procrastination and creative blocks
Have you ever felt stuck in your creative process or workflow? Knowing the list of things you should get done but feel a thick resistance working against your efforts? Perhaps you pick up your phone, browse an app, do miscellaneous things around the house, or even appear to be relaxing but internally you’re feeling stressed about everything you have yet to accomplish. When your phone begins to feel too noisy or overwhelming, you close it, and lay down. Staring at the ceiling. Thinking about the tasks that haunt you, feeling stuck.
If this sounds familiar, it’s helpful to consider what may be going on unconsciously and physiologically.
Because one thing you know for certain is that this is all happening involuntarily.
Sometimes the act of doing anything can feel like a threat to our nervous system when we are not in our window of tolerance. Meaning we’re not in a place where our nervous system feels safe - everything outside of simply surviving feels intolerable. When our nervous system perceives things in this way, it communicates to our brain that we need protection. This can look like dissociating, distracting ourself, or feeling frozen in our ability to engage. Even if we’re consciously aware that we’re not in a threatening situation, our nervous system will communicate to our subconscious in a feedback loop based on the energy within our body.
The beautiful thing about our holistic network is that both our mind and bodies are self protecting and self regulating. Always working towards wholeness. Yet without conscious awareness, sometimes these efforts can be counterintuitive. When we learn to notice, inquire, understand, and work with our beautiful psyche and body, we support our whole system rather than working against ourself. We get out of our own way in order to naturally move forward.
If you ever experience this during your workflow or creative process, i’ll share an intuitive approach that has helped me as an artist and creative entrepreneur.
Notice Yourself
The first step is becoming aware. Maybe an aspect of you notices that you’re distracted or actively procrastinating.
Often times this part of ourself can be critical, which contributes to the behavior. If you’ve ever received criticism you know first hand what may happen physiologically. Even if you welcome the criticism in and tell yourself it is constructive, chances are you can still feel a heightened heartbeat, shortness of breath, and a dose of anxious and nervous energy. This is because a more vulnerable part of us may perceive any level of criticism as a threat. Feelings of unprocessed shame can arise, triggering a depressive response, which can lead to procrastinating as an attempt at safety.
This feedback loop between our mind and body trigger what is commonly known as a freeze response. It doesn’t matter if we are actually being threatened, the body knows no difference. Survival energy feels like survival energy. So when we are self critical, we actually push ourselves further into a freeze response (in order to survive) and procrastinate even more.
Compassionate & Curious Inquiry
See if you can notice when you’re caught in a freeze response and begin to curiously and compassionately inquire within. How does this approach land in your body? Perhaps you can sit somewhere comfortable, close your eyes, and explore inward. What is the felt sensation? See if you can acknowledge the emotions that are present. Is there an underlying fear or concern present? Without trying to change, fix, or buy into the stories in your mind, just notice. Hold awareness there. Sometimes, I take a few deep, conscious breaths. Other times, I hug myself or sway — letting the energy move however it wants to be expressed, seen, felt.
Often times, this is what I need in order to move forward with my project and return to my work. Because if I want to connect with my creative process, I first need to connect with myself. Yet if resistance still lingers, I stay with it. Because mind over matter is an illusion — it only works until it inevitably and eventually doesn’t.
As I mentioned earlier, both our body and psyche are self-regulating. The exercise we did above can be helpful in regulating an emotion, because everything in this universe seeks to be seen, acknowledged, connected to. Which is why honesty creates harmony and dishonesty creates disconnection. The simple act of seeing and acknowledging an emotion is honest by nature and this releases tension. Imagine a child crying out of fear. What happens if they are ignored, told to get over it, or simply not listened to? The fear compounds, the body tenses, and the child does not feel safe — because their reality is being denied.
Now imagine a caregiver kneeling beside them, listening, validating their experience, holding space for their emotions. Can you feel the difference? The fear doesn’t vanish, but it softens. The acknowledgment creates distance, and with enough support, curiosity and courage emerge.
Outside of our emotions, our mind also needs regulation. It beautifully accomplishes this when we sleep. With the conscious mind at rest, our psyche has the freedom to express, explore, metabolize, and heal. Dreams often speak in symbols, revealing what our ego may reject, suppress, or avoid. Yet we don’t have to wait for sleep. We can offer our minds that same freedom by working with the unconscious mind through the felt sense of the body.
So when we feel like procrastinating, what is the best thing to do?
Procrastinate.
Yep. If you have held space for yourself through compassionate inquiry, mindfulness, and somatic movement and still feel “stuck” then work with your nervous system rather than work against it. Listen to your body as your guide and connect with what is alive. Allow nature to take its course. When I feel this way, I take it as a message to take a break. And even some times I take a day off. It doesn’t need to be a dramatic message in order to step out of my own way. I now listen to even the faintest of messages. I’ll go to the beach or hike down to the river. Or just spend some time in my garden that morning. Approaching everything mindfully and allowing myself the time and space I need to regulate.
Bilateral movement in nature is my favorite combination (like walking, trail running, or hiking) because it allows your nervous system to reach a window of tolerance, and your mind is better able to process and metabolize what is surfacing. This doesn’t require anything special in addition to your movement. The act of moving forward causes your eyes to move and look from left or right whether you realize it or not. And that is the bilateral stimulation.
Remember, the paradigm shift is moving away from trying to change or fix ourselves, and simply listening. Being attuned. I’ve found the best form of shadow work for both myself and my clients takes place when this perspective shifts. Awareness comes naturally when we begin to connect to ourself, when we learn to listen. And often times, our bodies give us more insight when they feel our heart is ready to hold it <3
Playing is also an incredible way to release control, let your mind wander, and see how it wants to express itself. The act of doing something with no attachment to the end result creates a felt sense of safety in the body and brings your nervous system back to a grounded place. Playing also nurtures your creative side which helps to evoke more curiosity, imagination, and inspiration.
A personal expander and total muse for me is Julia Cameron. In both of her books, The Right to Write and The Artists Way, Julia invites her fellow creatives to go on weekly dates with their inner Artist. Whether to a cafe to write, a museum to romanticize art, a cinema to study composition, or somewhere in nature with a drawing pad. When we take our inner Artist on playful dates, we initiate a deep connection to our inner muse. We shift out of our masculine and into the frequency we must be in to access creative energy.
Julia also invites her students to begin a practice called morning pages. A daily stream-of-consciousness writing practice as a method to help artists overcome creative blocks by regularly connecting with their muse and releasing their thoughts. Personally, this practice changed my life. I began to notice my inner censor that appeared during creativity, and write anyway. I discovered my voice and saw how this translated into other forms of creating. I also combined this practice with parts work and felt a major transformation in my creative world. (more on this later..)
Talking with a loved one is a beautiful way to co-regulate. Not only does this harness connection which is great for our nervous system, but the act of someone listening to us creates an opportunity for us to listen to ourselves as well. Both talking and writing allows our mind to metabolize our thoughts and feelings.
We can also do this in a “brain dump” journal, where we dump everything and anything out onto paper. The paper acts as a space holder, holding all of the information so our mind can have more space. Like emptying the trash on our computer. Journaling can be a powerful tool of expression if it doesn’t feel like too much when we’re in a “stuck state”. It’s personally too much for me until I’m regulated, so I enjoy brain dump lists and moving my body outside.
more on parts work.
When I first began engaging in parts work, I felt an immediate shift in my ability to regulate, even as daily challenges pressed in. As a creative entrepreneur, it’s easy to feel disempowered when life feels uncertain. Trying to work, serve clients, and create from a place of authenticity while carrying grief, navigating change, and healing. Making us feel like our passions must wait until we are in a better place.
Yet I found that creativity always facilitated my healing, once I softened the part of me that was blocking it. I began to engage with this part which I considered to be my ego and discovered she was only trying to protect me from failure. She carried the narrative that everything else in our life and business must feel secure in order to engage in creativity. Later I discovered another part that began to trigger a freeze response, fearing I may become trapped in my business again. This part was frozen in an adult past time verses a child one - when I previously ran my creative business from an unconscious place.
As I held space for them, they eventually softened. I realized I had to gain their trust through integrated change, setting clear boundaries in my business, and reward hard work with playfulness. A shift took place. Slowly, I stepped into leadership within my own psyche, not by force, but by meeting each part of me with patience, presence, and play.
If you’re unfamiliar with parts work, finding an IFS facilitator can be truly transformative — especially as an artist. We wear many hats in our business, and when our parts release the burdens they carry, they can step into their fullest potential. Our system can function holistically, each part contributing to the greater good. One may excel in communication, another in workflow and organization, while another thrives in business and time management. I found that my inner child now works alongside my inner artist, free from censorship, because the other parts trust me to lead and consciously protect her.
Learning to collaborate with our ego as an artist forms an internal business partnership - the intellect and the creative, working together.
When we listen to our bodies, we begin to work with ourself in a sustainable, truly efficient way. On the days I’ve forced myself to push through resistance, I’ve accomplished half as much as when I honor the need for rest. Yet when I give my body and mind space to recalibrate, I return rejuvenated — full of energy, clarity, and new ideas.
So what if we stopped seeing breaks as weakness and instead recognized them as part of the process? Our creative process mirrors our living process. Nothing in nature blooms year round, and neither do we. The more we embrace ourselves as nature, as organic beings, versus a machine, the more we can work with compassion, creativity, and longevity.
If this resonates, and you’re ready to build a creative life that supports your well-being rather than depletes it, I’d love to connect with you <3
