“True joy is that which gives us more energy and makes us feel more alive.” ~Robert Puryear
Joy…bliss, cheer, delight, elation, effervescence, euphoria, exhilaration, gladness, glee, nirvana, passion, radiance…you know – JOY. Don’t we all want to experience, live and spread joy?! We know those people who always bring a smile to our face, a skip to our heart, they perk up your attitude just by being around. They exude joy.
Think about the folks that you most admire…just for a moment, think about a few people in your life that you admire. Likely they find a way to bring joy into just about everything – waiting in line, their daily commute, an angry stranger? They seem to bring it with them everywhere they go, their life’s up and downs are just like a ride on a roller coaster. They appear to actually bounce when they walk, and they are always with a quick smile. They are probably some of the most creative people you know as well, exuding creative joy like watering everyones aura. We want to BE them. Maybe we ARE them?! Nourishing your creative joy will enhance your life’s meaning, and the way you experience your daily life. So let’s get to it shall we?!
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.” ~Plutarch
We often begin our days hoping they will be full of joy, then the hot water runs out in the middle of the shower, or there is a traffic jam, or one of a million other little things and it slowly chips away at our impending joy. *Sigh* We all know these days, we all live these days. BUT if we can build our courage and learn to turn those days around, or better yet not allow those pesky things to sap us of our joy, we will be so much more, well…joyful!
As artists and creatives we often believe that we are doing so much already that to do one more thing might just push us over the edge. Don’t give up on building Creative Courage now, it’s been 22 weeks, we are almost half way there! We’ve had some fun experiencing other cultures, adding more music to our lives, hopefully we all drove our ‘pink cadillac’ and got lost on purpose a few times to shake things up! This is just another fun adventure on our journey to Creative Courage. Nourishing our creative joy brings more meaning to our lives, it will help us to develop resilience to life’s little inconveniences – we all know that is vital to our existence – and it will help our minds and our bodies physical feel and function much much better! Yes it does!
“What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?” ~Rollo May
If we take a good look at the past twenty one weeks, we will see that we have actually been working up to this. We should actually have been learning how to add more joy to our lives. Finding time for ourselves in Sit.Silent.Be.Breathe, and finding joy in our surroundings by building our own little Creative Universe, we have rediscovered our inner Curious George and we have hopefully learned how to LOL a great deal more as well! So many challenges we’ve already completed have been bringing us more joy, so this should be easy!!
Often even our creative work sometimes has the joy sapped out of it with repetition, or frustration, creating that which is not up to our full creative capacity, because we’ve done what the customer has asked for. That is after all what brings in the money; so we need to learn how to experience our creativity, bring home the bacon and foster our joy!
BRING ON THE MAGIC
“Most people see what is, and never see what can be.” ~Albert Einstein
Identify one thing that you want to change or create, and just do it. Just start, experience the tickle and do it anyway. If we want to create a work of art, and we may not have the supplies, or be able to afford the supplies…then go FIND the supplies, price them, hold them in your hands, feel what you can do with them. Hangout at your local coffee shop, music store, book seller, building supply or scrap metal merchant; let your heart lead you to find your materials for play. Then use your innate creativity to generate the magic of the beginning…then we take it from there. The magic always brings joy with it for the ride!SIMPLIFY THE PROCESS
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”~Albert Einstien
We’ve all heard this over and over again, and we all understand that simplifying the processes will help, but we don’t often get around to doing it, so let’s take a radical simplification process this week. If you are a writer, then put away your computer and pull out pen and paper. If you are a musician, forget the music processing gadgets and get back to acustics whether that be guitar, piano or simply humming. Potters don’t create an elaborate piece, throw a simple bowl on the wheel, or better still how about an old fashioned pinch pot?! Try to remember how you worked when you were just beginning your journey, feel the joy it used to bring you back then….live with that for a while this week.RESURRECT PAST LOVES
“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” ~Galielo Galilei
We are not talking raising the human dead, or looking for old flames…but we are talking about finding the passions that may have brought us to where we are. We may love our work but many of us did not begin with doing exactly what we are doing now… so go back and remember what creative passions you had ‘before’. I am a jewelry artist by trade, but my passion began with creating from the misplaced and forgotten, reusing and repurposing the discarded. I have begun again working with this train of thought, this feeling of excitement, and I have truly found the joy that helped me begin my jewelry work…and now I’m even incorporating those things in my work, so working has become more joyful. Finding joy in one part of our lives always brings joy to the other parts of our lives!CHANGE LOCATIONS
“All our knowledge has it’s origins in our perceptions.” ~Leonardo da Vinci
Most artists and creatives build their own creative universe then feel that is the only place that they must create. This is the place that was made for creating after all, and it holds all of our supplies, why change locations? Again, just to shake things up a bit, and craft where we are happiest! I love my studio, I smile almost each time I step into it…well, except when it’s a complete wreck! Although I also love the sunshine….and that is a rare thing in my studio (which is actually affectionately referred to as “The Cave”) so how do I experience joy and still get work done? I will take a few simpler projects to the back deck with minimum supplies, and work in the sun! That brings me a great deal of joy! Therefore, if you usually paint in the basement, then take a canvas to a known happy place and pencil your idea instead of painting, or take your paints and an easel to the arboretum or other place that may bring joy. The musician may simply swap studios with another musician; or if you are used to doing gigs in the evening, try a few day time performances….when we create in the same space, over a period of time the place gains a power of its own; changing locations will help to alter those subliminal influences and help to foster a feeling of “newness”, to alter the brainwaves and start “fresh” with our art. So try this week to change your location for just one day, just one project, just for a little bit of joy.“Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us to stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.” ~Brene Brown
Often we are quite concerned about how to make others happy, even in our creative minds. We may have in idea or inspiration come to us, we will execute it, and then think….no one will like/buy this. We then proceed to change what we know was given to us to share. That is when you know you have lost your joy. We must honor our preferences, we must find our joy once again so that when the inspiration comes, we do not second guess, we simple create! This week then, after you have reclaimed our joy, we need to honor it in our work and in our lives. When something you see makes you smile, give it an extra moment in your mind to enjoy it. Feel that joy. When you inexplicably find a grin on your face, simply enjoy it. Live unapologetically in JOY this week. Revel in your preferences, give yourself permission to be and feel your authentic self. Bask in the joy that is you and choose to be joyous. Joy to the world, you can provide it! Joy to you and me!
Have a great week! Oh, and yes that “earworm” will probably stick with your for a while! ; )
JeaneMargherite Meria McMahon Murray Schintgen
(yep, that’s my name, don’t wear it out!)
I would love for you to “check me out” in my other realms…..
