There is an unfortunate phenomenon in our modern world that can stifle our creative energy: a silent war against our own feelings.
From a young age, we are taught to suppress what stirs within us, ensuring that every move we make is backed by our more logical minds. We are told to put our intellect in the driver’s seat and relegate our feelings to the backseat.
But here is the truth: to truly live the big, bold, expressive life you desire, you have to feel.
By always letting logic drive your actions, you numb the very sensations that fuel creative energy. You have to let yourself experience the joy of a new idea, the curiosity of an uncharted direction, and that undeniable stirring deep in your soul—and then actually follow it, even when it seems completely illogical to your rational mind.
If your days have been lacking color, or if you desperately reach for vacations only to return to the same dullness, you are not alone.
Keep reading to find out how I helped one of my clients break out of this exhausting cycle, and how you can reignite your own spark, too.
It is urgent to live enchanted.—Valter hugo mãe
The Illusion of the Perfect Escape
My new client, Lisa, texted me from the runway: “John and I just landed. The trip was great, but reality is hitting hard. I can’t keep trying to escape my life or the deadness I feel inside.”
Lisa had just returned from a vacation filled with beauty, ease, and days where the accordion of time had expanded because she had agency over her schedule and nothing on her “must-do” list.
And still, the feeling of being trapped followed her home.
Many of us know this rhythm. We reach for a break, a reset, a change of scenery, hoping something inside us will come back online and restore our creative energy. For a while, it works. Then life resumes, and the same dull edge returns.
Lisa was not lacking discipline or success.
Her days were full. Her calendar looked impressive. She had built a creative enterprise that was stable and respectable. From the outside, everything seemed intact.
Inside, there was no color, no delight, no sense of being moved by anything she was building. She felt like she was living at a distance from her daily existence, her heart.
She told me everything felt muted. Not painful enough to demand change. Not alive enough to feel worth staying in.
She had become excellent at maintaining motion without feeling.
How to Feel Your Way Forward
I began by asking her a simple question: Where do you feel even a flicker of energy?
At first, she resisted answering. She wanted a 10-point strategic plan, a clear path out. But the path she needed to unlock her dormant creative energy could not be mapped in advance. She needed to feel first.
So, I slowed her attention down.
At first, she struggled to find anything. Then, slowly, she began to notice moments of joie de vivre springing up in surprising places.
A Spark Returns
A pattern emerged. The moments that were filled with energy were often the ones she had been dismissing. She had considered them to be too small, too simple, too unrelated to her larger goals.
Even too wild, forbidden.
Instead of ignoring them, I asked her to follow them—keep her attention trained on them—and explore each with a fierceness she had previously only gifted to her business.
A couple of weeks later, Lisa spoke of a conversation with a favorite client that had not only stayed with her longer than expected but also showed up in her dreams one night. She told me about a piece of writing she did not want to stop working on. She detailed a small decision to put her desire first that felt oddly irresponsible, yet filled her with a zingy sense of adventure.
She had also reached out to someone whose work intrigued her without trying to force an outcome or tie it to a business goal. She allowed herself to explore ideas that did not yet make sense on paper.
Something began to change.
The flatness and numbness started to break. Her work began to feel less like an impersonal structure she had to uphold, and more like a playful space of possibility she could move, even dance, within. Energy returned because she was engaged with what lit up her soul.
The Antidote to Overwhelm is Vitality
The creators who move people are not the ones who have perfect clarity. They are the ones who stay in relationship with what brings them to life. They protect their creative energy by choosing authentic, aligned engagement over control. They allow curiosity and experimentation to lead.
They treat each day as a living canvas. They follow threads that feel electric, even when pragmatism urges them to stay in the boring beige, in the unfulfilling known.
This requires a willingness to notice and embrace what stirs us and move toward it before the mind builds its case against it.
Overwhelm often grows in the absence of this connection. Tasks pile up because they are disconnected from meaning. Time feels scarce because it is spent resisting rather than participating.
The antidote is not more effort or white knuckling. It is more vitality. It is a resurgence of creative energy.
Energy responds to motion. When we take one step infused with a joyful intention, the path begins to reveal itself in ways no plan could have predicted. Doors appear. Conversations align. Momentum gathers steam.
There is something in your life right now that is asking for your attention. Something that feels charged, even if it makes no logical sense yet.
Follow it.
Let it lead you back to yourself.
Because being alive in our lives is not a luxury for “someday.” It is the starting point for everything we are here to create, most especially an electric, passionate life we love.
