It hit me this week, the gravity of the past 2 years. I wonder when someone goes through a traumatic event, do they know the weight of what’s happening? As I was driving home from book club on Sunday, I felt an unfamiliar sense of freedom. I was able to be in a room of others without a mask. A group of us gathered to enjoy each other’s company and discuss our thoughts on a book we read for pleasure. The teachers at our gymnastics school are no longer going to be wearing masks. My husband is flying on an airplane. It felt so odd, driving home, reminiscing on the way life used to be before Covid. I have a renewed sense of gratitude and appreciation for community. My tolerance for shit I don’t want to do is completely gone and I have sharpened my skill of only saying yes to things that light me up. I realized I felt trapped in a mental tornado, obsessive thoughts swirling in my head, trying to make sense of the happenings in the world. Honestly, I feel relatively lucky for having the circumstances I had during lockdowns and this altered way of living. But even with the self care tools I have acquired, the comfort of my home, the freedom in my state, I struggled with the heaviness of being with myself all of the time. I struggled with the discomfort of trying to figure out which steps to take with my family. I discovered some new things, like homeschool, and healed from some heavy things, like the need for validation and an ability to finally be with myself, by myself. The hard truth is that if you asked me a few years back if I had voluntarily wanted to go through what we did, even knowing what was on the other side, I would have said hell no. And the beauty of it all is that I actually got to know myself and I learned how to find a true joy for my life. Ruthie Lindsay says that joy lives in the places carved out by grief and my hope is that we all have a little more space for joy now. 

Morning Routine

I stumbled upon a new obsession over the past 2 weeks, one that has ignited my creative fire and zest for learning again. Not since I discovered photography have I felt this way about an artistic medium. I found a new morning routine through journaling and drawing… on the iPad. My friend, Melissa Dunne, convinced me to buy an Apple Pen and she convinced me to download an app called Goodnotes. I have spent many of my mornings writing my thoughts, my dreams (like the actual ones), and my experiences in this app. It allows you to create journals for your different interests and keeps them in once place. With the apple pen, writing is as easy as writing in your notebook, but allows this adhd brain to keep track of where they all are. Procreate makes it easy to create art without having to lug the art cart with me throughout the house. My morning routine is a good cup of coffee in my favorite mug, some time journaling via my favorite prompts, and time spent drawing whatever doodles pop in my head (or in my Pinterest feed). 

If you are looking for a good journaling program, Aimee McNee has some amazing prompts in her Journaling Compendium. It’s free when you sign up for her newsletter, both of which are worth it. 

I have decided that my 365 project can include other forms of art. As long as I draw, paint, or take a photograph, I am counting it all. The goal of my 365 project is to practice being creative. It’s the idea of sitting down and creating something from scratch, even when I have to find forms of inspiration in places like pinterest. To me, that feels like the hardest piece of being an artist. Learning about it is easy. There are so many ways to learn a craft. Sitting down and actually putting it into practice is the part that’s hard. It’s the part that forces us to allow some life force other than our own to guide us and that can feel scary. Or maybe the scary part is just simply following the inspiration. Because what if I create this work and it’s not good? What if I draw that landscape and it looks like shit? What am I going to post now? How will people know that I am doing my 365 project if I don’t show them? 

I never realized the inherent themes of capitalism in my art until I started examining why I create. What I mean is, the idea of just sitting down and creating something that is shit is absolutely terrifying because what am I going to show for that time? What does it say about me as an artist, that I waste my time doing things that don’t produce something? I am challenging myself to play each day, with no guarantees that I will have anything to show for it. With no guarantees that I will be productive. 

Sometimes, I forget which pieces of my daily life are the most effective in supporting my creative dreams therefore, I forget to share them with others. I get overwhelmed by what I should be sharing with y’all and it makes creating content difficult. A friend mentioned today that I should share some of my daily routines that support my creative habit which is why I wrote this post.

A solid morning routine is probably the number 1 thing I can do to develop a relationship with my creative life-force. Daily writing, quiet time without interruptions, and a routine that feels like self care are the most important pieces of my day. I am lucky that I have a lot of time as a homeschooling mom, but I have to be intentional about creating that time because it’s easy for me to sleep in and start the day running around.

The thing that sucks the most is that, so far, when I postpone dopamine producing activities until later, like scrolling social media, I am generally in a better mood. And I’m more productive. ORRRR if I DO pick up my phone, I am very cautious about who’s stories I watch. If it’s something that’s inspiring like EileenandCo, a greenville native living our her dreams as an expat in France or ChrisLovesJulia, a home design team, both of which are extremely creative and positive, then i’m okay. The truth is, though, that I have no control over what pops into my screen so it’s best for me to not get distracted and instead, spend time creating.

I also have an afternoon ritual that is purely designed to support myself in a cozy way. I make myself a cup of afternoon coffee or tea, I sit under the weighted blanket on my couch, and I either read, draw, or maybe even watch tv. I allow myself to feel into what I need in that moment and give it to myself. It’s a time of rest and a time for pleasure. I use a fun cup and every choice is made to light me up. This is the second most important part of my day.

The habit I am trying to implement now is an evening routine where I relax and meditate. The challenge is that sometimes, I’m so tired, I don’t have the energy to meditate. A couple of nights this week, I have actually taken that time to draw, but other nights, I have gone straight to bed. There are times where I take a bath with some lavender bath salts and I drank chamomile and lavender tea. I haven’t created any kind of consistency though so I wouldn’t call it a routine… yet.

Overall, I think the key to creative a life full of inspiration is 1. believing that you are worthy of those little sacred moments, 2. implementing those little sacred moments, and 3. writing to discover who you truly are. My self care journey has mainly been me, learning what truly inspires me and it really isn’t much, but the fear I had about being weird held me back. Once I accepted that I was weird and that was okay, I began to truly live.