The Quiet Grief of Not Feeling Like Yourself and How Creativity Helps You Listen

I used to love photography. I loved the simplicity of it. How I could bring ideas to life with just a camera, light, and a moment in time. It opened up a creative part of me I didn’t know how to reach before, and for a long while, it felt like my thing. Something I was good at.

I don’t remember when that changed. There was no clear ending. Somewhere along the way, the excitement faded. Instead of feeling drawn to the camera, I started to feel a quiet resistance. I would think about shooting, even projects I once loved, and feel myself pull back. Not fear exactly. More like a dull weight. A sense that engaging with it would take something I did not have to give.

For a long time, being a photographer wasn’t just something I did. It was who I was. I built my identity around it, and other people did too. I was the artsy one. The person people came to for profile photos or creative projects. And when I could no longer meet photography the same way, when the desire disappeared, I didn’t just lose interest in an art form. I lost the version of myself that had been wrapped up in it.

I assumed something was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I feel the way I used to? What had changed? I tried to push through it. I kept showing up as the person everyone still saw. But forcing myself into an identity that no longer fit only pulled me deeper into burnout.

I had built a life around something I once loved, and suddenly I was standing inside it with no clear way forward. The thing that had helped me understand who I was no longer made sense in the life I was living.

Not Feeling Like Yourself Is a Kind of Grief We Rarely Talk About

This experience isn’t rare. It’s just hard to name. A lot of people move through it without ever calling it loss, because nothing clearly ends. There’s no single moment you can point to. Just the slow realization that something you relied on to feel like yourself no longer fits.

We tend to associate grief with obvious things. A person. A place. A version of life that’s clearly gone. What we rarely name is the grief of losing access to parts of yourself. The parts that used to make things feel lighter or easier to navigate.

When that happens, it’s easy to assume the problem is you. That you should be able to push through, adapt again, figure it out. But this kind of shutdown isn’t a flaw. It’s information. A sign you’ve been carrying too much for too long.

Naming it as grief doesn’t make it heavier. It gives it shape. And for many people, that recognition is the first moment of relief.

When Identity and Capacity Fall Out of Sync

Identity doesn’t arrive all at once. It forms quietly around what you’re good at and what people come to expect from you. You don’t consciously decide it. It takes shape through repetition. Doing the same thing again and again. Hearing the same feedback. Feeling the relief of finding something that fits.

Creativity often becomes part of that picture because it offers more than expression. It gives you a role. A place where you feel capable and seen.

At first, it’s subtle. Things take longer. What used to feel natural starts to feel exhausting. You hesitate more. You second-guess yourself.

Eventually, the questions creep in. Why does this feel so hard now? Why can’t I do this the way I used to? You start assuming something about you is broken, instead of noticing how much you’ve been carrying.

Trying to keep up with who you’re supposed to be becomes exhausting. Not because you don’t care, but because you’re asking yourself to operate in a way that no longer matches your reality.

The Cost of Pretending to Be Who You Used to Be

When the thing that once defined you starts slipping out of reach, pushing harder can feel like the only option. Not because it’s working, but because it’s familiar. Because it’s what you’ve always done. Because stepping back can feel like letting go of something that once mattered.

For a while, that effort looks like resilience. You keep showing up. You keep saying yes. You keep playing the role you know how to play. From the outside, it looks like strength. From the inside, it feels like strain.

This is where people get stuck. They try harder and it doesn’t help, so they assume the problem must be discipline or motivation. But the problem isn’t effort. It’s the cost of trying to live inside something that no longer fits.

Photography itself hadn’t changed. What had changed was the way I was meeting it. I kept approaching it as if my life still looked the same, even though it didn’t. My energy was different. My capacity was different. Pretending otherwise only made the gap harder to ignore.

Creativity as a Way to Listen, Not Perform

I didn’t find my way back to creativity by trying to be creative again. I found it by making things smaller. By lowering the bar until it barely felt like a bar at all. I stopped asking for ideas or outcomes. Some days, I didn’t even expect myself to make something. I just let myself imagine and let the possibility exist.

What showed up wasn’t inspiration. It was quieter than that. Small moments I might have missed before. Noticing which colors I kept reaching for. Making things that felt unfinished or unnecessary, and letting them stay that way.

Somewhere in that, I started to notice a shift.

Creativity stopped being about output and became a check in. A way to slow down enough to notice what was actually there.

Reconnecting Isn’t About Going Back to Who You Were

For a long time, I thought reconnecting meant finding my way back to who I used to be. The version of me with more energy. More drive. More certainty. I kept measuring myself against her, even as it became clear she belonged to a different life than the one I was living.

Creativity became part of the reconnecting process. Not as a goal to work toward, but as a place to practice noticing. Through that attention, I started to feel like myself again. Not as I was, but as I am.

Small Creative Doorways

When I was trying to reconnect with myself, aiming big only pulled me back into old patterns.

What helped was letting creativity be small. Not something I had to do well or finish or turn into anything. Just something I could step into for a few minutes and step back out of again.

From the outside, it probably didn’t look like much. But it helped me notice things. What I could stay with. What felt okay. What quietly drained me. I wasn’t trying to get motivated or figure anything out. I was just paying attention.

And that ended up mattering more than I expected. Creativity stopped being about making something and started helping me notice myself. I didn’t reconnect by doing more. I reconnected by slowing down and letting myself simply be.

A Space for This Season of Creativity

DIYvinci didn’t start as a big plan. It started when the way I used to create stopped working. I kept trying to muscle my way back to who I was, and it only made me feel worse. The only thing that helped was letting creativity change with me.

This isn’t a space built around “making stuff.” It’s built around using creativity to notice yourself. To figure out what you actually have to work with today. To stop pretending you’re fine. To start from what’s real.

If you don’t feel like yourself right now, that doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. Sometimes it just means you’re in the middle of a change that hasn’t finished taking shape.

You don’t have to rush clarity or decide who you’re becoming. Staying close to yourself, noticing what fits, what doesn’t, what you’re drawn toward, can be enough for now.

Creativity doesn’t resolve that process. But it can sit with you while it unfolds.

For now, that’s enough.

If you’re not feeling like yourself and want a quiet place to begin, the Creative Aura Quiz offers a way to listen to what you may need right now: Explore Your Creative Aura