If any creatives are still following me after the hiatus’, sudden starts and stops, and plan shifting content, thank you for believing that I would be back on the page one day. I am happy to say that after a year of evolution and settling back in, we are ready to get back into the mindset of creativity.
For those who may not know, this year is about to bring even more of a shake up as we are expecting our first child this spring. Many would caution against launching back into an endeavour that takes time, devotion, and energy away from rest, preparation, and eventually, catastrophic upheaval. However, I believe that this is the exact time to re-ground myself in creative practice, mindfulness, and a lifestyle of gentle ease as our little family transitions into a new chapter.
The beginning of the new year is a time of resolutions and making plans. To me the new year is an opportunity to promise to experiment and expand. Although I am recommitting myself to my creativity knowing full well that this year is bringing tremendous change and challenge in a few short months, I am at peace because I am committing to my creativity with grace not guilt, with gentleness not resolution. If I am to give my family the best of myself, I first need to give my best to myself, and that means being kind, gentle, forgiving, and encouraging on this journey of gentle strength through creative practice.
In a new format, each week I will blog about how each week of recommitting to creativity has gone; my goals, challenges, thoughts, and outcomes. I hope that by sharing my experience of creativity in real daily life, one other person feels empowered, feels permission, to gently explore their own pieces of creativity in daily, messy life. This is my year of coaching myself with gentle strength. This applies to all aspects of life - being a wife, becoming a mother, being a friend, holding onto myself, and my creativity.
Gentle Strength
When I think of gentle strength, I often think of my mother. She is the strongest woman I know, full of faith, and love, and hope, and stress, and understanding. Her strength has supported us all our lives, helped to guide us along our own paths, and held our family together through every season of life. Every mother loses her cool every now and then. Anyone who has ever dealt with a child knows they test your limits and do their best to destroy your patience. Yet through gentleness my mother has navigated each and every stormy season with grace, kindness, and love, though at times it seemed more like tough love, that is where her strength shone through - her ability to forgive when we did wrong, to comfort when we ended up right where she warned us we would, to understand us when we didn’t even know what we were trying to say. That is gentle strength. The strength to support, to explore, to be curious, while still being steadfast and strong against the onslaught of storms. I hope to employ this idea of gentle strength in my approach to this new season of life and especially in reconnecting with my creativity through it all.
Gentle strength: engagement, integration, understanding, forgiveness, grace. These are my five pillars that will function as themes on my creativity journey this year. The gentle strength of the creative awareness - self awareness, awareness of the world around you. Awareness allows one to appreciate the small moments and embrace the big ones too. In order to come into a more complete awareness the previously listed five pillars will be my navigation system. Let’s explore what each of these pillars is working towards and against in my big picture journey through creativity.
The Goal
Awareness - Judgement
The main goal of this endeavour is to increase my own personal awareness in all aspects of my life. Being more aware of who we are, where we are - both physically and personally - as well as aware of the impacts we have on the world and people around us is the greatest superpower of the creative. Awareness, it is important to note, is not judgement. Being aware of our failings, of our work in progress selves, aware that we are new, aware that we are beginning, does not mean judging our outcomes or products. We are worthy of gentle strength - of being aware of where we are and where we want to go without being judged by ourselves or others. Judgement stunts growth. Evaluation, reflection, noticing, these are all tools we can use to broaden our awareness without passing judgement.
The Five Pillars
Engagement - productivity
The first pillar upon which I shall build my creative practice with gentle strength is engagement. My goal is to become more engaged with the process of creating rather than being productive in a session. Productivity is narrow, it is hungry, and it can become all consuming. In a year where I know my world is about to shift on its axis I do not have the bandwidth to focus on productive outcomes. My energy is better spent being engaged in the activity before me, appreciating the time spent and the skills learned in the process of the doing rather than the product or volume at the end. Moving into a season of engagement encourages a present mindset, something I have always struggled with.
Integration - schedule
The second pillar on the path of gentle strength is integration. In the past I have tried to build creativity into routine, schedules, and to do lists in daily life. In reality, life changes on a dime. Routines change, new priorities come up without notice, and emergencies can throw off the best laid plans. By choosing to integrate creativity into the happenings and goings on of daily, messy life instead of trying to wrangle, what will become quite hectic days, into a structured schedule. The beauty of life and creativity is its unpredictability. For me to stress over scheduling time for creative pursuits when creativity is all around us everyday feels like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, when all you need to do is lift the top off and throw all of the blocks back in. Integrating creativity into the everyday is the goal, making it part of your natural existence, and that brings with it a sense of peace that no schedule will ever achieve.
Understanding - expectation
Our third pillar of guidance through this journey is understanding. Why create something, how we do so, where we feel most at home, when we feel delight; approaching these quandaries with understanding instead of expectation is another way to employ gentle strength in your process. If we come to examine our decisions and impulses with understanding instead of trying to attach a weight of expectation to our actions - using words like could or may instead of should or must - allows space for peace and joy within creativity. Instead of making it another thing on my to -do list, approaching my day with the understanding that I am only human and I am tired today means some things will get done and some things won’t, but removing expectations opens the door to relief and acceptance we all need in our lives.
Forgiveness - shame
This fourth pillar, whether we like it or not, is a reminder that creativity is often an avenue for our own healing. Forgiveness holds a special place in creative practice. Not only can it be a fantastic vehicle for healing, but forgiveness also comes into play in the small moments, like forgiving our lack of skill, forgiving ourselves when we push our creativity aside for some other activity or not finishing a project. These patterns that we build of resentment and shame can all be healed by forgiving ourselves. On the flip side, creatives can feel an abundance of shame around their creative practice, the time they take away from other priorities in their life to make the time for their creative passions, and accessing forgiveness can heal a lot of this shame around creativity itself.
Grace - guilt
Our final pillar for building a creative practice with gentle strength is grace. This is truly the piece de resistance holding up our foundation for a creative practice. Creativity is a space of grace. Granting oneself grace in creative practice means leaving room for mess and doubt and mistakes and shortcomings. It is leaving guilt at the door and allowing yourself to be present in the moment of creativity with no expectations, no limitations. I like to think of grace as permission to play, liberation. Grace is knowing that you are accepted and celebrated for all that you are as you are, and the same goes for your creative practice. Letting go of guilt is the most freeing act we can afford ourselves. Creativity is meant to be a guilt free space, a place where you can simply be and breathe. Guilt keeps us small, grace allows us to spread our wings.
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