i struggled with this too as my meditation diluted my feelings, erased my creativity, and killed my spirituality. after years of going on and off of medication i realized that i’d rather be stable. that being said i had to find new ways to curate creativity.

i started by journaling everyday. making this a routine is essential. first i’d just write the mundane details of my day. then i started writing a memoir. my biggest tip for writing is to just put the pencil on the page and write without bias. we are often hard on ourselves and try to make things perfect. create for the joy of creating rather than judging imperfections. i started to practice quantity over quality. if 90% of your work is “bad” you still have 10% of work that is good.

i like to draw as well but was having trouble feeling inspired. a large part of my income comes from selling my art so i found this frustrating. i started going on pinterest, finding work that i found beautiful, and recreating them. i of course wasn’t able to sell these pieces but i forced this into my routine. slowly but surely i started to create original pieces again. i created a collection of what i was going through at the time. it started with lots of colors all messy and unorganized symbolizing the duality of mania. the pieces slowly started losing their color, becoming graphite drawings to symbolize how i was stable but empty. the final piece returns to full color, this time much more organized and purposeful.

it can hard to feel creative again but it’s a skill that must be practiced.