Creative Practice- 5 ways

Hey Wonderful Souls!

As you may have guessed if you have been reading my blog for any length of time is that I love creativity! If you are newer here, I LOVE creativity. It’s my way to keep sane, discover and heal! It’s a core value of mine.

So something I find important to keep fresh is my creative practice, it’s something I need to check in with every now and then. It’s easy to let one go when life gets busy. Instead of letting it go, lets redefine it!

5 ways to keep your creative practice fresh!

1-Look at what you do now, don’t look just for the obvious it could even show up as something you do in the kitchen to keep it fresh. What creative acts are you engaging in now?

2-Make a list of what feels creatively juicy to you. While I believe that there are a bunch of ways that creativity shows up for us I think having an idea of what really feels like juicy creative practice is really important. Maybe it doesn’t feel like a creative practice to you unless you are getting your hands messy or drawing or something. What things light you up creatively?

3-Have a variety of things to choose from, especially ones that have a variety of different time commitments involved with them. I have some things that take about 10-20 min or more and i have stuff that I can do that could be 5 minutes. Give yourself some options for moods and times.

4-Try something new, find one or a few new things that you can explore and play around with for your creative practice. Maybe something even what seems unrelated to you, it’s possible some creative practices will inspire and fuel one another! (like drawing and photography)

5-Set yourself up for success, designate a little space (for me it’s a drawer in my creative desk) that I have index cards and some small clippings for mini collages, a little sketchbook for drawing and doodling and a little book for poems etc as well as a few other thing. I can dive into what feels right or what I have time for.

Some things to try for your creative practice could be:

-Doodling

-Photogrpahy

-Poetry

-Documenting (my un-scrapbooking way is a smash book and a few journal cards to slip in to write a little about the photo when I want)

-Draw

-Writing stories

-Visual Journal

It’s something that I find really important to show up for, even if I don’t always feel like it (and that is when having a variety is really helpful!)

What creative practices do you engage in?

Here is to living Inspired,Creative and Empowered

Heather

5 Ways to Set Yourself up for Success

Hey Beautiful Souls!

I can not tell you the amount of times I have seen or been the one to say I want something to say yes I am committed to it and then feel like I totally failed it and myself. I think there are layers of reasons in this. But one I see often is that we say we want something yet we don’t change anything we are doing.  For example if you say you want to write a book, build a business, learn a language (and a zillion other things..) yet in your free time you are just sitting watching TV that you really don’t even like all that much then you are not setting yourself up for success (even  if you are watching with your spouse, but are not that into what you’re watching then you can still often find small TV projects that could be in line with what you are committing to)  Below I go into 5 ways to set yourself up for success. There will be other steps depending on what it is you are wanting to focus on however I believe the 5 I have listed are fairly universal to most types of goals and dreams!

1-Decide what it is you want to commit/ focus on and then write it down (put it somewhere you will see often)

2-Surround yourself with Tools that will support you in this commitment as well as  Inspiration and reminders (Images, phrases oh and people virtually or in person!

3-Tweak your environment and or routine to support what it is you are committing to. (For example if I am wanting to eat healthier, then having the ingredients and tools to do so would be helpful)

4-Break down your tasks into bite size pieces where and when necessary. We often have the mindset that when we have more time then we will… Ask yourself how you can start taking even small bits of time to create what it is you want?

5-Check in with yourself on a regular basis, how are you doing with your commitment, where are you struggling with it, where are you rocking it? And adjust where and when needed. Maybe that means getting support, new “tools” or something else. Just be honest with yourself but do not spend the entire check in on beating yourself up for where you feel you are not doing as well.

Here is to living Inspired, Creative and Empowered

Heather

5 Ways to STOP giving away your Power!

Hey Lovely Souls!

I know it’s all too “easy” sometimes to just go along with it, whatever it may be for you. To feel like you don’t want to cause any problems, ruffle any feathers etc.. You don’t even realize at first that you maybe more than you thought care or have more of an opinion then you realized.

We give away our power in even small ways much more than we realize. Look I am not saying don’t ever compromise that is how we can be in most realtionships.But there is a difference between “I will compromise with you on this” mindfully and with intention and just giving up, stepping back when you really do not agree with it, when everything in you is telling you something different (or when you even just get those hints from your body/life) that it’s not right..

So lets look at 5 ways we can STOP giving away our power…

1-Pause before you agree to something, check in with yourself, how do you really feel about it?

2-Define what your values are, it’s much harder to live within your values if you have never taken the time to define them for yourself ( post them in a place where you will see them often) …(look for a post coming up next week on how to determine your values!)

3-Stop saying “I don’t Care” when you really do, I have had this exact same “default” response more than I care to admit and still often do (but making progress!) Even something as simple as saying you don’t care where you go to eat if you have a preference, tell them, but first you have to be able honest with yourself about it!

4-Speak Up, I know, trust me I know this is not easy. I am not suggesting you pick a fight. If there is  situation that you feel really strongly about, find the best way you can to express that in a firm, solid and calm manner. I am also not suggesting that you put yourself in a dangerous situation. There are however going to be those times where it’s not really comfortable and it’s not easy to do so people are not going to get it, belive you or support you, however if you are doing so for yourself that is huge and should be acknowledged.

5-Get honest with yourself about in what and with who you are giving away your power, how can we change something, how can we shift it if we are not even aware or willing to look at how we continue to do so.

Be gentle with yourself, we have often been giving away our power in the smallest ways and not even realized it. Bit by bit we can get that power back.

Here is to living Inspired, Creative and Empowered

Heather

5 ways to show up for yourself

Hey Inspiring Souls!

The phrase “showing up for myself” has well shown up for me a lot recently. I notice myself resisting what I really want to do, what I crave. I am working on not doing this and pushing myself (at times) to show up for myself in the following areas..

Here are 5 ways you can show up for yourself!

1-Get your body in motion, yoga, dance walking whatever is nourishing or fun for you. Often when we know we will feel good and will be happy we did is the time we have to talk ourselves into it the most! At least that has been true for me!

2-Make room in your schedule for yourself, it’s so important to do this even if you don’t feel like you can schedule in more than 15 minutes it’s a start, it’s something.

3-Take time to go within, listen to the messages of your life, grab your journal and capture what is on your heart, this is one of the most important ways you can show up for yourself. Our lives are whispering to us all the time (then they get loud and obnoxious if we ignore them long enough!)

4-Show up for yourself in the way of expressing your creativity, whatever that is for you. Take time to capture photos , explore words, visual journal, knit, make a great meal, plant something (and a zillion other ideas!)

5-Show up for your dreams, you know that list of things you would love to do, learn, create and explore allow yourself to show up for yourself and start taking action on them or at the very least writing them down and owning them! (see #3)

Here is to living Inspired, Creative and Empowered

Heather

5 Ways to… To use lists

Hey Inspiring Souls!

I may have mentioned before I really love lists! I know I am not the one! So I thought I would list 5 ways to use lists.

1-To Keep you on track daily, weekly monthly or yearly.

2-To Inspire you into action, remind you what inspires you.

3-To vent, list the things that are annoying you, frustrations let it all out

4-To keep grateful, if you have a list of gratitude to go to when you are having those down days it can give you a nice reminder of all the good even if it feels like there is only bad surrounding you at the moment.

5-To get to know yourself, you can write a list using a prompt to list your values, likes, dislikes, hearts desires, things about you..

I hope this gives you another way to use your lists in a way that will inspire you!

Here is to living Inspired, Creative and Empowered

Heather

5 ways to make time for what matters

Hey Creative Souls!

I have had several ideas lately on some posts, or new categories to add to this blog.  Today is the “Debut” for one of the ideas I have had.  I am calling it 5 ways… I have a list going already of different subjects that can fit into the 5 ways..

I am starting today with one that has been on my mind a lot lately. Time, how to make time for what matters. I realized some things I was doing that were counter to what I was saying i wanted to create.

5 Ways to make time for what matters…

1-Define what is important to you, what are your priorities? If we don’t do that, how can we know what we are clearing time for?

2-Look at how your time is being spent now, there are lots of tools out there for this. It can be as “simple” as grabbing a journal or piece of paper and tracking hour by hour what your spending your time doing.

3- Get rid of what does not matter, what does not bring you closer to the life that you want to create, if you can’t get rid of it, then put it aside for another time,delegate it if possible.

4-Make a list of the things that you really want to do everyday or every week. Put yourself, your dreams the things that are important to you on your schedule.

5-Create a schedule, now this does not have to be a second by second schedule. It can be hourly, daily, weekly. It can be something like an order you want to do things in. This may be something you will have to experiment with a bit to get a flow that works for you.  My personal example: I want to make time to create a healthier me, I get caught up in the mornings looking at the blogs I subscribe to, putzing around online then going: oops i need to get ready and to start work. And I don’t make the time to take care of my health in the mornings. If I switch the order of how i do things then I can exercise, do the things that are important to me . I love reading blogs there is a ton of inspiration on there so it’s not going anywhere just being put on the list for a bit later in my day.

I hope those 5 tips were helpful to you..

Here is to living Inspired, Creative and Empowered

Heather