Why You Might Be Creatively Blocked

In this episode, I’m talking about something I’ve been noticing in myself lately — and I think a lot of entrepreneurs and creatives are quietly struggling with it too.

We live in a world of constant input. Podcasts, courses, reels, books, ideas, information, noise. And while learning and consuming can feel inspiring and expansive… there comes a point where too much input starts making us feel heavy instead of alive.

In this episode, I’m breaking down what I see as the three essential states of creativity:
consuming, creating, and integrating.

I share my own experience of falling in love with coaching, going all in on learning, eventually hitting a wall, and then rediscovering joy through creating, coaching, and expressing instead of only taking things in.

But the biggest shift came when I realized there was a third piece missing entirely: integration.

The walks without earbuds.
The quiet drives.
The staring-out-the-window moments.
The silence.
The space for your own thoughts to actually rise to the surface.

We talk about:

• why too much input can make you feel creatively blocked
• the nervous system side of creativity
• why some of your best ideas come when you stop trying so hard
• the importance of boredom, quiet, and spaciousness
• how nature itself models cycles of consuming, creating, and integrating

If you’ve been feeling creatively overloaded, disconnected from yourself, or like your brain just needs more room to breathe a little again — this episode is for you.

To book your own coaching consult with me to explore working together, click this link and book!  www.tamarcoaching.com/consult 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Oh hello there, episode 50 of my brave little things. This is exciting, guys. We are on episode 50. We have reached 50. That feels like a pretty cool milestone. And I'm so happy you're still here hanging out with me. This is just the beginning, folks. So welcome back. I actually kind of came, I like a rant my microphone today. This is like unpolished, just giving it over because on the time of recording, you're gonna receive this actually a few weeks after because I'm by the way rocking it. I'm just like nonstop in creation mode here at the podcast. I'm just like have so much I want to share with you guys. So I'm just like pumping them out. So this is a few weeks after the fact. But on the time for recording, we had just we just came out of 50 hours of the holiday of Shavuot and Shabbat. So I'm not gonna go into details if you don't know what that that holiday is. But basically, all you need to know is that for 50 hours we completely did not use our phones, electricity, screens of any kind, any kind of transportation, and we were just like in a totally different mode. And so I was just like on fire with my ideas. My brain was just like could not stop. I was just like, it was just so much happening in this rest period time where literally like I just went and took long ass walks with my boys, like two-hour walks, like every day, and was ice bathing and stretching and having quiet, nice meals and quiet tea time with myself. And I was just like in this processing mode, and so much was happening there. And I was like, I have to come and talk to my people about these different mindsets, these different, you know, ways that our brains work when it comes to creation, because so much of our work, guys, as entrepreneurs is creation, not just in our craft, but in also in creating our business. So I've got lots of thoughts about it. I want to share with you guys today about all of these different things happening. So stick with me. Anyways, yes, I want to talk a little bit today about, you know, I think the title, I forgot, I always forget the title, what I actually call at the end, because I'm always like, should I do this? Should I do that? But I think it's something like why you might be feeling creatively blocked, something like that. Because that's what I want to talk about today. The different stages of you know creation, because it's not just, you know, in creation mode. There's three main states that our mind has to be in when we're full on in creation mode, which is consuming, which is very important, then the actual creation, excuse me, where we're creating something, we're creating something brand new, not that's not been born into the world yet. And then the last piece, which most people don't even think about, which is integration, integrating all of it. Entrepreneurs, creatives, you know, tend to over-identify with one or two of them, and you know, don't necessarily incorporate all three of them. But I imagine that if you are a creative entrepreneur, if you're a spiritual entrepreneur, you've got some kind of integration practice ritual in your life. But I want to kind of, you know, put a spotlight on this particular one today because it's an important piece for us to kind of really go through the full cycles of creation mode. So yeah, I want to talk about it. You know, creation I know when I started, when I was first like all in in coaching, when I discovered coaching for the first time, and I went to go get certified as a coach, I was like, holy moly! And I can't tell you how much I consumed during that period of time. Like obviously I was getting certified, so I was in my all my classes and my trainings and my, you know, classes, like mini workshops with my peers, and I was getting coached and I was listening to podcasts like literally 24-7. Something was inside of my ears 24-7. And I was high as a freaking kite. I could not get enough. I mean, first of all, it's just a discovery of like my gift. This is what I was always meant to bring into the world in one little package. You know, I was always like kind of taking a little bit here, a little bit there, but it was like all packaged up neatly, beautifully for me, and and then just consuming all this material that was just setting me on fire. I was just like, I couldn't get enough. And I imagine that you all have had this kind of experience, whether it be in your business or in something else, something spiritually, religiously, something that kind of just you just wanted all in. And I remember being in that mode. And then there's one, and then there became a a time and a place during my certification and getting trained as a coach where I dropped. And I was like so confused. I was like, what's going on here? Why am I not as high as a Kai? Why I I almost felt down, right? There was this kind of like period of like totally feeling like I had dropped. And it wasn't only, it was only until I started moving into the creation mode that it started to pick up again. I was able to kind of integrate everything I had been learning, everything I've been listening to, everything that I was like so excited about, and start to apply it to my own coaching when I started to coach people. Right in the beginning, I was coaching people for free. It didn't matter. I was just coaching, right? And then when I was creating content and when I was speaking to people and I was expressing myself and I was helping people, even just people at a, you know, a party that I was at or whatever it was, I was just like in incorporating the creation mode. I was like giving, right? I wasn't just receiving, but I was giving. And slowly my my joy, my high started to come back. And I started to really kind of feel like, whoa, this is freaking awesome. I'm like, I'm in. I'm all in. I'm gonna consume, I'm gonna create for the rest of my life. That's it. And then there became another period of time after a good amount of like really getting into creating marketing material, really being on Instagram and coaching and all this kind of stuff, where again, it wasn't like the dip I had had from when I was consuming, consuming, consuming before creating, but it was like a dip and it was like a bit of a low. And I was like trying to figure it out. I'm like, you know, I'm learning all these things, I'm excited about all these things, and I'm now totally like coaching and trying to figure out that missing piece. And I realized that it was really this piece of this integration. That was the missing piece that I was having that really kind of would bring all three pieces together. And it's really, you know, I'm always been somebody who has always worked out. I was on a cross-country team my whole life, and then I was like hit the gym or you know, from age 12, and you know, I've just always been working out. And it's exactly the way our bodies work, right? Our minds are the same way. We need that day of off, you need the day of rest, you need the day where your muscles are literally resting in order to fully grow and fully develop. And I had missed that piece for so long, but I realized that I need that silence, I need the spaciousness, I need reflection time and boredom and pause and you know, letting the thoughts land, which is exactly what happened over the past 50 hours when, you know, all of us were like, no, none, nobody was on a device. There was no tablet time, there was no screen time, there was no, it was just like us and our thoughts and our ideas and our reflections and our silences and our pauses. And it really, I realized how much I was like not integrating that piece into my life. And so that's kind of when I started to actually create a really conscious schedule for myself, whereas consciously putting in to my days those times, right? Whether that be a very long, quiet walk or, you know, just resting in my bed, or even five minutes, you know, in my bedroom before I went to go pick up my kids, not even necessarily meditating, but just kind of in a meditative mode where I was just like breathing and letting myself like take in like what I have like the first part of the day, what happened there. And it all came together for me. It all landed, it all felt like, yes, this is a missing piece that's been going on. And I imagine for many of you, if you're feeling this also, if you're feeling this very up and down, you know, in your world of like entrepreneur businessing, lifing, all this kinds of stuff, that perhaps you're missing one of these pieces, right? Perhaps in and I want to say also that I think that it like goes in stages, right? There's times when it's really consumption where like you are needing to fill up with other people's ideas and learnings and teachings and things like that. And then there's a time when that needs to be put down and you just are in like creation mode where you're giving, you're giving, you're giving, you're giving, you're creating, whether it be like physical, like paintings and things like that, or things I had mentioned, right? Which is like creating content and connections and collaborations and just being really creative in that kind of way. And then there's a point where we just want to like bring it all together, and we need to kind of carve out those times specifically in order to make that happen. You know, I kind of see it as this. I think this is actually a really good way to think about it. I really like this way. It's like the breath, okay? So we're gonna use like the breath as a metaphor here, where consuming is the inhale, right? You're like consuming, like inhaling in, and creating is the exhale. Right? But we need that in-between, that pause in-between breaths, which is the integration. You cannot live if you are just inhaling. You cannot live if you are just exhaling. And you also cannot live without those breaths and those pauses in between. That's literally like what everything, like the 101 that you're gonna learn. Like, I don't know much about breath work, but that's what I know. I know that the in-between pauses are so significant in the practice. And it's true also for life, right? And you know, I think that nature is like a great example of this because I mean, I think like we can learn everything. Like, if we are like confused or we don't know what's going on, all we have to do is like, okay, let's check in with nature, see what's going on there, and then we can understand it. But it is literally like the same kind of thing, like the bees, for example. They literally use the symbol of like, you know, they they usually are like the nonstop, the symbol is like nonstop productivity, right? Have you guys ever seen the bee movie? Oh my gosh. We've watched that movie. That's like our our family movie. It's so freaking great, right? It's all about like, you know, they're just so productive. The bees are so productive, but they don't actually just produce all day long, right? Mm bees move through cycles constantly. They go out and they gather, they consume, you know, nectar, pollen, scent, signals, and then they come back to the hive and they transform it, they create, right? They build honey, they pollinate, they also communicate with each other. But what's happening inside of the hive, there's also this whole invisible process happening. They're resting, they're regulating, they're processing. The hive itself has periods of total stillness, and they're organizing and they're integrating it all, right? Nature does this. Another great example actually is um cows, actually. Cows. They cows don't just eat and immediately move on. They're not just like, mm, I'm gonna just chomp on this grass and move on. No, they they graze and then they lie down and they rechew what it it already consumed, which is so crazy. That's literally how digestion works for them. They metabolize on stages slowly. And I think that that's like exactly how humans are supposed to work, more like that creatively. We consume ideas, experiences, and conversations and inspirations, but then we need time to mentally and emotionally, like quote unquote, I guess, like re-chew things to digest them, to let them become a part of us. You know, and that's that's kind of what experienced these past 50 hours of like total integration mode where there's no consumption and there was no creation, and there was just like me actually taking it all in, right? And bringing it all in. And listen, we've, you know, again, I know I bring about bring this a uh I bring this up a lot, but it's just so true. It's like back in the day, it just it was like integration was just a part of how we did things. You spent hours in the fields or in your gardens where it was quiet and you're just like harvesting. Hours of sitting silent and waiting, doing repetitive tasks, you know, how meditative is that, right? You know, you know, we would we didn't have electricity, so we were just like, you know, doing our everything by candlelight. But, you know, eventually, you know, candlelight's really hard to use for a long period of time, right? There's a certain point where you're just like blow out the candle and you are like in silence and in the dark. And we talk about integration time when you're like, you know, a few of your senses are kind of like shut down. You're able to like really take the time to just be with yourself in that in that moment. And there's this like it's just so different from what's happening now. Like now, every empty space gets filled. You know, even walks become productive. I know when I was first starting to get myself up early at like 5 30 in the morning to go out for a long walk before I came back to work out and get my kids up ready for school. The only way I could convince myself is like you'll get to listen to a podcast. I didn't have enough podcast time and I wanted more podcasts. I'm like, okay, you'll get to like listen to as many podcasts as you want if you you go out for walks. So I will go out and I would like not be integrated. I would be consuming. Even though I was walking and I was moving, I wasn't getting the full, you know, results from it because I was completely in consumption mode. And so now I've actually consciously done something different where half the walk is in total silence without my earbuds. I take, I don't even have them in. I'm completely in integration mode. I'm in completely breath pause silence mode. And then the other half, I'm I allow myself if I want to go ahead and put a podcast in and consume. But a lot of times I'm like, you know, so in it. I'm so in the integration, I'm like, nope. I want the whole walk to be just me and me and me. And it's such a beautiful thing. Right? It's such a beautiful thing. So I mean, it's like, yeah, it's like I had accidentally removed almost every moment where my own mind could speak when I was just like a lot only in like listening to the podcast and then nowhere else. I think a lot of us do this kind of a thing. So I just kind of felt like I had like I this is really again for an apology. I kind of ran to my mic and I wanted to share this because of like what came up for me in those like 50 hours, which is really so revolutionary. Like, you don't hear many people like who, you know, stop and do not listen use electronics and social media and screens and electricity for 50 hours. I mean, even like for two hours, let alone 50 hours. And so I just felt like there's just so much that came to me, right? So even this is a great example, right? So that that kind of integration time that even just made me want to come and create this podcast for you guys. And this is how we work. So we want to like take a look here, right, guys? We don't you want to take a look and take a moment of evaluation for yourself and look to see how much of your day of your week are you in consumption mode? And how much of your day and your week are you in creation mode? And how much of your week are you in integration mode? The best would be if you could really equal them out as much as you possibly can, right? And sometimes I had given a tip, I think, in another podcast where I, you know, I like to, when I'm like in consumption mode, that if I'm like consuming a certain amount, that I match it with my creation mode. So if I'm like listening to a podcast for a half an hour, I spend at least a half hour creating a piece of content or something like that. But really then integrating this integration piece into our days so that we really can be like this complete circle, right? We're really in consuming creation and integration so that we can be of our full selves, offer our full selves to our people and to whatever we're trying to kind of make happen and create in the world. So that's my little idea that I want to kind of post here and share here. If you're not like, if you're forgetting the integration part, if you feel like you know, you don't have time for it and you know, you don't even know where it would fit in, you're wrong about that. You don't, you absolutely need to have time for that because if you create time for that, you're gonna create more time for yourself a hundred percent. And yeah, so I just want to come here and share this little thought with you. And I also just want to also share that it, you know, I'd shared it, I believe, last week and it's still happening now. For the month of June, I have a special bonus happening for those who come and sign in on coaching with me, which is that I am gifting everybody a hand copy. So it's hand delivered, hand delivered, not hand delivered, it's a hard copy. A hard copy. Although I could maybe, depending on where you live, maybe I could actually hand deliver it. But more likely in the mail, hard copy of my scheduling workbook. It's a five-step system that really helps you create the life that you're wanting. It helps you create a schedule that really supports you and allows you to have in it your consumption time, your creation time, and your integration time. It's just a beautiful, simple uh workbook that takes you through that process. So for those who are interested and wanting to integrate all of these into your lives, into your businesses, you can go ahead and sign up for a consult with me and we take it from there. If you decide to end up going and doing coaching, then I will send that to you in the mail. It is free for the month of June. After that is a paid resource. So, my gift to you guys. Anyway, y'all, I love you all so much. Thank you for being here, and I will see you next week. Happy 50th episode. Let's keep going, guys. Let's stay strong. Love you all.