Hello friends.Ā
The end of the year is within sight. Which, for me at least, brings two things:
1. The gifts of spaciousness and a slower speed. Time off and the glorious experience of praise the gods no one emailing you back.Ā
This year weāve told our family āTa ta, have a lovely time, we will be staying home and learning how to winter and baking everything and we love you but please do not visit us.ā May you, too, have the space you need.Ā
2. The new yearās reset button. The chance to ask yourself āwhat am I longing for?āĀ
The last few years Iāve put some version of ācreative practiceā on my resolutions list. The elusive thing you know you need, that you want to make time for. But because you feel creatively pooped, getting started on creative work feels HARD. So haha, double bind, jokes on you, since this is the thing that gives you energy. Only if you donāt have energy you canāt do it. Now you are in a downward spiral of creative ennui. Oh good.
Have you been here before?Ā
As I have come to realize, experience design is largely the building of containers. For us to feel stuff. Be with one another. Try small things and big things. Change.Ā
Recently I was snarkily asked, when I lamented my ongoing failed attempts to be like a real artist and have a real practice, āWell are you doing for yourself what you do for others?āĀ
Oh? Have I set the conditions? Created the invitation? Recognized the varied places from which we might be entering? Designed for the feelings? Seen it as a relationship of time and space, a journey and not just a thing to accomplish?Ā Have I created a luscious container?
Certainly not. Because Iām a dummy. (Letās be real, how often do we forget to gift ourselves our own gifts?)
So a few months ago I set out to create for myself an emotional tupperware of sorts. A container, flexible enough to fit a varied array of feasts. Unprecious enough to take with me wherever I go, shove into my bag, throw through the dishwasher, fill with dirt when the two-year-old wants to make a dirt castle.Ā
In hopes that you might take from it what you find useful, here it is (also living in direct eyeline of my desk so I cannot ignore it and on my phone in a note so itās always available wherever I am). Not rules, because I donāt need yet another set to live my life within. But rather, invitationsā¦.
Give it golden hours
How on earth will you be creative if your head feels like a garbage can? Pick some of your golden hours (mine are in the morning post-run before the coffee crash hits), block them off, and protect them with your life. Build your schedule around them, rather than trying to schedule them around everything else.Ā
Set the vibe
Light the candle. Put on the music. Clear the table off. Go to the cute coffee shop. Put on hot pants if it helps you feel like your brain is awake. Make yourself a treat that looks fancy (also because we know getting up in the middle of a session is a great distraction and often leads to falling out of flow and into wandering through your snack pantry and then your to do list and suddenly there you are cleaning the living room).Ā
No distractions
Close. The. Tabs. Close them all. I made a focus mode on my phone where the only thing I can open is Pinterest and my partner is the only one who can message me. Do not change the laundry. Do not attend to that one thing. DO NOT DO IT.Ā
Warm-up
That every creative session needs a warm-up is a hill I will die on. Yet somehow, SOMEHOW, I have neglected to create them for myself. When itās just little old me. How rude.
So here are some I have started using for this practice:Ā
10 minutes of Morning Pages (basically free write, no re-reading, just blah it out all over the page and unstick your brain)
Meditate
Go on a 10 minute walk
Read a few pages of something beautiful or juicy (some current frequent pulls of mine include Devotions, Syllabus, and Big Magic)
Draw something (ugly drawing preferable) that brought me joy of late
Diverge spaciously
Donāt assume you need to know what you are going to spend your time on. And, in fact, if you have a plan already, perhaps be chaotic and throw it away. Give yourself the chance to have a little brainstorm. A āwhat if Iā¦.?ā self-jam. You may surprise yourself with what your brain serves up as deliciously enticing for today.Ā
Follow the ease
I know I often feel like oh I should do the thing Iām supposed to do, that Iāve been planning on doing. And yes I am kind of dreading it. That probably means itās what I should do. Right? I have grit. I can surely push through this sludge. Ā
But what ifā¦ you didnāt? What if you looked at your lilā brainstorm, and picked the thing that felt easeful? That felt kind to yourself? That felt joyfully un-friction-full to start.Ā
AND, often, I find that getting started with something easy warms me up enough to the point that the hard things I want to do actually feel available.Ā
Get physical
Make something with your hands. Write with actual pen and paper, if only for your warm-up. Get out the art supplies you have been saving for the day when the project or your skills feel worthy, and use them now. Put stickies on your wall. Make bad art. Make good art.Ā
Stay in it
When the urge strikes you, as it will (for me itās about 40 minutes in), to jump up and do the thing that just popped into your brain, or give yourself a little congratulatory instagram moment because youāve been doing such a good job, DONāT. Urge yourself back into your work. My hunch is that you have at least another good chunk in you if you donāt give up on yourself. You can do it. Stay with it.Ā
Alright. Thatās what Iāve got. Best of luck out there. Iām rooting for you. Make yourself something nice. I hope you do.Ā
And, if you have designed your own emotional tupperware, Iād love to hear about it.Ā