not fun. I took that as a massive sign to SLOW THE F*** DOWN! This was after 6-7 months of getting sick for a day or two every month.
Since I was a kid getting sick was the way to get out of things I didn’t want to do (school). I never faked being sick, I would just routinely get sick because I hated going to school…the mind is a very powerful thing and can manifest illness in the body for many reasons (I’m sure my diet and potential mold in the house didn’t help either).
This trend of frequent colds unfortunately continued into adulthood. When I’m doing too much and not slowing down I always get really sick. Usually only for 1-2 days, just enough time for my body to lay in bed and do nothing, which it so desperately needs to do.
The thing is, now I want to do everything I am doing! I love my job, my friends, my creative projects, etc. I love it all so much that sometimes I struggle to do less, let alone devote time to doing nothing at all. The only way my body would get some much needed stillness was to make me sick.
However, that obviously is not ideal. If I’m going to spend a day or two a month doing nothing, I would much rather feel well for it than feel miserable, and have that day be in my control (ie. on the weekend, in the forest). So in came March, and my month of recovery from Hurry Sickness.
I went down to four days/week at work, and I committed to creating nothing external for the month of March. No online output, no new workshops, no searching Facebook groups for new connections. Nothing.
At the same time that I started this recovery from Hurry Sickness it was also Reading Deprivation week in the Artist’s Way (read this if you are unfamiliar with The Artist’s Way). Reading Deprivation week is exactly how it sounds - no reading for a week. I expanded this to include no tv, no podcasts, no audiobooks, no looking things up online, no youtube, and no social media.
The idea is that we spend so much time consuming words, content, and information that it clouds us from having more creative output. Also, when you take away all this consumptive input, you eventually have to just be with yourself and a lot of undealt with emotion might come up.
This can be incredibly challenging for people, but within the context of The Artist’s Way you are encouraged to use your creative modalities to grapple with all that emotion, rather than numb it with the usual content consumption.
So, that’s what I did. I spent the month of March rediscovering my love for writing as grief over lost friendships and old phases of my life resurfaced. I started writing my stories, and man does it feel good to not have those memories and emotions all cooped up inside of me. I realized that as much as I love creating workshops that activate play and creativity for people, my top priority has to be my own creative output - mostly in the form of writing.
I also devoted a whole day every week in March to moving slowly in solitude. I focused on doing one thing at a time - a big challenge in these days of constant technology and multitasking!
And, for the first time in 6 months, I didn’t get sick.
By the end of March my energy started coming back and the externally focussed ideas started forcefully flowing. Writing is my top creative priority, so I will be focussing more on publishing here on Substack. Additionally, I have April, May, and June mapped out with lots of opportunities to teach my play and creativity workshops (stay tuned for more info).
It might sound like I’m ramping back up into the old patterns of Hurry Sickness, but I am still moving slowly. I still have Mondays off to be in solitude, and several days are blocked out on my calendar each month for doing nothing. Also, in learning the patterns of my creative energy, I have July blocked off as another month of no external creative output. On for three months, off for a month. We’ll see how it goes!
In the meantime I plan to focus a lot more creative energy on my Substack. Expect to hear from me a couple times a month with a greater variety of content. Some weeks I might share some written musings, some weeks I might play around with a podcast type format, and some weeks I might make a video! We’ll see! I’m excited to engage fully in my own creative play here, rather than just focussing on activating creativity in others. It can be scary and vulnerable to share my work, but I’m excited to do it.
Well, I guess that’s all on my end!
Do you ever notice similar tendencies of Hurry Sickness in yourself? If you do, or even if you don’t, I highly recommend taking a day, a week, a month to practice slowing down. Do one thing at a time. Take a break from content consumption and see what comes up. Create something. Observe the world around you without distraction. It is fascinating and beautiful.
I would love to hear what you discover!
Until next time,
Ellen
Recovering from Hurry Sickness