The Creative Reset: Reclaiming Creativity Without Shame or Pressure

Sometimes we lose the thread of our creative lives. I’m currently experiencing this for a number of reasons.

One day, we feel alive, buzzing with possibility. We can’t wait to start. The next, we’re standing in a room where the lights have gone dim. The tools are still there. The brushes, the instrument, the cooking utensils, but they sit silent. We sit silent too. There’s an invisible wall up around our practice that’s a mental barrier to beginning again. We’re drifting again, and it happens over and over.

For me, drift sneaks in through small cracks: a vacation that pulls me out of my rhythm, a stretch of work deadlines that drains me, a week of poor sleep or extensive stress. Currently, we’re having some new floors installed in our home, and our world has been turned upside down. I am not working on my art. I can’t even cook dinner in my kitchen.

NOTE: They left early last night, and I was able to create this awesome Riced Cauliflower Stir Fry with Shrimp and Sriracha. It was good in multiple ways.

Riced Cauliflower Stir Fry with Shrimp and Sriracha - Chris Auman

These are the things that create the walls that block me from doing anything creative. Before long, the habit of creating feels far away, and it becomes hard to start again. Add in bigger disruptions—kids starting school, the grief of losing someone close, the stress of carrying too many responsibilities at work—and the creative thread doesn’t just loosen, it slips completely from our hands. For many, they may never start again because the wall has simply grown too high, and they can’t ever get back. It just feels like too much.

Most people who are naturally creative don’t stop creating because they want to, but because life crowds out the space for it. This is my personal struggle. Cooking is a simple but great example for me. It’s a daily creative outlet, and my “practice” has currently been disrupted. Distractions pile up—emails, errands, obligations that feel more urgent than creative pursuits. Many times, I’m simply too tired. Stress drains us. Responsibilities expand. Even intentional pauses, like a trip or time away, can leave us stumbling to find our way back. There have been times when the planning, prep, travel, return, and recovery from a fun family trip have caused me to drift away from my art for a month or more.

There’s no shame in this, I guess. I need to remember this. It’s not laziness. It’s the reality of living as a human. Our creative selves don’t exist outside the rest of life; they move with it, and sometimes they just get swept aside.

Other times, it isn’t life pulling us away; it’s what’s inside our heads. Fear has many disguises: fear of failure, of wasting time, of spending our limited time making something that doesn’t measure up to what we imagined. This happens a lot when you’ve been drifting for a while. There is a fear of starting again. The wall has become higher. Sometimes we actually have the time to sit down to do the work, and we’re expecting to feel sparked and inspired, but when nothing arrives, we go watch TV or start scrolling on social media.

I’ve had moments when I’ve stared at a canvas and thought: What if this is just another waste of paint? Or opened a blank page in my sketch book only to hear the voice in my head whisper: Why bother? Those voices are hard to argue with. And yet, doing nothing often leaves us feeling worse.

This is where the idea of the reset becomes essential.

This is a cropped section of a page in my sketchbook, on a day that I needed to reset. I just started sticking pieces to the page, and the randomness came together beautifully. I wasn’t really even thinking; I was just doing so I could restart.

Abstract Collage Crop - Chris Auman

I should note that a reset is not a restart. This is important for me. A restart suggests that you’ve failed and beginning from nothing. A reset is gentler and part of the process.

When life’s demands scatter our attention, or when fear freezes our minds and hands, a reset offers a simple truth: we don’t have to feel like a failure. We only have to admit that this is part of the process. Acknowledge that this won’t be the last time it happens either. We just have to commit to returning and slowly begin again.

A reset might be something practical: taking time to organize or clearing the clutter off the table where we work, setting aside ten minutes instead of waiting for three perfect hours. Start small and just move forward.

It might be emotional: giving yourself permission to grieve, to feel tired, to not be “productive” for a while without feeling bad about it. Sometimes, honoring the reality of my life is my reset.

And it can be spiritual in its own way, too. A reset reminds me that making is not about anyone else. It is about my own creative journey. Everyone has different lives, energy, and we all move at a different pace. Measuring ourselves against others only feeds frustration. The harsher voice is the one that whispers we are failing because we have drifted. It needs to be silenced. That voice tells us we are no good, that we’ll waste time, that we do not deserve to be in the company of “real” creators and makers. But that voice is a damn liar. It is fear in disguise, and it pulls us further from the spark we are trying to reach. Creativity is meant to restore us, not shame us. A soft reset is how we remember that.

Getting started again can feel raw for sure. The first steps after an absence almost always feel clumsy. That’s okay. Resetting isn’t about immediate flow; it’s about remembering that we can begin again. One stroke of paint. One sentence. One chord. If you’re creative outlet is cooking, just opening a cookbook again is an excellent step forward. Each small act says: I’m here again.

What surprises me every time is how quickly the thread returns. Not in its full strength, maybe, but in a spark, a flicker, a sense of possibility. I like the metaphor of taking the next physical step. For me, it’s how it feels when I haven’t been disciplined to exercise for a period of time. Just stepping outside and going for a walk or lifting some light weights again feels great. These small steps remind me that I never really lost it. I simply drifted, and that’s “ok”.

Drift will happen again, and we’ll stop stepping forward. It’s inevitable. Life will distract us, obligations will expand, grief will visit, fear will whisper. That’s not a flaw in the system. It is the system. Creation isn’t a straight line. It’s a rhythm for most of us: engage, drift, reset, return.

When we forget that, we pile shame and fear on top of drift. But when we accept it, we can trust the cycle. The reset is our bridge back.

Here’s what I did yesterday. This is my painted collage paper, and it only took me about 5 minutes. It felt great to take a small step forward.

Waves - Chris Auman