On the Necessity (and Chaos) of Creative Rest

Creative rest isn’t graceful. It doesn’t arrive with ease or sparkle or a sense of clarity.

More often, it feels like discomfort. Like guilt. Like the quiet panic of falling behind.

But it’s necessary.

I’m in that season now…

Our move from Orange County, and the transition out of my San Clemente studio, has brought me into a place of unplanned stillness.

My canvases and paints are packed away while we remodel, dreaming and sketching the bones of what will eventually become my next creative space — a studio nestled in the detached garage behind our new home.

In this moment, there is rest — but also, restlessness.

I’m enjoying the break from nonstop production, the pressure lifting, the quiet that lets me breathe again. And yet my hands ache to stay busy. There’s a lingering question in the background: If I stop for too long… will I lose everything I’ve built?

But I’ve learned that when these anxieties creep in, what usually helps isn’t pushing harder — it’s choosing to trust instead.

Every time I think I’m doomed — creatively blocked, burned out, uncertain of how to keep making or running a business — I eventually realize I’m not broken. I’m just being realigned. Shifted toward something I couldn’t yet see.

Because just like seasons change, we can’t expect to live in a state of eternal blooming.

We need the winter. The quiet. The time to collect inspiration and let it settle. To let it shape us before we shape it. To listen for the muse — those soft, unhurried whispers that only arrive when we’re still enough to hear them.

We don’t talk enough about the internal seasons of creativity — the months (sometimes years) when something is working its way through you quietly, refusing to be rushed. Where the only task is to hold space for it.

Creative rest is uncomfortable because we forget it’s part of the process. The invisible part. The unproductive part. The part that feels like nothing is happening — when, really, everything is happening just beneath the surface.

And in that stillness, something soft begins to stir again.

Not in a grand return, but in the simple way we start to notice: a slant of light, a texture, a question we want to explore. A sense of self that isn’t performing, but simply present.

Because the best work doesn’t come from urgency.

It comes from depth — from the places we touch only when we slow down enough to feel them.

Like the best dishes, creative life asks for a long, low simmer. You can’t rush it. You can only tend to it.

So if you’re in a quiet season — by choice or by circumstance — let this be your reminder:

You’re not falling behind. You’re not forgotten.

You’re in the part no one sees, but that everything depends on.

The universe is still holding you.

It’s safe to rest.