Do You Have Creative Peace?

As an ambitious screenwriter/producer, I know I sure didn't. Not until these last couple years.

The honest truth is that for the majority of my adult life (more than 30 years) I was positively relentless in my quest to bring all my creative dreams and visions to fruition and "make it big". And my own personal peace was of no real importance to me.

I took endless risks and accepted zero excuses from myself. If there was an area of weakness or a block, I just pushed myself harder and would take a class, get a certain kind of on-the-job training, hire a coach, or whatever it took to power my way through it. 

And although I did enjoy my creativity, on occasion. Mostly when it was flowing. Or for those brief moments when I reached some kind of completion. If I’m honest, I spent most of my time (and therefore life) in a state of restlessness, and frustration about where I wasn’t yet.

I was constantly telling myself that if I could just get myself to this place where I was seen enough, and paid enough for my storytelling. A place where writing and creating was my only job. A place where I had all the time in the world to do it. That then I would find this elusive state of creative peace I had always been searching for.

Of course the joke of it is, I can see now I was chasing something I was never going to be able to catch. No matter how much money or accolades I might have managed to rack up, because that kind of peace is an inside job. It's something you be, not do.

And even if I did manage to pin down this elusive sense of peace, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it when I got it. Because, at the time, I was pretty sure my creative engine ran on angst. Therefore some inner part of me was genuinely afraid that peace might cause me to lose my creative edge? Would I ever have anything I passionately needed to write about?

Thankfully burnout, and the Covid shut down, knocked me off of my never ending treadmill long enough to wake me up from this nonsense. I saw that I simply couldn’t keep going the way I was going because, as I heard a TV show runner once say, "I was being beaten to death by my own dream" and it needed to stop.

I no longer felt any love for what I was doing (which was my own fault) because my approach had stripped all the joy from it. And so, what the beginning of change looked like for me personally, was consciously deciding to "quit Hollywood."

I'm not going to lie. There was a grieving process.

All that effort I had put in. All those abandoned projects. Not to mention a loss of a certain kind of identity. I felt a bit lost for awhile. But I made it my new priority to create a sense of stability in my life, building a business (at an intentionally saner pace), and writing curriculum for others writers (something I had never done before but absolutely adored being in service of) and allowed myself to be okay with the idea that I may never entertain writing my fictitious comedies ever again.

And after 6 years of this brand of actively detangling and de-conditioning myself from the never ending spin cycle I had put myself on. After years of giving myself full permission to pull away from outside expectations. And putting up literal post it notes to remind myself over and over that I was enough. I can now tell you, with full certainty, that my creative engine does NOT run best on angst. It ran despite it. But oh how it sings when it's run on the high powered fuel of peace. 

I am now in a place where 90% of the time I find my joy inside the daily process itself. The brand of success I now pursue is this ever increasing ability to allow the creative to come through me and see where it leads. Unimpeded. Without trying to control so much. And of course, ironically (or not so) my enjoyments are bearing way more fruit.

As I mentioned before, it was hard to get there. The engine was still so gunked up (and traumatized - lol) and that internal resistance and pressure that had kept me running before, was still there.

The internal judge that incessantly told me to "hurry up. You better prove yourself. You don't have time for this. Who are you kidding?" It was all still there. But my relationship to that voice had changed. I wasn't buying it anymore. And the less I bought into it, the more it quieted down. And the more it quieted down, the more I could hear my true creative voice. The one that is capable of flow. And the more I could hear that voice, BOOM! My creativity exploded.

Not only has my writing gotten dramatically better and less tortured (and yes I am back to writing comedy when I feel like it), but I’m also painting, and learning to play the piano for the first time. And most importantly I am enjoying all of it. Even when I suck. Even in all its "unfinished-ness".

I’m also making more money than I ever did before. My community has expanded because I can be present to them and their value. And while I still feel the creative pressure that always builds when working on any creative projects, it doesn’t drive me crazy and make me want to hurry up and finish, just to finish.

An additional unexpected side effect is that I’m able to handle the chaos of this world better as well. I still rail against its injustices (its just the type of human that I am) but given that I’m so filled up on the inside, it feels easier to see what is really "mine to do" about it all, and not let my frustration deplete me, throw me off track, or cause me to spin my wheels in useless directions. I feel rooted. 

I’ve come to believe that doing what it takes to find peace with the creative process is essential for all creatives who want to develop a strong connection to their true voice and therefore do their greatest, most fulfilling, work.

I've got loads of ways to help those interested in finding their own brand of creative peace, some of which are completely free, so if you need some support, feel free to check it out by clicking HERE

And in the meantime I'll just say, what we screenwriters do is powerful! It can change lives. But that has to start with us. Be kind to you. Remember you have to fill that creative tank from time to time. And it's worth it to create a writer's lifestyle you love and therefore can settle into for the long haul.

**Holly Payberg-Torroija is a partner/creativity coach and community leader at Humans on The Verge where she can be found behaving as if she's "Ted Lasso's long lost sister, whose mission is to help creatives 'Believe' in themselves". That is her in a nutshell.