“Unused creativity is not benign–it metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgement, sorrow, shame. We are creative beings. We are by nature creative.” - Brene Brown.
I am about to wrap up my THIRD #100dayproject. This project is about committing to a daily creative act for 100 days. The first year I chose to do daily line drawings because I have always wanted to be able to draw, and I know that practice makes progress. The second year for similar reasons I chose watercolor painting. This year I chose collage which has always been my favorite medium because it’s fun to use existing images to create new ideas, like visual poetry.
Over the past three years I have completed these projects while working, parenting, traveling, hosting birthday parties, and doing all the things. I have learned so much about creating space, prioritizing my time and the benefits of following through.
Reflecting back on three years of this project I can see how much it has opened up my life. It has changed the way I see myself, created new opportunities, new friendships, deepened existing relationships, and become an important part of how I stay centered in my daily life. It is with this realization that I have created an accountability program that I would like to offer to anyone and everyone who:
Has had a creative idea in the back of their mind but hasn’t been able to get into action.
Feels they aren’t “creative” but wants to be.
Wants to feel more connection, balance and joy in their life.
Tending to your creativity expands your life in ways you can’t yet imagine. It’s the gift of being human, it’s how we live fully. Everyone has it, not everyone uses it. Creativity is not only about art, it’s about creating something that wasn’t there before. Some creative ideas:
Planting a garden
Creating a new meditation, yoga, exercise routine
Daily writing or sketchbook
Cooking meals for your family
Learning to draw, knit, crochet
Healthy self-care plan
Re-Learning American History
Making collages
Learning a new skill or picking back up an old hobby.
Writing letters to loved ones
Learn astrology
Daily dancing
Maybe you don’t even know...
It doesn’t really matter what you do, but it matters that you do it. Committing and recommitting is how progress is made. Progress is slow, progress might not feel like anything for a very long time. Seeds take a season to grow, but once they are planted, and tended, they do their thing.
Accountability helps because you will:
1) Say out loud what maybe has just been in your head.
2) Have a witness who can reflect your desires back to you and hold space for your ideas.
3) Have someone to provide reminders and help break down blocks when they arise (sorry, they always do).
4) Enjoy the process more!
Tell me about your wacky, wild, don’t make sense ideas. The ones you think you’ll never have time for, or you’ll have time for when… (the kids are older, I retire, I have a more supportive partner, I have more money in the bank, Mercury isn’t retrograde, etc.)
I promise I won’t laugh, I won’t tell you it’s impossible, I won’t judge your idea, I will hear it, ask questions and I will honor it, with you and sometimes for you.
Follow your curiosity, pick up the bread crumbs and see where they lead. The magical part of creating something new is that you can’t possibly know what will come from it. It might feel scary, that’s why I’m here.
If you or someone you know think this might be something you’d like to try, please email ccsoja@comcast.net or leave a comment with your email below, and we can set up a time to talk.
Program Outline:
Schedule a 30 minute call with me to talk about your idea (or discover your idea) and break down barriers/blocks.
I will create an accountability plan for you.
Follow-up with a 30 minute accountability call and determine next steps.
I am asking $44 for this service, because I believe that your investment will help you be successful.
Please feel free to pass this along to anyone in your life who you has been talking about their ideas and needs to get into action.
You can see my projects on Instagram @sojachristine or on my Facebook page Art is Alchemy
I value Nature
On Thursday I flipped my lid at least three times. There were too many things going on, computer files not opening, cooking with hot oil, virtual meetings virtually impossible to break into. Every surface in our house is covered in papers, plates, miscellaneous toys, plus, everyone calling my name, well not really my name but my title “mom….Mom….MOM!!!” I felt like a caged tiger. It was either eat one of my young, or find a way out. Luckily the cat needed food, so I had an escape errand to run. I also made a second stop to the closest slice of nature that I know of.
There is a trail, it’s only about 300 feet long, and it doesn’t lead anywhere, but it’s like a slice of heaven in the middle of the neighborhood. I let the dog off the leash, she gets her good sniffing on, and we end up together at a small stream. The sound of the water, the sunlight above filtering through, it was a Calgon moment.
In nature I feel restored. I think it’s because nature doesn’t rush, it doesn’t yell, and it doesn’t ask me to do anything. Nature forgives, quietly, and continues to do it’s thing. In nature everything is working in alignment with divine order. Just being in that energy makes me feel 1,000% better.
I am so fortunate also to have a front and a back porch with comfortable seating, where I can escape at home. Just walking out the door into the outside brings instant calm. I can set my focus on something else, feel the breeze on my skin, listen to the birds, sometimes smell the salt-air. It has the power to bring me back to calm. In nature everything makes sense. Even I, make sense.
I’ve noticed since the COVID-19 has forced us all home, so many more people are taking breaks in nature. I hope that we all remember what medicine it has been, so that when this passes, we continue to go out for walks, and maybe even remember that protecting the natural world is protecting our piece of mind.
After my mini-retreat I was able to return to the lair feeling centered and capable. Which was good because my husband had hit the wall by that time, and I needed to tag back in.
I value Creativity
Ten years ago I found myself in a lull. It seemed like many of the questions I had fantasized about as a kid had been answered: Would I ever kiss a boy? Where would I live? What kind of career would I pursue? Would I marry? Would I have kids? And while I could now answer these, there were deeper questions I couldn’t shake: What’s my purpose? How do I contribute? What am I here for?
At the end of that summer, sitting at the edge of the still waters of Great Pond in Maine I gazed out and these bigger questions got louder and louder. This visit to my parents’ cabin provided me the much needed relief from my boys (.5 and 2.5 years old) to be able to begin to hear the questions in the first place. My mother is a student of life and a collector of books of all kinds. In one of her stacks I pulled out Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way.” I’d seen the book before, but my inner voice “you’re not an artist” had kept me from digging in. Now I had the time and the space to open the book and begin.
The practices were gentle and available. I quickly took to the morning pages and made a commitment to follow the book to the end with whatever pockets of time I could create. I had intermittently kept a journal, and the new daily routine of sitting down with paper and pen felt comforting. I wasn’t writing for others, or to publish a book, but just for me, and there is magic in putting words on paper. I truly believe that if we could all commit to connecting to our authentic expression, the world would be a better place.
Today the word creativity feels a cringe-worthy. Creativity is sold in the aisles at Michaels; it’s bedazzling your pocketbook, but it’s so much more. Researcher Brene Brown says “The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.” It is how we express ourselves. It’s taking some unnamed thing inside of us and spinning it into physical reality. We use our hands, an extension of our heart, to make something that wasn’t there before. Brown also says “You want to move stuff from your head to your heart? You’ve got to use your hands.”
Now, as we endure COVID19, we are asked to draw heavily from the well of creativity. How will we make this new way work? Fear may be using a lot of our energy, but if we turn toward creativity, in any form, we can begin to get into the flow. Fortunately, Maya Angelou says, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.” We will figure out how to live in a new way. Our fear of the unknown would have us re-create something as familiar as possible, but is that what we want?
I value Curiosity
Curiosity in the time of COVID-19 means wondering when this will be over, what will things be like after this? There is definitely a sense that there was before and after. My optimistic self hopes that this time will remind us of what is important, and of how undeniably connected we all are. That after this time, we will have remembered who we are without all of the distractions, errands, commitments, and baseball games. My hope is that we will be transformed by this time when mother nature sent us inside, grounded us from seeing our friends or going out for dinner.
Curiosity to me means wonder, action, and the desire to know. It is the mother of creation, it is where our creativity lives. My original hero was Curious George. The adventures and trouble George would find by following his curiosity would always forgiven because….he was just curious… Our culture wants you to believe that “curiosity killed the cat” - curiosity is dangerous. It will get you killed! Because curiosity is how we make the world over and over again, in our own ways. Curiosity is like the headlights on a dark mountain road. It gets us just far enough to be able to see the next bend. You can see this in children who spend the day bouncing from one curiosity to the next. This is our nature. These are the breadcrumbs of our own personal journey. I don’t think it is accidental what we are curious about. Society wants to talk us out of it because it’s dangerous for people to be off running around following their ideas. We don't need anymore ideas, we need people to follow through on the ideas we already have. That is how society functions, but curiosity is how we follow our dreams.
I’ve struggled in my life to find my “passion” the one thing that I obsess with, that I think, “if only…” for me there has never been one obsessive dream like “I need to be an actress, or a writer, or a chef.” For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me because of this singular lack of passion. Elizabeth Gilbert in her TED talk identified the other kind of creative, and finally I felt seen. This type bounces from curiosity to curiosity, making connections and cross pollinating along the way. This is the hummingbird, and this is me. I’ve never felt driven by one dream, but I am constantly curious and willing to try new things.
Our curiosity isn’t random, it isn’t childish, it isn’t foolish, it’s our soul whispering to us. The conflict can arise when we live only in curiosity and don’t pause to absorb the joy from each tiny move. It can cause me to feel unsettled, always questioning and never really appreciating what is. It can cause me to live in a sliding doors type of way where I’m always wondering what would have been. That’s a blend of curiosity, nostalgia and magical thinking that can be a trap. But curiosity on it’s own, listened to and followed can lead us down an extraordinary path, that’s what it’s for.
I have followed my curiosity when I wondered what life outside of New England would be like, with every job I’ve taken or creative project. What would happen if… There is a level of safety and security that has also enabled me to follow these dreams, because I am fortunate in that I have a safety net. What could really go wrong?? And that is part of my privilege. But we can also be curious about small things throughout the day, and those moments can bring joy. I wonder what would happen if… Try it a few times today and see what happens. Let me know!
I Value Freedom
Freedom to me means having choices, being unrestricted, having the power to act, think and speak freely. Freedom is high on my list because without personal agency, I don’t believe we can reach beyond our upper limits. For me now this means substance-free, saying no when I need to take care of myself over saying yes because of what other people might think.
I was so fortunate to have a childhood that felt very free. We lived near the ocean and I could roam with my friends, around our neighborhood until I was ready to go home (or Sarah’s mom blew the whistle). We didn’t have an agenda, other than to explore and make believe.
Freedom as a teen meant rebelling against the rules, finding out how much I could get away with, without my freedom being restricted via punishment or loss of privileges. I chose the University of Arizona, 3,000 miles from home searching for freedom, and sunshine. I have a vivid memory of riding my bike to my work-study job early one morning. Realizing that nobody really knew where I was, I got there under my own power, and I was going to work...I felt happy and free.
I wielded my freedom without much understanding for the lack of freedom of those around me. Essentially oblivious, I still assumed at that point in my life that everyone basically thought like me. This was America, everyone was free. What this type of freedom misses, is that we are only free when everyone is free. That we are all connected to each other, and it is our responsibility to use our freedoms to free others.
The flip side of freedom is option overload. When I graduated from college I had total freedom (with a side of student debt). I had no job, no money, no plan and I subsequently had a complete and utter meltdown. Nobody to tell me what classes I needed to take, no idea what job would suit me, or how I would pay my bills. I had lived my life in four year chunks with clear goals in mind. I knew how to play that game. Luckily I had a partner with a plan, and he became my life raft until I could paddle for myself.
I’m still working to free myself. To find my true nature, my true desires, my true path. I have freed myself from substances in order to find clarity and deeper meaning. Freedom is high on my list of values because I aspire to free myself from the expectations that were laid on me, or that I willingly picked up out of fear, and to one day help others do the same.
Happy birthday to me
Two years ago, I gave myself a gift. I knew it would be big, and I knew it would be hard, but I hoped it would jolt me off of the hamster wheel that I felt my life becoming.
I distinctly remember the first time I realized the cyclical nature of life. Riding the yellow school bus, it must have been my freshman year of high school, because I was way too cool for the bus after that year. I had a knowing, as we rounded the corner of Greely Road and Main Street at the same time as the day before and the day before that, that life was a series of circles. That feeling of repetition, routine, going round and round felt like a trap to me, boring. I wanted life to be exciting and exhilarating. I was seeking a you never know what might happen so you don’t want to miss it kinda feeling. All. The. Time. Which is what attracted me to drinking in the first place.
My adventures with alcohol started in high school. It was rebellious, it was daring, it was complicated because many favors needed to be pulled and everything needed to line up just so in order for the magic to happen. And when we were successful, things became exciting, you never knew what might happen...this was where life got interesting. So I bonded the two in my mind, drinking = excitement. And I have always wanted nothing more than to lead an exciting life.
Having a drink was how I socialized, celebrated, and relaxed at the end of the day. I remember feeling lucky that I wasn’t an alcoholic, that I wouldn’t have to live life without icing on my cake. Until it hit me, at least ten years ago, possibly more, that I was back on the hamster wheel. It came to me first as the realization that I couldn’t have both a nightlife and a day life. Having drinks at night would often mean that the following day would be spent in a half-sick molasses kind of state, stewing in a combination of shame (was I obnoxious?) and regret (why did I say yes to that last drink??). Adding young kids to the equation amplified the shame as I could only disappoint those little guys with and their incessant lust for life.
So two years ago, after an amazing weekend celebrating my birthday with my girlfriends, I decided I was going to take a break. A long break. To get off of the hamster wheel, to rejuvenate my cells, to never wake up with a headache, and to see what that was like. I knew it was possible because I had done it twice, while pregnant. And I had enjoyed myself very much. The same thing that used to feel so risky, so “grown up”, that I thought gave me my edge, I was now removing for exactly the same reasons: to jump into uncertainty, to feel more alive, to find and push my edge.
The first year, and showing up in the usual cycle of events of my life was challenging, and forced me to do something I had never been good at: standing up for myself and saying no. I always prided myself on saying yes, on always being ready to throw caution to the wind, but what I realized is that I was just trying to avoid conflict, and not speaking my truth. The truth was, I didn’t want to drink, I didn’t want to numb out, didn’t want to lose the next day or live in the gray anymore. When I said no to drinking, I was speaking my truth, and that was a gift. I could explain or not explain it to people who were thrown off guard, but it was my call. I could go out at night AND do something fun the next day, even early in the morning! I started to wake up when the house was quiet and cherished that time. I began to gather up my energy, and control where it goes. And going out got so cheap! It isn’t about what I pour down my throat, it’s about the people, getting to know and spending time with the incredible people I love. And those connections are so much stronger when I am clear and present with them.
I feel proud to drive home from events, to talk to my kids without alcohol on my breath, to show them by example that drinking doesn’t need to be a part of every celebration or the only way to unwind. To point out to them the ways our culture sells us this one-size-fits-all remedy. We talk about how drinking has been normalized to the point that saying no requires an explanation. That it can be socially risky to decide not to do what “everyone” is doing, but it’s also empowering. They will makes their own choices, I just want them to be awake and informed.
So the long break has turned into a lifestyle, and I’m here to say, my friends didn’t leave me, my life didn’t fall apart. A whole new world has opened up to me, in cutting one thing out, it has cleared the space for so much more. Now I say yes to things I truly want to do (most of the time), and feel a sense of awe for myself, that I followed that little niggling feeling, my intuition, and have only begun to reap the benefits.
I value peace
As a value, Peace is at the top of my list. I don’t like conflict, I like it when things run smoothly, when people get along, when problems are solved creatively, when everyone wins. Peace to me means non-violence, getting along, respecting ourselves, each other and our planet. There is also a romantic idea of peace wherein everything is tranquil; the bird are singing, a gentle breeze is silently cooling the warm air. I have no place to go, nothing TO DO, nobody needs anything from me.
A few years back I was chatting with a friend. I was wearing a sweatshirt, I believe I got from the kids section of Target that was grey and said “Peace” across the front. (whatever happened to that sweatshirt??) anyways he was saying, oh yeah, his daughter is really into peace. Peace signs, flowers, hearts, peace all over the place. That’s funny, I said, my sons are really into violence, weapons, shooting, killing, that kind of thing. My kids call me a hippy because of my peace loving ways. But doesn’t every person deep inside also long for peace? What’s not to want? Who wants conflict and destruction? Why do my young boys, growing up in this time and place automatically gravitate toward weapons as toys, or even make their own out of whatever materials are nearby? They know how I feel, and it still has little to no effect on their choices, but at least I can offer another perspective.
Peace as a value also seems like a no-brainer. What’s not to agree with? This shows up in my day to day as me trying to be non-judgemental, trying to reach for solutions wherein there doesn’t need to be a winner and a looser. I meditate, I try to find the peaceful places within me even when everything around me is screaming and arguing and fighting for attention and resources. I turn the music off, the TV on mute during commercials, I am always searching for peace.
The shadow side of this way of being is that I can use my value of peace as a way to avoid conflicts or difficult conversations. In the name of peace I will go around something troublesome instead of diving in deeper. This then leads to a kind of silence and isolation that keeps me out of the muck, where deeper relationships are formed, where my own edges can be found, where I form my own boundaries and know who I am.
A few years ago, we marched on the MLK day. I was so proud, showing up with my kids in their wagon, bundled up in the cold January sun. It wasn’t until the end of the walk when someone finally pointed out to me that my peace signs were in fact Mercedes Benz emblems. Is that what I was marching for?? Sometimes I can think I’m seeking peace, or representing it, but really I’m using it to hide, to perform, or to avoid. I still, however, believe it is of high value, and worth the occasional embarrassment.
baby steps
When a baby learns to walk, does the baby have aspirations of immediately running (and winning) a 100 meter dash? I don’t know, but I do know that something inside that baby decides that this is necessary - to keep up with siblings? To face the world eyes forward instead of staring at the ground? To look like the other humans around it? Something deep inside the baby says, let’s do this. And the baby follows suit. The baby follows it’s intuition and does the next thing it can handle under it’s doughy and top-heavy frame. And eventually, months later this baby is walking around like the rest of us, on to new challenges like eating solid foods and not choking on grapes. This week, after gentle yet persistent niggling from my intuition, as well as a coach I’ve hired to remind me, I took a wobbly baby step in a direction my intuition has been pointing me toward.
I have been wanting to have conversations about creativity and connection and life. I have spent the majority of my life trying to understand my own desire to make marks on paper, collage elements together, and put words on a page. In some way, I know that when I do these things, I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. I feel connected and I feel more whole. When I don’t do those things, I loose myself and become a grasping, unsettled, difficult person to be.
I want to remind other people to keep this work moving forward. We have all pretty much bought into the idea that we need to keep our physical bodies strong and healthy, why not our creative ones as well? So I set out to coach a few women ( they were the ones who responded) to see what I could do. Coaching produces mass amounts of imposter complex and resistance in me. My coach gave me an assignment: talk to ten people. Ok, I will try.
And what I learned from these conversations was that I am not alone. Most of the women I talked to also knew that their creativity was important, but weren’t necessarily making it a priority. I was able to remind them of their prior loves, things they used to do that brought them joy. I don’t know where this will lead, but I do know that those conversations fueled me, made me nervous and filled me with dread. Until I was on the phone, and then I relaxed, listened, and was able to offer suggestions that I have found helpful. It was a baby step, and I am gaining more confidence that I do have something to say, a way to serve. They were all mothers, all knew they could put more into their creative lives, and I am here to cheer them on, to follow up, to remind them, as my coach does me, that this is something that matters to me.
this week in the garden
I bought the bulbs a month ago. I envisioned them last spring, when the daffodils were popping up all over reminding us that spring is coming, warmer weather and more flowers are on their way. I always thought daffodils were ordinary, even ugly. I preferred to plant tulips or crocus. But this last spring the daffodils caught my eye and I began to appreciate the ease at which they sprout. The vibrant yellow forcing us to see them. Their round faces looking at us. Like many of my former judgements, I am opening to possibility.
So this week I located my deep digging hand shovel, also realizing it is November and the time us now. There were a few garden chores I’ve had on my list that I’d been putting off because they were fall jobs. One was to plant a now flourishing potted New Zealand flax plant that I had rescued as a single surviving strand a few years back. It was dying in my front yard from dog traffic and lack of light. I replanted it in a pot in a protected area and 3 years later this giant flax was ready to be put back into the ground.
But wouldn’t it be nice to divide it? To have two plants instead of just one? My garden is small, but I’ve been working it bit by bit from the turf and sod that was laid without love by the builder. So there is room, and being that I’m obsessed with dividing plants, this project excited me.
I slid the flax out of it’s home to find a massive web of thick roots like hard spaghetti. The root ball was too big to fit in the spot I was hoping for so I decided to go ahead and divide. I started by slicing off the roots horizontally. Good by years of deep growth! You’re not longer needed. In fact you are keeping the plant itself from thriving. After releasing the old thick roots it would take a lot of work for me to slice the plant vertically and to separate the stalks into a two new plants. Here is where the divine stepped in. Instead of splitting it in two as I’d hoped, as I stood on the shovel and sliced away with all of my body weight, the base of the plant divided into nine different plants! I won the lottery of New Zealand flax! That’s almost $200 dollars worth of plants! I’m so glad I didn’t give up on that weak little stalk years back and gave it a second chance.
So now I have to find space for nine new potential plants, plus find spots for the daffodils. The flax plants are brown and pink, strong and bold and I now have two uniform areas of repeated elements, something my garden rarely has. structure. That was pretty easy.
Now to plant the daffodils. I knew I wanted them to look wild, but not random. I knew I wanted to avoid what generally happens when I plant bulbs and I end up with trim rows which look lonely and false. Daffodils need to be six inches deep and I planted them in groups of three (the magic number) around the base of the one and only gigantic, magnificent pine tree in my hard. It was challenging to dig so deep and the soil there is sandy and dry. After digging the tiny graves I filled them with water which the holes held like tiny hot springs. Like the soil didn’t know how to receive the water. I submerged the bulbs, sticking them deep and then piling dirt back in before they could bounce up to the top. I hope it worked. I’ll know in the spring.
As I sunk those bulbs I buried deep my secrets and my intentions, my deep desires that I don’t tell anyone, barely myself even. I know that these dreams will take time and I know they need darkness and grace to do their thing. But I believe most of them will rise like magic in the early spring and I will remember oh yes, I did that, that was my idea and look now at the reminder, in my own backyard, that spring and then summer will come again.
feeling better is better
I’ve been wanting to write a blog for many years now. Actually I started one 13 years ago when my first son was a baby. It was a place to share his growing and my musing with my family. I stopped because life got too busy (I told myself) but also really because one family member complained that it was only pictures of my kid. So I quit. This time I’m writing for me, and I think/hope I can handle whatever comes my way.
I have always been a writer. Mostly of journals. I have volumes upon volumes recounting my anxieties, worries and mostly bad times. A few years back, when I was home with my two boys both under three I found myself utterly rudderless. The days were eternity and the months were whizzing by without me feeling like I had any purpose other than the feeding and cleaning up of young people.
It seemed like many of the questions I had fantasized about as a kid had been answered: Where would I live? What kind of career would I pursue? Would I marry? Would I have kids? And while I could now answer these, there were deeper questions I couldn’t shake: What’s my purpose? How do I contribute? What am I here for?
At the end of that summer, sitting at the edge of the still waters of Great Pond in Maine I gazed out and these bigger questions got louder and louder. This visit to my parents’ cabin provided me the much needed relief from my boys (then .5 and 2.5 years old) to be able to begin to hear the questions in the first place. My mother is a student of life and a collector of books of all kinds. In one of her stacks I pulled out Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way.” I’d seen the book before, but my inner voice “you’re not an artist” had kept me from digging in. Now I had the time and the space to open the book and begin.
These practices were gentle and available. I quickly took to the morning pages and made a commitment to follow the book to the end with whatever pockets of time I could procure. I truly believe that if we could all commit to connecting to our authentic expression, the world would be a better place.
Cameron prescribes three pages of longhand in a notebook every morning. Writing these pages (not always in the morning) became my first ritual back to myself. I started to feel at home again. I realized that while I still didn’t know “what my purpose is” I could write it all out and that made me feel better. And feeling better is…better.