There are moments in life when the world outside seems to echo what’s happening within us — not in poetic extremes or dramatic symbolism, but in the quiet reminders that everything in life moves through seasons.
Not the calendar kind — the internal ones.
The ones shaped by identity, healing, and the long processes that change us in ways we don’t notice until we look back.
As this year begins to slow and settle, I’ve found myself reflecting on how creativity shifts with our internal seasons — how it shrinks, expands, disappears, returns, and ultimately evolves as we do.
It’s taken me years to understand that creativity doesn’t vanish; it moves through cycles, just like we do.
Life Has Seasons, Too
There was a season of my life — a long one — where everything inside me felt stripped bare. I’ve shared before about losing custody of my girls, and even though it’s been nearly fifteen years, that season still stands as one that cracked my life open in a way I never expected.
It wasn’t just burnout or exhaustion.
It was emptiness.
When I lost my girls, it was like for the first time my mind became a barren desert — empty, exposed, alone. I couldn’t see water anywhere, and I had no idea if I ever would again.
It wasn’t a momentary drought — it was years spent trying to survive a season I never asked for.
A season that carved a deep gorge through the center of my life and left my creativity — once so alive, steady, and expressive — completely silent.
That was a season of undoing.
A season of survival.
There were days I didn’t recognize the woman I’d become.
Days I didn’t trust my voice.
Days the idea of creating anything felt impossible.
That season didn’t end quickly or fade gently.
It was a long, difficult stretch of life that changed the shape of me.
And Then, Slowly, Something Shifted
Healing doesn’t announce itself.
It’s not loud.
It doesn’t sweep in with grand declarations.
Sometimes healing begins in places we didn’t even realize were still broken.
Years later, becoming a mom again — this time to my boys — didn’t erase the wound, and it didn’t “fix” anything in a tidy way. But it did something far more profound:
It healed a part of my soul I hadn’t realized had become such a vast, aching gorge.
Their arrival didn’t bring my creativity back overnight, but it did soften something deep within me. It brought warmth into places that had been cold for so long. It restored a sense of connection, presence, and inner belonging that I didn’t know I had lost.
It made room.
Room for breath.
Room for gentleness.
Room for the possibility of creativity again.
And that openness — that quiet, unexpected healing — became the fertile ground where creativity could return. Not in a rush, but in whispers.
A Season of Flourishing — Quiet, but Real
My creativity isn’t back in the way it once was — bold and bursting — but it is back.
Not as a roar, but as a pulse.
Not overwhelming, but undeniably alive.
Not demanding my attention, but inviting it.
This season of my life feels more flourishing than anything I’ve known in a long time.
Not forced or a in dramatic bloom, but in steady, meaningful growth:
Ideas arriving while I sip coffee in the early morning light.
Moments of inspiration appearing in the middle of ordinary routines.
A gentle desire to create again — not out of pressure, but out of possibility.
And perhaps the most beautiful shift of all:
My relationship with my girls has continued to evolve as they grow into young adults — not in ways that undo the past, but in ways that widen the future. Life is softer here. More open. More rooted.
This season feels like a return — not to who I was, but to who I’m becoming.
Creativity Through Changing Seasons
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this:
Creativity adapts to the season your soul is in.
During hardship, it may slip underground.
During healing, it may return in fragile, almost imperceptible ways.
During growth, it may rise slowly but steadily.
And during flourishing — even quiet flourishing — it begins to pulse with life again.
I used to think creativity needed perfect conditions, uninterrupted time, or a peaceful mind. Now I understand something different:
Creativity needs only this —
a soul with space to breathe.
Healing is what creates that space.
Your Season Matters, Too
Wherever you are in your own internal season — whether steady or unraveling, hopeful or uncertain — your creativity is reshaping itself with you.
Here are a few gentle invitations to notice your season:
- Write three words that describe your internal landscape right now.
- Create something small that reflects this season — a sketch, a color palette, a few lines in a journal.
- Or simply pause and ask: What is this season offering me? What is it asking me to release?
Not every season is made for blooming.
Not every season is gentle.
But every season is shaping you — even the ones that feel endless, even the ones that break you open.
Looking Toward What’s Next
Right now, I’m in a season that feels cozy, growing, slightly overwhelmed, and beautifully transitional — a season where creativity has returned in soft murmurs, and where healing has reached places I once believed were unreachable.
It’s a hopeful season.
A season that feels like movement.
A season whispering, There is more life ahead.
What season of life are you in right now?
May your creativity — however softly it speaks — guide you forward.
From my road to yours, happy wandering.
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