HEALTH & WELLNESS: MIND YOUR MORNINGS

A real drag on one’s mental health can be that general feeling of being “stuck.” Whether that is in your career, a bad habit, or often in our case, stuck in the creative process.

“Few things can be more frustrating, more debilitating, than the proverbial mental block,” admits Cheryl. “It is a true feeling of ‘stuck’, almost physically even, like trudging through mud. And then you start to question your own ability, which your rational self knows is ridiculous, but the mind can play tricks on you. You’ve gotta trick your mind right on back! For me – and I think for a lot of creatives, particularly – the biggest mind-hack is ‘do it anyway’. I’ll doodle and design things that are imperfect or uninspired, maybe even downright ugly, but at that point, I have something on paper that I can revisit another day. It sounds strange, but sometimes seeing how I don’t want something to be clarifies my vision of what I do want it to be. All that is to say, you have to break the paralysis, and I thought this article was really interesting and helpful about using ritual and repetition to overcome and even prevent it.”

This compilation by Mindful.org (a great resource, by the way!) shares first-hand accounts from some of the geniuses of our generation – like Stephen King and Maya Angelou – about how they start their day with rituals to get their mind in mode.

“The real mystery to crack is you.”