Brain Plant

I had a few quite bad days last week and was thinking about how you have to look after yourself all the time not just when you feel like you need to.

I feel like I'd heard it somewhere else but I'll credit Frannerd mentioning it in a video for making this metaphor stick with me. Your brain /mental well-being / creativity / motivation etc is like a plant, it needs the right amount of water and sunlight all the time to thrive, you can't wait till it's dead and then chuck a load of water on it and expect it to be at it's best.

Last week I think I reached a point where I hadn't been going out of the house, I hadn't been giving full attention to any hobby type things, I was stressed and panicked and consumed by the idea that the only way out of it was to work, sit at my desk and work, stop being lazy.

In the greater picture, yes, I need to work hard to improve my work situation but I can't work if my brain shuts down like it did last week and has done over and over and over. This isn't news, this has happened before, a lot, quite often.

Sometimes it takes time before you can make actual changes. This time might not even be that time. I don't know yet. I feel like such a broken record, on here, in my diary, talking at Will, in my head, "I see what I'm doing wrong, I'm going to change it". But I will. It just takes time and realising the things that need changing and being aware of them is an important step to making the change.

Anyway, I want to spend my life being as creative as possible and for that to be sustainable I need to feed my brain plant. It's ok to read, watch, go for a walk. In fact it's not possible to be creative if you're just stuck in your house alone not taking in anything from the outside world. And it's going to take time to fully recover from this dead plant brain because I can't just chuck a load of water on and expect it to be at it's best. I'm going to give my brain what it needs day to day rather than in random, desperate bursts and I'm going to improve my situation.

The photos are from a walk I took when I realised I was getting stuck, I knew it was going to rain and normally would use that as a reason to stay in the house but does it really matter if I get rained on? It was a good walk.