Burnout, Identity, Fantasy Books, and Building Something That Feels Alive

You can love what you’ve built and still feel the undeniable pull toward something new.

For almost a decade, I built a wedding photography brand that was vibrant, expressive, and deeply personal. I poured my heart into it and showed up fully for my clients.

And then something inside me started shifting.

Not in a dramatic overnight way. In a slow, persistent way. A quiet knowing that I had grown beyond the version of creativity I was allowing myself to inhabit.

At first, I didn’t call it growth.

I called it insecurity.

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When Burnout Doesn’t Look Like Collapse

I didn’t recognize creative burnout when it started creeping in. I thought I had lost my edge. I thought I wasn’t as inspired as everyone else. I thought maybe I just wasn’t as good as I used to be and that I had zero good ideas.

So I pushed.

I refined my brand. I elevated my visuals. I leaned harder into being polished and strategic and luxury. I believed that if I could level up enough, I would feel like myself again.

But the more I refined, the smaller I felt.

Not because the work wasn’t meaningful. Not because the clients weren’t incredible. But because my entire creative identity lived inside one outlet. Every idea had to align. Every interest had to strengthen the brand. Every creative impulse had to justify itself. Everything had to be solely photography related. Everyone kept telling me I had to set up more creative shoots for myself, that had nothing to do with work. But everything with a camera started to feel like work. And the last thing I wanted to do was put together a shoot for “fun.”

I didn’t have a creative outlet that wasn’t tied to performance. I didn’t create just because something felt interesting. I created because it was my business.

And when your business becomes your entire identity, you don’t know where you end and it begins. And that’s exhausting.

During one of the busiest stretches of my career, my body finally forced me to pay attention. I ended up with a severe back injury that I’m still healing from. At the time, I treated it like bad timing. An inconvenience.

Looking back, it feels like a physical manifestation of years of overextension — creatively, emotionally, mentally. I had been carrying everything. My brand. My expectations. My comparison. My need to prove I still had it.

And now it feels like the universe was sending me a signal. A really, really big one. 

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The Books That Cracked Something Open

It started casually. A book club. A recommendation. I knew nothing about ACOTAR. And then suddenly I was up until midnight, completely absorbed. Voice texting my best friend. Spiraling over plot twists. Seeing parts of myself reflected back in fictional characters.

But what hit me wasn’t just the story. It was what happened because of these books.

These books gave words to feelings I had been carrying quietly. Grief. Identity shifts. Outgrowing old versions of yourself. Rebuilding after breaking. Wanting more without knowing what “more” is.

At this point, fantasy books cracked open more in me than any business book has for a very long time.

For the first time since starting a business, I wasn’t consuming something to improve myself or my brand. I wasn’t optimizing. I wasn’t extracting strategy. I was alive inside my imagination.

And that’s when I realized I hadn’t lost my creativity.

I had shoved it into a box and demanded from it instead of letting it flow.

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Creative Rebirth and a Bold New Direction

The idea for Talk Cliterature to Me didn’t come from a strategic plan.

It came from joy and excitement.

Pure joy that I could create something that wasn’t about proving anything. Excitement about building community around conversation and imagination instead of deliverables. The realization that my creativity could expand beyond a single medium and didn’t have to be tied to how I paid my bills. 

The podcast feels like creative rebirth because it gave me a second room to create in — one built on story, connection, curiosity, and depth.

And once I gave myself permission to build that room, everything shifted.

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Reinventing Yourself Without Erasing Your Past

Creative reinvention doesn’t require resentment. It doesn’t require burning everything down. It doesn’t require rewriting history.

It requires honesty. It requires acknowledging when you’ve grown beyond the version of yourself that built something successful. It requires you to be able to let go of who you used to be. It requires courage to follow a nudge that doesn’t make perfect business sense at first.

I’m not abandoning my past. It played such an important role in getting me to where I am today.

But I am expanding into my future and welcoming growth, change and something new. 

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If You Feel the Pull Toward Something More

If you’re a creative entrepreneur who feels restless, disconnected, or quietly uninspired, I don’t think it’s because you’re less talented or other people are “better” than you are. 

Maybe you’ve grown and you’re trying to keep yourself in a box you no longer fit in.

Maybe you’ve poured so much of yourself into one lane that you forgot you’re allowed to build another.

Maybe you need a project that doesn’t justify itself immediately.

Maybe you need imagination.

If you’ve been craving creativity that feels alive instead of optimized, deeper conversations instead of constant performance, and community instead of comparison, there’s a seat for you inside Talk Cliterature to Me.

It’s fantasy. It’s connection. It’s curiosity. It’s FUN!

But underneath all of that, it’s a reminder that you are allowed to reinvent yourself. Boldly. Publicly. Without apology.

You don’t have to shrink to maintain who you used to be.You’re allowed to enter a new era.

We get this one life. Do not let yourself shove down your dreams and desires. Allow yourself to evolve and to step into a new lane, if that’s what you feel so called to do.

Talk Cliterature to Me is my fantasy podcast that will be launching in spring of 2026. In the meantime, you can learn a little bit more about it here, and I’m genuinely SO excited to invite all my fellow witchlings to the coven.

May this be your reminder. Do NOT forget how to play. And do NOT forget just how important human connection is.