Navigate the Creative Wilderness: Tips to Stop Hiding Your Creative Work

1. Welcome to the Cave of Hiding: [MUSIC] Do you feel like you want to take a break, a pause, and a total retreat from your creative journey? Do you feel like you want to totally hide from your studio, your social media account, and your creative practice altogether? If so, then you'd likely walk straight into the Cave of Hiding, which is the space where exploring in today's class in the Creative Wilderness Tip series. Hey, I'm Liz. I'm an illustrator and creative educator in New Mexico, and I own a creative company called Prints and Plants. I've spent many years navigating the highs, lows, and unknowns of the creative wilderness. Now, I am so excited to share my field notes and tips with you in this series so that you can gain more confidence on your creative track and know that you're not alone out there. At first glance, the Cave of Hiding may not seem like the greatest place to be and in our society, it can often carry a negative connotation. Because in the creative world there can be this pressure to be in constant output mode. Always making work, always sharing work, always thinking about work. This output mode is a very vulnerable space to be and also takes a lot of energy. At first glance, the Cave of Hiding may seem like a detriment on the creative journey because it's where we retreat entirely from our creative practice. But what I've actually found is that the Cave of Hiding is a beautiful, wonderful, and valuable space to be on your journey. This is where you get the fuel and nourishment to continue forward. You can treat it as a pause to rest and remember that breaks are necessary to keep hiking your creative wilderness track. That's why today I'm sharing my field notes from the Cave of Hiding with you so you can recognize when you've approached this place on the map, how to use this stop to benefit your creative journey, and my main tips for you to move forward beyond the Cave of Hiding and into the rest of the Creative Wilderness. Because let's be real, it can be so easy to get stuck in the Cave of Hiding, and as comfy and as cozy as it is to take that break, eventually, we do need to keep moving forward in our journey. So are you ready to dive in? Let's get started. By the way, if you've taken one of the classes in this Creative Wilderness Tips series before and are already well acquainted with how it works and what you need, then you can jump right ahead to Lesson number 4. 2. Your Class Project: In this lesson, we're chatting about your class project for this creative wilderness tips class. Your class project for this portion of the creative wilderness tips series is to print off the creative wilderness field guide PDF and fill out the cave of hiding section. In this section, you'll find the following prompts: Regain confidence, embrace solitude, reflect, creative community, low key sketch space. You'll learn more about these prompts in this class so that you can fill them out in your field guide. You can find the creative wilderness field guide linked in the Projects and Resources section of this class. You can find that by navigating to the Projects and Resources tab and going to the right-hand side of the page where you'll see Resources and you'll see the creative wilderness field guide linked and ready to download. Once you've finished filling out this class portion of the field guide, go ahead and upload it to the class projects section. You can do this by navigating to the Projects and Resources tab and clicking "Create Project". Once you're here, you'll see a few options to share your project. Go ahead and fill in the project title with the name of this series. In the Project Description, you can add images from your completed field guide by clicking image. This will bring you straight to your files where you can select the images you'd like to upload. You can also type additional observations from your experience in this portion of the creative wilderness into this space. Once you've included all of your images and observations, go ahead and go to the Cover Image sections, upload an image for your project. Again, you'll be brought to your files where you can select your image, click "Open", and then place it just how you want it in the cropped space. Press "Submit". Make sure that when you're finished uploading everything, you hit "Publish". That way it'll go to the class project gallery. In the next session, we'll go over the materials you'll need for this class. I'll see you there. 3. Gather Your Materials: In this lesson, we're going over the materials you all need for this section of the creative wilderness journey. For this class, you all need your creative wilderness field guide, a pen, pencil, or a writing utensil of choice, and a phone to take a photo of the completed field guide and upload to the class projects section. In the next lesson, we'll go over how to recognize when you've reached the cave of hiding, so you can use it to your benefit on your creative journey. I'll see you there. 4. Recognize the Cave of Hiding: In this lesson, we're chatting about how to recognize when you've reached the cave of hiding in the creative wilderness so you can actually use it to your benefit on your journey. As I mentioned, the cave of hiding is a really valuable stop on your creative wilderness journey because it's just not sustainable to be in output mode all of the time. It's not sustainable to be creating all the time, and it's not sustainable that we putting yourself out there all of the time. That is a lot of external energy, and there's got to be an ebb and flow to the output of creation and the input or inspiration for creation. This is just like nature's seasons and cycles. The ebb and flow of the creative journey is like the waves of the ocean. Think about how calming, soothing, and powerful the rhythm of waves is. That ebb and flow carry such power and grace. It's like breath in and out. The same thing goes for our energy and creativity. It's not sustainable or effective to only be pushing in an output mode all of the time. There has [got to be a balance. There has to be an inhale, a pause, a receding of energy in order to crash back into the shore with more grace, beauty, and power. Another way to look at the cave of hiding is as nature's seasons. Just as there are typically depending on where you're located and living four seasons in a year, there's a season for everything in the creative journey as well. While summer would be the extroverted output mode, the cave of hiding is like winter or the inward introverted mode. The winter season is your time to hibernate, pause, rest, and reflect on your creative practice. This winter and hibernation period is so essential to creativity, to create a business, to making your art, and to taking on client projects, and winter may not be your favorite season. You may love the high external energy of summer more, but don't undervalue the season of rest because it's part of balancing out the whole ecosystem of creativity. The cave of hiding is working for you. It's not working against you or against your creative work. It's working for your future creative self. Because when you're in the cave of hiding and you're allowing things to come in. That is going to become inspiration for later creative work that you make. You might not even see it in the moment because you might be exhausted or burned out. But that's where the material and ideas for your later works of art can come in. You might not see that until six months later. You might not see that you had the initial thought in your cave of hiding and now you're making work about it and it comes up in that later season. That is the beauty of these cycles. Beyond recognizing the cave of hiding as just a natural state and season for your creative journey. Here are a few clues that can indicate that you've arrived at this stop on the creative wilderness map. One, if you've recently visited the Dunes of Doubt and the Forest of Fear, then it is very likely that you're about to enter into the cave of hiding. By the way, if you haven't yet visited the classes on the Dunes of Doubt or the Forest of Fear or you just want a refresher, you can hop back into these sections of the wilderness by going to my profile page and navigating to the creative wilderness tips section. These stops on the creative journey often lead straight into the cave of hiding. Because what happens in the Forest of Fear and the Dunes of Doubt is that we get out of the flow of our creative practice and sink into the headspace of questioning ourselves our value, and fearing our journey, we began to shrink inward and curl in on ourselves getting smaller and smaller and smaller to take up less space because we don't believe that we're valuable or that our work is worthy. Rather than expanding and sharing our work, we shrink, and that shrinking fear and doubt can start to feel like a heavyweight that continues to push on us and our creative practice and make us pretty much just curl up into a ball and turn inward into the cave of hiding. Two, another thing to look out for if you are about to enter into the cave of hiding is when there's a lot going on in your personal life. It may feel like your personal life is falling apart, unexpected events are popping up, you're experiencing grief or loss or big life transitions. Essentially, a lot of life is just happening all at once. Events and circumstances are coming up that you need to attend to on an emotional and human level. Because at the end of the day, you are a beautiful human being who is creating work. You are not a robot, you are not a machine, and thank [LAUGHTER] goodness for that. I can totally forget this fact at times and try to just push through and keep creating. But at a certain point, it's much healthier and more valuable to surrender to the human side of the creative journey and lean into the cave of hiding. Again, as much as our culture may say, otherwise, the cave of hiding is not about space to be on your journey and path. In fact, as a personal example, earlier this year I had a lot of personal life changes happening. I was incredibly exhausted, distracted, and just did not have the emotional capacity to create my artwork. I tried to push through but realized I needed to allow myself to truly pause and sink into the cave of hiding. I gave myself one month to stop creating my work, stop posting on social media, and surrender to this space on the creative wilderness journey. I do recognize the privilege I had to take that time away. But even if you don't have one month or one week, can you take one day or 10 minutes a day to dive into the pause, rest, and nourishment that this space can offer you. When I returned to my work, social media and creative practice a month later, I felt way more energized, ready, grounded, and actually excited to make work again. See, it can be really difficult to surrender into the cave of hiding because our culture pushes us to push, to force your way through hard circumstances without stopping, and be strong and persevere. But sometimes, and I don't know if you feel this way too. But sometimes I am just really tired of being strong and being resilient. In those moments I've come to learn that it can be much more beneficial to rest, to let go and say, "Okay, life, I get the message. I'm going to take a step back to pause and take care of myself in the cave of hiding." That's the second clue that you've entered or come upon the cave of hiding because that you have a lot going on personally. Three, the third clue is that you are burned out or overworked. If you've been burning the candle at both ends lately and have little to no energy, then you're likely walking straight into the cave of hiding. When you arrive there in this burnt-out state, your main focus can be to just get back to a baseline of energy. You need to re-establish an equilibrium, and then from there, you can allow inspiration to come in and lead you forward. Those are the main clues to notice that you're entering into the cave of hiding. One, you've recently been in the Forest of Fear or Dunes of Doubt. Two, you have a lot going on in your personal life, and three, you're burned out or overworked. Now that you know, when you've arrived at the cave of hiding, it's time to talk about all of the value and benefits this stop has to offer. We'll go over that in the next lesson. I'll see you there. 5. Make the Cave of Hiding Work for You: In this lesson, we're chatting about the main benefits of the cave of hiding and how to make this space work for you when you've arrived there on your creative wilderness journey. The first benefit is that you can regain confidence in your journey. When you arrive at the cave of hiding straight from the forest of fear or dunes of doubt you may be very hesitant to share your work and very doubtful about your creative ability as a whole. The cave of hiding is a beneficial space to start to shift this mindset because you can pause and dive deep to ask yourself questions like, how does this work that I create serve those around me? How does my work serve me? How far have I already come on my journey? And so on. The cave of hiding can provide the necessary space to regain confidence in your creative ability and journey. Take a moment now to reflect on these questions in your field guide. The second benefit of the cave of hiding is solitude. The cave of hiding provides the alone time that is necessary for creativity to flourish and grow. I personally regain energy from alone time so the cave of hiding can be my jam. Side note though, too much time alone or in isolation can be a drain on creativity. You don't want to overextend your stay there but more on that in the next lesson. Even if you're an extrovert and gain energy from being around people, moments of pause and solitude are a huge benefit to allow inspiration, ideas, and creativity to land and give you renewed inspiration. You don't have to be outward all the time. When you feel the need to go inward into that solitude of the cave, allow yourself to do so. When you're there, allow yourself to truly and intentionally be present, pause, embrace the solitude, and nourish yourself. Allow yourself to be held and protected in the cave of hiding before moving out into the world again. This is where you get the fuel and nourishment to continue your journey. Returning to the winter metaphor, treat this moment as a creative hibernation. You're not going to be there forever so while you are there how can you embrace it? How can you nourish yourself? How can you allow yourself to stop outwardly seeking inspiration and allow inspiration to find you? Take a moment now to reflect on these questions in your field guide. The third benefit of the cave of hiding is rest. As I shared in the last lesson, sometimes you arrive at the Cave of hiding due to burnout or being overworked. You may be so exhausted from being in constant output mode that you can't even find inspiration or the motivation to keep creating. We'll cover burnout in more detail later on the creative journey when we visit the bog of burnout. When you arrive at the cave of hiding from burnout it can be the space to not get a surplus of energy but to just get back to your typical baseline of energy. Burnout and feeling overworked can bring you way down below your typical foundation of energy to a point where you feel like you have no motivation to keep hiking at all on your creative path. The cave of hiding is the space and time for you to take a breath in order to regain your energy and reach a consistent baseline. Once you're back to that baseline, then you can welcome in more inspiration to move forward on your journey. The fourth benefit is self-reflection. The cave of hiding is a space for you to pause, reflect, and re-assess where you currently are on your creative journey. It is a moment to ask yourself questions like, is this what I want to be doing? Is this the project I truly want to be working on? Am I just tired or is this path not aligned with me anymore? Using the cave of hiding to pause and ask these questions can help you make sure that you're still on the right path for you, not for somebody else but for you. What's aligned with you and what's not? This is just like when you're out hiking in the wilderness and at a certain point you're just so exhausted that you sit down to rest. You might feel lost so you take a moment to look at your map and your field notes and ask if this is the trail that you want to continue forward on or if you want to choose a different path entirely. This moment of pause provides the clarity for you to intentionally decide which path to move forward with so that when you do you know you're in alignment with your next steps. This has happened plenty of times to me since starting my creative business in 2017. I've had many moments of pause and self-reflection in the cave of hiding to ask myself, is this worth it? Do I truly want to keep going on this specific creative path? The answer so far has always been yes but it's in that moment of pause where I can really check in with my creative intuition, hear myself and get honest with myself. Often what happens is that the bigger underlying answer is yes and I realize that something needs to change. Either I need to cut out a portion of my business, switch up a certain aspect, add an income stream, take better care of myself, or find a creative community as a support system. You can think about this like your pack on the trail. Maybe it's too heavy and you get to the cave of hiding and realize that you just packed too much and you need to leave some things behind. You might be leaving behind a creative medium, an old mindset, you might be leaving behind a job that's no longer serving you or an income stream in your business. Whatever is in your pack that's weighing you down, see if you can unpack it in the cave of hiding and then keep going intentionally forward on your journey. Lightening your load by asking yourself, what's still feeling good on this journey and what's not feeling good anymore? What's not working? These questions can give you the clarity to keep moving forward with confidence in the wilderness. Take a moment now to reflect on these questions in your field guide. Without this type of self-reflection and pause in the cave of hiding, it can be easy to get so caught up in the step-by-step rhythm of the creative journey that eventually and often without realizing it, you're basically running through the creative wilderness and missing all of its beauty. In that fast pace it's easy to lose track of why you're even out here at all. Be sure to take the time while you're here to slow down, pause and reflect to regain intention for your next steps forward. Those are the four main benefits of being in the cave of hiding. One, regain confidence. Two, solitude. Three, rest. Four, self-reflection. These benefits of the cave of hiding can get you back to the point of why you're doing what you're doing as well as why your creative journey and work are so important in this world. When you can return to that sense of purpose then you can have the fuel to keep moving forward. These are the benefits and they are so awesome that you may be asking, well, why would I ever leave the cave of hiding? In the next lesson, I'm sharing the drawbacks of staying in the cave of hiding for too long so that you can have the motivation to keep moving forward into the rest of your creative wilderness journey. I'll see you there. 6. Drawbacks to the Cave of Hiding: In this lesson, we're covering the drawbacks of staying in the cave of hiding for too long so that you don't get stuck there on your creative journey. When you're in the cave of hiding, it can start to feel pretty cozy, and comfy. It's a space where you're not in output mode, so you're not getting vulnerable, not putting yourself out there, not putting your artwork out into the world to be critiqued, and not trying new things. Pretty delightful, uncomfortable. It is great to sink into that comfort on your journey to gain the nourishment that you need. But if you stay there for too long, then you won't make forward traction, and you'll miss out on all of the beautiful spaces we have yet to visit in this creative wilderness track. Let's go over the two main drawbacks to staying in the cave of hiding so that you can move forward on your journey. Number one, there's no ripple effect from your artwork, and creativity. If you never emerge from the cave of hiding, you'd likely not be creating more art or showing your art at all. You would never get to know how that work, whether it's artwork or a class or a client project, you would never know how those things could have positively impacted somebody else's life that then lead them to create change in their community. You truly wouldn't get to see that ripple effects, and so often artwork, and creativity do encourage people, give them joy, inspiration, and a reason to keep going. Art, and creativity give people a sense of beauty in their life, as well as a sense of motivation, and direction. Your creative services provide immense value to your clients as well. Creativity gives people the permission to follow their own self-expression. There are so many ripple effects from your creative journey, and work that you may never, ever see. But you have to trust that it is reaching, and helping people. The thing is, you most definitely won't know the positive effects of your work if you stay in the cave of hiding, and never make or share your work at all. You would never even have a chance to impact or help somebody else because your work wouldn't be in the world. I think that is a huge disservice to the world to stay stuck in the cave of hiding for too long because you wouldn't be sharing the gifts that you have to give to others. I think at the end of the day, that's what art, and creativity are all about. Service, making the world a better place, encouraging people, building community around the beauty that comes through creative expression. That's the first drawback, no ripple effect. Drawback number two, stagnancy. If you're in the cave of hiding for too long, and getting really cozy there. Eventually, you're just not taking action, and you can become stagnant, and overly still. What I've found on my creative wilderness journey is that when I'm in that space of overextending my stay in the cave of hiding, and not in action, I can get into my head, and drop into overthinking, and overwhelmed. I get so caught up in what step to take next that I'm just stopped in my tracks, and I don't really know which direction to go at all. When you stay in the cave of hiding, you can swirl into that overthinking, and questioning space. But again, taking action helps you gain traction. Action, and moving beyond the cave of hiding leads to knowledge, wisdom, growth, and progression on your journey that you might never experience if you didn't leave the comfort, and nourishment of that space on the map. Because look at this, we're here in the cave of hiding, and we have all of this beauty to keep exploring, and there are so many spaces that we're going to, value valley, grove of rest, community cove, garden of growth. There are so many beautiful places waiting for us out here in the creative wilderness journey, waiting to be discovered, and explored. I'm telling you, it is worth it. As hard as it can be, it is also immensely beautiful, and worth it to leave the cave of hiding, and keep going. Now that you know these two main drawbacks to staying in the cave of hiding for too long, how do you take steps out of this space, and forward on your creative wilderness journey? Join me in the next lesson where I'm sharing my main field notes, and tips to take your next steps out of the cave of hiding, and into the rest of the beautiful creative wilderness. I'll see you there. 7. Tips to Move Out of the Cave of Hiding: In this lesson, I'm sharing my main tips for you to move out of the cave of hiding and forward on your creative wilderness journey. Once you're feeling nourished, rested, and rejuvenated by the cave of hiding, a hand before you get too cozy there, it's time to take steps forward on your creative journey. Here are my main tips to do that. One, get a creative community. This can be an online or a local community. I personally love a combination of both of these because then I can connect with creatives in my hometown and folks who live far away. Regardless of location, get yourself a creative support system who can really cheer you on in your journey because as much as we're taught, especially in the art world, to do this alone, I've personally found that I just can't. I cannot do this alone and I'm not here to do this alone. I mean, where's the fun in that? This journey is a solitary path at times, yes, and that's incredibly important for developing trust in your unique creative vision and intuition. But as a whole, the creative wilderness is a communal experience. It is all about connecting with other people, whether it's fellow creatives on the journey, or people who see your art, or people who take your creative classes. Start to build out your creative community. Reach out to other creatives on Instagram to set up in-person or virtual coffee dates, reach out to other teachers and students on Skillshare. Go to artists meetups in your local town. Talking to people in the creative world who speak the same language, who get how hard and how beautiful and how rewarding this journey can be, that provides the support system to hear, hey, you've got this or hey, I know how hard that is for you because I've been there and here's what I did. Having this community makes the biggest difference to leave the cave of hiding. It's like your closest most trusted friend showing up at the cave of hiding and saying, come on, you've got this, we'll walk with you. We'll walk this next stretch of trail with you. If you can build out that community and support which does take time and intention, then that can be a great way to start to emerge from the cave of hiding with more ease. I'll cover more about creative community later in this creative wilderness journey when we visit community cove. Now, take a moment in your field guide to write down the names of the people you currently have in your creative community and the people you'd love to invite to join your crew. The second tip I have is to create something. Not right off the bat, not right when you get into the cave of hiding, you got to rest when you get there, but when you're starting to feel ready to leave the cave of hiding, just create something. This can get you out of your head, out of overthinking, and out of the comfort zone of not taking much action. I recommend that there's something that you create, is not a project you do for money or for your business, but it's just for fun. This could be a garden, cooking a delicious meal, sewing a dress, splatter painting something. A creative project that is chill, freeing, and minimal to get that creative energy moving out of your body and back into forward momentum. You can take a moment to do this right now by freely sketching in the designated low key sketch space in your field guide. The third tip is to trust that you and your work are valuable. Practice writing about embodying and knowing that you and your creativity are valuable and needed. Art is of service to this world. There's a lot of talk sometimes that it's not, but it is. We need your voice, we need your ideas and we need your creativity. It does mean something. As you emerge from the cave of hiding, even if you're not in full knowing yet, trust that your work is valuable and that it's needed, and that when you put it out into the world, good things come from it. When you share your work, people can come into your life and tell you how much it helped them. People can tell you that they shared it with a friend and it helped them in a tough time, or it gave somebody else more beauty and joy in their day. Trust that your work is valuable as you take steps out of the cave of hiding. We'll cover this in more depth on the next stop on our creative wilderness journey, value valley. Those are the three main tips I have for you to move out of the cave of hiding and onward in your creative wilderness track. In the next lesson we'll go over publishing your class project. I'll see you there. 8. Publish Your Class Project: Once you finish these tips on your creative wilderness journey, take a photo of your completed cave of hiding section of the creative wilderness field guide. Then upload that photo to the class project section of this class. Remember that you can upload your class project by going to the projects and resources tab and clicking the create project button. Once you've uploaded your photo or photos, be sure to hit Publish. Also, be sure to check out other class projects from your fellow creatives in the project gallery. We're all out here together so let's show support for each other's journeys. Be sure to let me know in the discussion section, the last time you were in the cave of hiding and how it benefited your creative path. In the next lesson, I'm sharing the next stop will encounter together in the creative wilderness. I'll see you there. 9. Thank You & Next Steps: [MUSIC] Thank you so much for tuning into this class in the Creative Wilderness Tips series. I hope you're feeling more equipped, confident, and totally excited to keep trekking into the wilderness together. Remember that the cave of hiding is working for you and your creativity. It is of immense value to take a step back from output mode and allow inspiration and energy to find you again. In the next class in this series, we're visiting Value Valley where I'll share my tips for building a strong internal sense of value for your creative work so that you can embody that strength moving forward on your path. In the meantime, if you want more support, guidance, and encouragement for your creative journey, I've recorded a pep talk just for you to have more forward momentum, energy, and motivation for your creative path. You can download that pep talk for free at printsandplants.com/peptalk. Let's keep hanging out. Be sure to follow me here on Skillshare to stay up-to-date on new classes by hitting that "Follow" Button, check out more of my work at printsandplants.com, and come hang out with me over on Instagram @prints_and_plants. Stay wild, stay creative, and I'll see you soon. [MUSIC] If so, then you've likely walked straight into the cave of hiding. Whoa, these birds are just, I swear it's Hitchcock over here. [MUSIC]