Creativity Fatigue

As an artist who has endured chronic fatigue for over 10 years, I have been endeavoring to set up an online business. 

In 2008, I taught myself to use a laptop & how to set up an Etsy shop. From being a total IT illiterate, to chatting online to members of one of Australia's  first etsy street teams DUST ( Down Under Street Team), who taught many so much, along with their online friendship. 

I have made some sales thru my online shop, but very, very slowly, not nearly like the amount I could once sell, taking my creations to market &out on the road, living life as a nomad.

Although my online sales thru Etsy, have never really helped me that much, I have perservered, maintaining my shop of One Of A Kind creations, today it mainly has listings for Custom Orders, with photos for inspiration. 

In May this year I discovered an online bootcamp, for $7 which I did, learning heaps about social marketing. I then headed off on what became a six week journey to Alice Springs and the Beaniefest, (see pictorial stories below).

Arriving back my exhaustion levels were way below, and I took some while, to recover. The traveling did  wonders for my self-esteem, bringing some joy back into my life.

Then a month ago, I did a 14 Day Challenge, online,with the same mob. Again learning so much about online business.  After finishing, I struggled for a few weeks, trying to get all the techy stuff working properly, only to find my laptop stuggling with fatigue too?   

I listen to the spirits, Itake note of signs.  I interpreted this as the universe telling me I needed rest, which I did.  During the 14 day challenge, I'd been getting excited, all fired up, with ideas and began implementing some of them. Staying up til all hours, as I began de-cluttering & tidying up areas of my studio/abode, ready to begin filming myself for future online workshop classes.  Maybe I was doing too much, too fast, and like my six week journey, ended up exerting too much energy, or as the ME/CFS community call it too many 'spoons' of energy. 

I've been connecting with this community online since doing research about my online niche for the 14 day challenge, reading posts  in online groups, abour 'spoonies', but couldn't  understand it until watching a video, where someone explained hiw she measures her daily energy usage in 'scores' of 1-5 for each activity, task or achievement she manages each  day.

CFS  is a weird disease.  For a long while in the early years of my condition, I didn't  even know what was wrong with me, only that I  was too tired to even bother to look after myself, despite  all that I  knew.    I kept searching for reasons for  my ever-increasing fatigue. Doctors suggested  various reasons, and I would remedy that, only to find I was still fatigued.

A naturopath tested me and claimed I had had an illness if which I had no recollection of.

Finally I began searching books in the library and read about a dentist, who had cured herself of cfs after realising she had a toxic amount of Mercury in her system from all the amalgum fillings she had been administering her patients.   (She re-trained as a naturopath!)

The penny dropped, Mercury Toxicity !