Re-discovering creativity after a life crisis

I've had a long year where I haven't really had the mental space to be creative. Sometimes life is like that. I wanted to write a small retrospect describing why and what I did to find some semblance of creative energy again. I'm jotting this down for a few reasons:

• I've always defined myself as a maker. Lego, text, code, illustration, photography. When all of that disappeared over night, I felt really lost.
• Writing this makes it official. In a weird way it's almost me giving myself permission to be creative again.
• If you or someone you know is in a similar position it might be encouraging to see that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
• Indiehackers is about being personal and vulnerable, and yet I rarely see life stuff being discussed at this level. I figured I'd give it a try.

And one final note before I get into it: While this is about personal life issues I'm leaving out a lot of things that isn't useful in an indiehacker-context. For drama, head to reddit :)

The background

The past one and a half has been rough on me. In a couple of weeks my awesome son turns two years old. When he was six months my (ex-)wife cheated on me with an old colleague of hers. I found out three months later - right when I was going on parental leave for 10 months. Long story short: we tried to fix it, she cheated again, and when we separated she started seeing a guy where I work. I only found this out when I was going back to work, further complicating things.

So I found myself in a position where my family life was a mess, and my work life was untenable. Not the ideal place to be when you want to build cool fun stuff.

So what do you do when crisis hits?

The first thing I did was set my priorities straight. I got help and started seeing a therapist. She was fantastic and helped me realize a few things:

• This is a rough period. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to not produce things. Focus on functioning: be a great father and take care of yourself.
• Take care of yourself by sleeping enough, do your exercise, eat healthy and socialize with your family and/or friends. That's it - that's the only bar you have pass.
• Know that as you heal, emotions will hit you in waves. That's okay. The waves will be smaller and fewer over time.

Basic stuff, but so important to hear when it feels like the world is crashing down. After a while I started seeing what I was going through as phases:

• Crisis. The first couple of months, before and after I discovered the cheating. Life was just turmoil.
• Processing. Understanding what happened, and tried finding a good solution. Backtracking a bit when needed, testing another possible solution.
• Buildup. Implementing a solution and waiting for pieces to fall into place. Found a new apartment, separated finances, divorced etc.
• Stabilization. Most of the pieces have fallen into place, and I'm starting to enjoy life again.

Through discovering these phases it felt weirdly okay to not be a maker, even though it was such a big part of me. I knew time and energy would return later on. And it has. I'd say I'm making the transition between buildup and stabilization, and only now does it feel like I can afford myself to be creative again.

Next week I'm starting a new job. Not sure it's my next career or not, but it will be a lovely change of pace. I expect to learn a lot, which is always inspiring. And even better: I've made numerous improvements to my primary side project again, after almost a year of only minimal updates.

So if you're in a similar position, know that it's okay to put stuff on hold. Focus on your immediate priorities and get back to creativity (and enjoying life) when you can. It might feel a long ways off right now, but you'll get there.

Now, this might not be something the community enjoys. But I'd love to hear your stories. How do you tackle creativity in harder times? Any strategies you're willing to share?