Every time you write, you get to come home

On creativity as spiritual practice and the art of returning to yourself

source: @asaboveastro

There are always signs when I’ve gone too long without writing, just for me.

I start snapping at people for the crime of breathing too loudly near me. My skin feels too thin for the world. My thoughts get tangled and heavy, like wet wool. I reach for my phone a hundred times a day and forget what I was even looking for. I lose entire afternoons to the scroll, to the fog, to the dull ache of disconnection.

And then I remember: oh. I haven’t written, just for me, in a while.

I’m not talking about writing copy, here. Or articles. Or manuscripts. No websites or sales pages. Not client work. Or clever little captions. Not anything designed to perform or convert or prove I’m still relevant to someone, somewhere. Nothing strictly business, at least.

I mean writing that comes from the soft, raw centre of me. Writing that doesn’t know exactly what it’s trying to say until it’s halfway out of my body. The kind of writing that is me sat in conversation with myself, when it isn’t trying to be impressive, just true.

When I haven’t done that in a while, I forget who I am.

That’s the thing about creativity. When it’s consistent, it feels like oxygen. When it goes quiet, it’s like someone has unplugged me from my own life force. I become a slightly shittier version of myself. More reactive, less grounded, constantly chasing stimulation to fill a gap I can’t name.

But the second I sit down and write something honest (even just a few lines in a half-crumpled notebook) it’s like coming home. Like returning to the part of me that remembers what matters. Not the algorithm. Not the expectations. Not the endless ladder of doing and proving and climbing.

Just me. The real me. The one underneath the noise.

Every time I write in that way, I meet myself again.

And every time I don’t, I drift.

We mistake the pretence of creativity for creativity itself, and wonder why we feel hollow.

The pretence asks: will they like this? Will it work? Will it convert? Will it take my work into those rooms? Will it prove I'm worthy of the space I'm taking up?

The practice asks: what wants to be said? What needs to move through me? What truth am I avoiding that might set me free? What am I pretending not to know?

One extracts. The other restores.

You have to earn the right to create something worth consuming through the slow, meandering process of paying attention to your own responses. To what makes you lean in. What makes you look twice. What makes you think “yes, that” without being able to explain why.

I used to think this was just a me thing. That I was overly sensitive or dramatic or too precious about my need to express myself. This constant burning desire to get. it. out. But the more conversations I have with other creatives — the writers, the designers, the thinkers, the quiet artists hiding in spreadsheets and strategy decks, the more I realise this is all of us. We all lose touch with our voice when we forget to make space for it. We all start sounding like everyone else when we stop listening inward. We all feel like shit when we spend too long creating for consumption instead of expressing what will not sit still.

But you can always return.

You can always pick up the pen and find the thread again.

You can always make a mark (even a messy one) and remember: I’m still in here.

You do not need a 3-week artist residency to come back to yourself. You do not need the perfect notebook or a clear schedule or the quiet approval of someone who once made you feel small. You do not need a big, audacious, public declaration that you are RECLAIMING YOUR VOICE™ and turning over a new leaf and vowing to write every single day forever and ever, amen.

You just need to write, for yourself, first. A sentence. A scrap. A note in your phone that no one will ever read. And then another. And another.

And, this doesn’t mean you should never create for consumption. Do not misunderstand me here. The discipline to turn raw inspiration into something that can stand on its own legs, that people will read or desire or appreciate, matters enormously. More artists need more recognition. More writers need more opportunities for their work to live. But if you skip the wandering stage, if you rush straight to the “what can I do with this?” question, you’ll miss the magic that happens when you let your mind spread out in all directions at once. You’ll miss the mistakes that teach you everything. You’ll miss the quiet ideas that are sitting at the centre of your soul, patiently waiting for you to be quiet long enough to notice them. The ones that are the most you, the most exciting, the most important.

You’ll find yourself feeling dry. Empty. Inspiration-less and wondering why.

Because creativity isn’t born at the end, with the perfectly-edited outcome, it doesn’t begin with the thing we choose to share. It doesn’t multiply when you force it to exist in a way that makes it acceptable. It’s a practice.

A spiritual one, if you let it be.

I’ve come to believe that creativity is how the soul keeps talking to us, even when we’ve stopped listening. It’s how our truth gets a word in, even when our lives are full of noise. It’s the only way I’ve ever been able to hear myself clearly, not the version that’s been filtered through fear and strategy and expectation, but the version that knows.

Knows what she wants. Knows what she needs. Knows when she’s veering off course.

Creativity has saved me more times than I can count because it reconnected me to the part of myself that could face the problem, any problem.

When I was in the thick of heartbreak, I wrote. When I was burnt out and didn’t know who I was without my output, I wrote. When I was grieving, pregnant, postpartum, lost, in limbo — I wrote. Sometimes nonsense. Sometimes rage. Sometimes the quietest, most fragile lines I’ve ever dared to say out loud. Almost never for the point of creating something consumable. Almost always because the creative elephant in the room needed to exit my body.

And always, always, I found myself again.

When you write, really write, from the place that doesn't care about being good — you are engaging in a form of prayer to yourself. You are saying, I am here. I am paying attention. I am willing to be surprised by what I discover.

You are choosing presence. Truth. The long conversation with yourself over the quick hit of external validation.

And when you return to her, to that essential self, you can move differently. Speak differently. Create, connect, build, love differently.

Then, you can create the work. And the work you do from that place carries a different frequency. It has weight. It has presence.

So if you’re feeling disconnected (from your work, from your power, from your own damn voice) don’t just think about it.

Write about it. Write through it. Not to impress. Not to produce. Not to be good. Not to be consumable.

Just to hear yourself again.

Because you’re still in there.

And every time you write, you get to come home.

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Your writing practice

Set a timer for 10 minutes. No phone, no distractions. Just you and a blank page.

Start with this question: What am I pretending I don’t already know?

Write whatever comes up. Don’t edit or explain, don’t make it pretty. Just let the truth spill out, messy and unfiltered.

When that question runs dry, try these:

What am I avoiding saying, even to myself?

What would I do if I trusted what I actually want?

What conversation am I having with everyone except myself?

What am I waiting for permission to feel?

Don’t aim for wisdom. Don’t try to solve anything. Don’t expect anything from yourself at all. You are not looking for answers. This is a conversation, a musing, with yourself. Just sit in honest conversation with the part of you that already knows but hasn't been given space to speak.

When the timer goes off, read what you wrote. Circle one line that surprises you, that’s it.

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Hi, I’m Lois. I write from my little treehouse in the Costa Rican mountains, where I help writers, entrepreneurs and creatives build businesses that feel like home — without sacrificing their voice, their values, or their sanity. This is The Smoking Area, my lil corner of the internet where we say the things we’re not supposed to say out loud and we pour our hearts out to each other like it’s 3am and we’re sharing a cig outside a bang average party.

You’ll always find a writing prompt or exercise within or at the end of everything I post here, because reading is nice but writing is where the transformation lives.

If this piece landed somewhere tender in you, if you recognised yourself in the signs of creative disconnection, if you’re craving that long conversation with yourself, I have something that you might like:

Creative Living is where we rebuild the practice this piece is about. It’s a writing-based creative community where you’ll reclaim your voice from the ruins of politeness and performance and rebuild the relationship with your creative expression, for you first. You’ll learn to tell the truth on the page, even when it feels inconvenient or unpretty. You’ll develop the discernment to know when to share and when to keep something sacred for yourself.

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Most importantly, Creative Living is where you’ll unhook from the performance of constant visibility and reconnect with a creative practice that restores you instead of extracting from you. You’ll expand your tolerance for complexity and contradiction so you can contribute to conversations that matter, instead of shrinking from them.

We start in October. If you’re ready to stop waiting for your work to be perfect before you create it, if you’re ready to trust your capacity to take up space and challenge consensus while staying grounded in yourself — join the Creative Living waitlist.

This is where the practice of coming home becomes a way of life.