This is a Moment for Creativity
"What if we took whatever pain we couldn’t get rid of, and turned it into something else?"
~ Susan Cain, Bittersweet
What do you feel pulled to do when you are "feeling all the feels"?
I'm with you if one of your impulses is to go back to bed and pull the covers over your head. I'm not joking, though that image is a bit of a cliché. There are times when it's all just too much.
But my art journals--and those of most of my clients and students--are full of pages of pain, sadness, anger, dismay, and troubles. My art journal pages are fragments of my personal journey and my self-portrait. My art journaling practice is how I care for my heart, mind and spirit through turbulent and scary times.
Which is why I always feel better after art journaling. More relaxed. More in my body. More grounded. Art journaling is cathartic and ultimately transformative.
My creativity is my greatest act of self-compassion...my creativity fuels my resilience.
In 2016, in the midst of the extremely vicious presidential campaign I got an idea to create a program that I’d run online to help folks survive troubling times with creativity.
Even though it all turned out harder and much worse than I could’ve ever imagined that year, I was struggling with a family medical crisis (my mom was in the hospital for seven weeks with a mystery infection in her spine) and didn’t have the energy or bandwidth to create, market and run a brand new program.
So, there it sat in a folder on my computer.
Sure, the following weeks, months and years were beyond hard both globally and personally. In the studio many an art journal page emerged that expressed my anguish about national and world events. But, as it turned out, I had my own turbulence to attend to (coming out of the closet and ending my 30 year marriage).
And so that seed of an idea stayed dormant, in a folder on my computer. Many a page came through during that metamorphic time as I focused on figuring out my future. But that idea stayed in the folder…hibernating.
And then in early 2020, days after I moved out on my own for the first time in 30 years (and into an apartment just down the road from my beautiful Unfold Your Creative Spirit Studio), the pandemic started…and my studio went dark.
We all were scrambling and terrified. Remember those early days of the pandemic? We were afraid to touch each other. We were afraid of what would happen next. How long would this last? The numbers of the death tolls rose along with our anxiety.
And I thought: Wait. I have something I can offer.
And I opened up my folder with my ideas, art journaling prompts, and even some graphics...and Creative Life Raft was born.
Creative Life Raft: Art Journaling Through Troubling Times
CLR was a three hour class in which we'd gather, check in, I'd offer a prompt and a grounding meditation and then we'd work, our cameras on our art tables or ourselves. At the end we'd share our work. CLR wasn’t just something to pass the time during those early days when we were all hiding out in our homes, glued to our Zoom screens. CLR was a way to connect with others during a time of deep isolation.
And it was an opportunity to use the creative act to transform our feelings into something tangible.
As we sat around our Zoom "table," sharing our stories we felt compassion at a very deep level. We resonated with each other. We were held and seen and known.
"The sadness from which compassion springs is…an agent of connection and love…"
~ Susan Cain, Bittersweet
Creative Life Raft truly kept us afloat through three years of pandemic. It connected us and helped us to survive.
In August of 2022 I closed CLR. Life had moved on for so many folks. It didn’t feel dire anymore.
But, these days feel familiar to me. A terrible kind of déjà vu.
The world is especially challenging right now. And just because the world is challenging doesn’t mean our own private challenges are paused. No. We still have sick relatives, life crises, children and friends suffering from depression, and longtime friends dying unexpectedly.
With everyone I speak to, I hear this: "It’s all just too much."
It feels like it may be time to pull Creative Life Raft out of the shed and put it in the turbulent waters again.
What do you think? What thoughts, needs, desires do you have right now for creativity and connection? Does it feel like a moment for creativity to you?
Send me an email or comment below and let me know!
