The Anxious Gremlin

I’m in the UK, the clocks have gone back and we officially step into Winter. And yet, things feel… off. It doesn’t feel like how it usually does. It feels warmer. It feels busier. And it feels confusing.

Time is slipping in ways that are hard to verbalise and the weather is dancing around the seasons playing hard to get. Whilst this whimsical approach seems novel, I think it’s playing with our circadian rhythms and therefore our vitality, in ways that are hard to navigate.

You see, have you noticed that whilst our work calendars say November, they seem to be piling up with new projects as though it’s February? And whilst the season shifts into Winter, figs are fruiting in the streets of London like we are in the Sicily. There is an inner battle going on between my intuition telling me to tool down and resolve unfinished tabs, and my mind telling me to ride the unexpected wave of momentum and embrace this change.

This is deeper than simply ‘a Wednesday feeling like a Tuesday’. This is like climate change, political change, collective exhaustion and lack of emotional intelligence all mixing together in a soup called ‘the public’ without the language or physical evidence to point out what is happening. And whilst no one is saying it, people are feeling it… a n x i e t y.

What I’ve been answering:

“How do I stay sensitive without absorbing too much around me and getting anxious?”

As creatives, Gremlins are highly a sensitive species. We quite literally make a living from our sensitivity to sound, light, colour, words and feelings - it’s our role. And so, even if we are not politically, economically, or environmentally inclined we most likely pick up on changes in our environment.

What can you do this week to schedule in creative time and drop into flow? 30 mins of free writing, jamming to music, cycling in nature, painting, you name it. The clue is small bites peppered throughout the week rather than one block. It may sound simple or even trivial but these pockets of flow are gateways into finding alignment within a storm and dodging anxiety.

Creativity is so much more than expression it is salvation and it is free.

Till next time you beautiful beast.

K X