Reflections on Q2: Inconsistency, Finding Soul Work & Gaining Clarity

Soooo, if you're a devoted listener of Sheer Creativity, you noticed that the podcast hasn't been dropping consistently on Mondays recently. Honestly, Quarter 2 of 2023 has been filled with notions of leaving social media, questions surrounding my passions, and hopes to find clarity. Is this a journey you can relate to as a creative?

Transcript

Raya: 0:01

Welcome back to the Sheer Creativity Podcast, the podcast about creatives for creatives, and I had posted on Instagram that we was gonna be back July 3rd, and I'm just now recording but this is a great example of what this episode is about, which is my reflections on quarter two of 2023, which is Inconsistency, which is the name of the game for me at this point, soul work, I'll explain that in a little bit and finding clarity. So if we gon get into the inconsistency, let, let's just discuss. But in my defense, June has been an unpredictable, beautiful, yet unpredictable month. I flew out to Chicago. It was such a great time. I've never been to Chicago. This was my, actually my second flight ever. My best friend graduated from grad school with her masters and we had such an amazing time. And then when we got back, I got Covid and that, that was not fun, but also just threw off my recording schedule and everything. Then fast forward to now, I'm finally getting my bearings back on having a recording schedule, working through my lack of posting and all my self-esteem issues, but let's get into it. Throughout my time in June, um, traveling and just doing different things, I kind of got away from posting on social media and even just being on social media. And then I started to play around with the idea of like, do I have to exist in this space? Do I have to be, in order to be a successful creative, do I have to be on social media? Is that something that has to happen? And I feel like in most cases, people would say no since it's literally the way we connect. It's the way that we connect with brands. It's the way that we connect with people. It's the way that we honestly see the world. It's an interesting space and I feel like as creatives, it can be as equally a, a damaging space when you're looking at other platforms or other people, and you're like, well, since there's so many voices, how do I stand out? And then you're trying to stand out through algorithm requirements like when you post a reel, they have specific things like you gotta get people's attention in the first second. You gotta have the trending sound, you gotta be original, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And in my mind, I'm just like, this is a lot. It's a lot of work to reach people. It's a lot of work to continue to put yourself out there. And I started to think, does this indicate that I'm not passionate about it? And I think that made me start thinking about finding soul work like within your soul. Mm-hmm. This, the work that makes you feel like your existence on this earth is influential, that you are meant, handcrafted to be doing a certain thing and how do you find clarity in that? There's just, there's just so many options now for what you want to do, which is a good thing, of course. Especially as creatives. Like I think we're just now, I was talking about this on an another interview I have but we were talking about this idea that creatives making money in the spaces that they do now is a relatively new concept. I would say like pre 2010. You, you wasn't making money like that as a creative. You would have to get very creative to make money as creative, but people more so had the idea or the ideology that if you were going to be a creative, you were going to be broke. You were going to be a starving artist. You weren't going to make that your main thing, that that wasn't going to be your main focus in life. And now that has drastically changed. And now you know you can start your own clothing line. You can start this, you can start that, and everything can be original and fresh and new in the way that you want it to be. You can build it how you want. But how do you know what option is made for you? And also, am I supposed to be uber passionate about my soul work or about the things that I do, or can it just be work? Of course work that I enjoy. But is it supposed to just, am I supposed to feel this burning passion within myself that if I'm not doing this one thing, that I'm not living my life as it's supposed to be? And I also feel like I know just for myself growing up in like a, a Christian household and church environment, there's this very hyper Christian idea in Christian communities that this success that is blessed by God is very accelerated and it's supposed to be this abundantly clear thing. And I really think that's harmful rhetoric. I really think that set me up to fail in the end because number one, if that's what you believe, then it's not on my time, it's on his time. And number two, that's just not the majority of people's stories. You know, you see different videos where people will be like, and God told me to do this. How did he tell you? Because last time I checked, he ain't burning bushes no more. So, so how did you get this revelation? Like it's not a, you know, a direct line anymore. It's more like we're kind of hearing and feeling these things and we're like, well, maybe I'm supposed to do it. So sometimes if that's what you're supposed to do it, you don't know until it comes full circle. I believe sometimes the enjoyment and the fulfillment that you get from doing a particular task or creative thing, it develops into that soul work. It's not, maybe not what you expected, but there's no other thing that you'd wanna do more in this moment. And we also have to think moment to moment. You're not supposed to know off rip. And once you start doing it, you're not supposed to know the end result. You gotta be working moment to moment. And that's not to say don't think about the future, but it's also to say, don't stress yourself out about the future so much that you don't even enjoy the moment and you don't even see the beauty of the moment. I think in terms of being inconsistent, I'm trying to get away from viewing it as a lack of passion because I, I love this podcast. I love doing it. I love talking to people. I love doing that and it, it pushes me out of my comfort zone, which I think also can wear on you a little bit. Just to touch on this a little bit more because I've been, my wheels have been turning y'all. They've been turning and spinning. When you are outside of your comfort zone, I think that you can be depleted just as quick, like maybe twice as quick, and I'd say this about my full-time job, for example, I was talking to somebody about feeling just so tired, and I think one thing they don't prepare you for in adulthood, and nobody told me, and y'all should be ashamed of yourselves when not telling me the, the mundaneness of it all in the long hours that you work. It's a hard adjustment period because it's like, I gotta go back in again. Again, this doesn't end. But I was talking about, you know, how uber tired I was. I was talking about just my body was just worn down. More than like, you know, shifts be, be long, of course. But it was like, I wouldn't go anywhere on the weekends. Like I'd stay at home, be in the bed. I didn't have energy for much, and so the person I was talking to had told me, is it because it's not in your comfort zone. You extend more energy because you're compensating for the areas where you feel like you're lacking. And I was like, huh? Oh, because I did feel that way. I'm not normally the most outgoing person. I am introverted. I'm not the most outgoing person, but I stretch myself to be because my job requires me to be. Therefore, I will sit and I will talk to people. I will stretch myself beyond my boundaries. I will stretch myself beyond what I've called myself over the years. You know, calling myself an introvert, calling myself, you know, antisocial. Don't want to Mm mm no, don't talk to me. I had to stretch past that idea of myself in order to become the professional that I am now. But with that comes energy and effort and that's why I was so worn down and tired. It's not a lack of passion or lack of feeling like I'm not in the right place, feeling like this is not my soul work, feeling like, you know, this is not what I'm meant to be doing. It's just that you need to take care of yourself honestly. It's not the fact that you don't wanna post on social media, does that mean that you don't wanna be doing what you're doing? Not necessarily. I would say don't let social media be the determinant in if you're passionate about something or not. Sometimes you just don't want to post. It's not that you're not on the right path, is what I would say, speaking to myself. And I'm also getting comfortable with the idea that clarity comes in the doing. And even without clarity, I can say that I have learned a lot about myself in the process of this that I can take into anything. I think another thing that I have taken from this quarter, quarter two, is seeing the dopeness of myself, if you will. Because I think I've always seen, just for myself, not so much for other people, but I've always seen acknowledging my gifts as some sort of pride. And normally pride was not seen in a positive light for me. I understand now that there's nothing wrong with acknowledging your gifts. In fact, you really should. You really should acknowledge the gifts that you have been given and the gifts that you have learned. So one of the giftings that I've been telling myself in order to combat the feelings of not being passionate, inconsistency and feeling like I haven't found my soul work yet, I've been telling myself that even if I haven't gotten it all together, one thing I can do and always have been able to do, I can make something outta nothing. I have written a book. I have been a journalist. I have created a platform. I'm not lacking ideas. In fact, sometimes I think I have too many, which is why I have so many options. But I'm really, I'm really proud of the way that I can execute things. When you're trying to find this clarity, you have to lean on your strengths. When you're trying to find this soul work, you have to lean on your strengths because it'll seem like everybody else knows what they're doing. But really, we're all confused. We're all confused. We're all freaking confused. And I just really need that to settle with you. If you are struggling with finding your niche, finding your soul work, finding clarity on where you're supposed to be in your life, we are all confused. Everybody else is lying to you. Everybody's Instagram feeds is lying to you. We're all confused, even with the achievements that you see other people have. They're like, I don't, I don't know what to do with this. We are confused. And even if it's inconsistent, even if we're still finding clarity, here I am. Here I am on July 3rd when this episode was supposed to be up, recording it and feeling all over the place, but I'm doing it. number one. It's okay to be inconsistent if it means taking care of you. Like people be running the word inconsistent, consistency, discipline. They run that through the mud and of course it's true, but sometimes you gotta sit down somewhere. I think you should actually make a practice of sitting down somewhere. I think you should also practice not being so hard on yourself about finding this soul work. It's not immediate for everyone. I would say it's not immediate for most people. And my last thing, You find clarity when you start doing the thing. Even if you're not a hundred percent sure about it, you can always change course. Nothing's holding you to this one thing. One of the great things about having options is that there are many options. You don't have to stick with one thing if it's not working out the way that you want it to. If it's draining you, if it's doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do, it's okay. So y'all make sure that you're following Sheer Creativity on Instagram. Also follow our newsletter, which will be in the show notes. You can sign up there and subscribe, and I will see you guys next week.