Here's where you'll find all my writings — articles on creativity, creative productivity, getting unstuck, being a passion pluralite, and more, and behind-the-scenes journal entries on the wonderful, messy, sometimes really hard reality of living a creative that so few ever actually share.
I have a lot of other blog feeds here that you might also be interested in, though:
Podcast – my weekly podcast, The Creative Sandbox Way™.
Animation – fun with stop-motion animation!
Art in Progress – works in progress (be a fly on the wall in my studio!)
Calligraphy – calligraphy videos, tips, and tutorials
Music Loops – audio experiments in being a one-woman band, using Loopy app
Project 3x5x365 – my year-long tiny-but-daily writing experiment
Step into a circle of passionate, wholehearted, creative people for a few days and something happens.
Any psychologist worth her salt will tell you that romantic relationships are crucibles for growth, but it’s not just our most intimate love relationships that have the power to transform.
Take Ethel. She came to my Create & Incubate Retreat in May, and wrote this less than two months later: [Read more…]
There was a time, not so long ago, when I really didn’t like my life. I worked too hard, got too little sleep, scorned myself for not being perfect, and basically didn’t treat myself very well.
“This is NOT what I want my life to look like,” I used to grumble, typically several times a day.
I was grateful for all the blessings I had (which were a lot), but I was plum worn out.
In the years since then, I’ve made great strides in creating a life I love — a big, bold, creative life, in which I’m feeding my creative hungers and pursuing my goals without sucking myself dry (usually).
What changed between then and now?
Certainly having a husband who really champions and supports me helps a lot. Ultimately, though, each one of us is 100% responsible for our own happiness, and I’ve done a lot of work, internally and externally, to change my life around.
Off the top of my head, here’s a partial list of what I’ve worked on in the past several years that has made a difference (the operative phrase here being “worked on” — I’m still working on these, and consider them works in progress!):
Looking back on that list, it all really boils down to my Golden Formula:
Self-Awareness + Self-Compassion = the Key to Everything Good. (Click to tweet!)
Self-awareness = Asking: How does this make me feel? Is this helping or harming me? What do I truly need right now? What am I truly hungry for right now?
Self-Compassion = Reminding myself I’m human, that my mistakes are human mistakes, and treating myself with the same kind of loving kindness I’d treat a friend with.
Let’s use my Golden Formula to take a look at the last bullet point above, clearing clutter out of my life.
When I approach life through a lens of self-awareness, I see that being surrounded by mounds of clutter drains my energy, makes me feel less productive and less competent, makes me cranky, and generally blocks my energy flow.
The self-compassionate response is not to beat myself up for having a clutter-filled studio, but instead to remind myself that I’m human, and gently guide myself to take baby steps in the direction of clearing that clutter out!
Self-awareness helps me realize that I’m about 5,000% better about doing tasks I’m resistant to when I have a gang of kindred spirits gathered around me, walking the same path and cheering each other on.
So I created the Great ClutterBust back in April to gather such a tribe around me, and we achieved miracles, not least of which was that I succeeded in transforming my Studio of Doom into a studio that actually makes me smile when I walk in the door!
It was such a success, that I knew the Great ClutterBust needed to be a regular program. (After all, I have the entire rest of the house to tackle! 🙂 )
So six months later, on October 1st, I started the second Great ClutterBust.
My intention this time around was to get to done on the last 10% of clutter still remaining in my studio: the boxes of slides (yes, slides!) that had been taking up multiple cubic feet of space for decades; the boxes of data CDs and DVDs that I haven’t touched in years; the box of unknown papers to be shredded, recycled, or archived; the pile of stuff to be sold or given away accumulating in the living room (aka, Outbound Mountain — hat tip to Denice for coming up with that great moniker).
Well, I’ve done some of that.. but then last week happened.
Last week I got almost no physical clutterbusting done at all, yet it was perhaps one of the single most successful clutterbusting weeks in my life.
Why?
One word: YNAB.
Actually, YNAB isn’t a word at all, it’s an acronym — it stands for You Need A Budget (aff).
What the…?
It’s a piece of software, but it’s also an entire system and mindset for how to manage your finances, and in one week it has already changed my life for the better.
Before YNAB, I felt like I was always walking through fog when I dealt with my money. I have a bookkeeper (ah yes! another recent quality-of-life improvement! forgot to mention that one above) and excellent software to track money I’ve already spent, but when it came to making decisions about whether or not to spend money in the present and future, I was always in the dark.
I had no idea of what my real money situation was.
A few weeks ago I paid my very last payment on the former Enormous Mountain of Debt (hooray! happydance! celebration galore!), and MM and I had a number of very fun discussions about what we wanted to do with the monthly money that used to go toward debt repayment. We knew we wanted to save or invest it, but how much to allocate to retirement savings vs. home improvement vs. saving for travel vs. saving for other stuff??
Enter YNAB.
I’d been hearing murmurs about YNAB for months, if not years, but it wasn’t until last week that I finally clicked over to the website, youneedabudget.com (aff), dug in, and downloaded the software (and the free iPhone app).
I was a bit skeptical at first, because the way YNAB asks you to think about budgeting is totally different from any other budgeting protocol I’d ever experienced. It kind of threw me off, and it took me awhile to wrap my head around it.
But thanks to the excellent (and FREE!) classes on how to use the (easy and brilliant) YNAB system and software, within a few days I was up to speed, and a total convert.
(Confession: being the quintessential diver-inner, I took the entire offerings of YNAB classes over the span of four days: half-hour intro on Sunday, three hour-long classes on Monday, and the final two classes on Wednesday. Five and a half hours in total! No wonder I didn’t get to my physical clutterbusting! Do not feel you need to do the same! I’m just obsessive this way.)
By Wednesday MM and I had fully embraced the four rules of YNAB methodology:
Rule One: Give Every Dollar a JobWe’ve already been spending less — thanks to about a thousand times greater awareness of where our money is going — we have a clear picture of our finances for the first time, and we’ve created (and are actively implementing) a savings and investment strategy!
Perhaps just as important, we’re working together to make it all happen. It’s been a delightful surprise to find that with the help of YNAB, talking outright about our spending, and making decisions together as to how to allocate our dollars, has been a fun bonding exercise!
Win-win-win!
The upshot is, as I’ve giddily told MM about fifty times, we finally have a handle on our financial life! We finally have a financial life — with clear, specific goals and a path to achieving them.
And although I did not spend those five and a half hours tackling the physical clutter I’d intended them for, I realized that getting set up with YNAB counted as clutterbusting just as much, if not more, than my weeks of transforming the Studio of Doom into the studio I now love.
The clarity of really understanding — and having control over — our financial situation has brought me the same kind of serenity and calm and sense of freedom and ease of breathing as clearing out all the physical clutter that was blocking me up.
I have literally wished for this kind of clarity for my entire life!
In fact, in the greater scheme of things, converting to the YNAB way may very well have a more extensive impact on my quality of life than tackling the Studio of Doom, and that’s saying a lot!
I have been evangelizing about YNAB to all my friends and family (hey, it’s hard not to enthuse about something that has had such a profoundly positive impact on your life!) I really think it’s a brilliant system, and encourage you to check it out for yourself.
You can implement the system whether or not you buy the software, but there’s a 34-day free trial of the software, and all the classes are totally free (and pure instruction — no sales pitch). Plus if you’re lucky, you might just win a full license — they give one away in every free class!
In fact, I won one myself in the intro class! 🙂
If you do decide to buy the software ($60), you can save $6 (10%) by clicking on one of my YNAB links, like this one here. (Full disclosure: I’ll also make a $6 commission if you buy. Though I’d be evangelizing about YNAB regardless.)
I wish I’d had YNAB years ago… If I’d had it fifteen, or even six years ago, I’d never have gotten into debt.
Aw, well, correct forward, and better is better! Life with YNAB is definitely better.
Meanwhile, if you’re itching to bust some clutter yourself, whether of the physical or financial kind, or any other kind of clutter (“to-do list” clutter, digital clutter, habit clutter, schedule clutter), due to popular demand by members of the October Great ClutterBust, I’m running a special Holiday Edition of the Great ClutterBust.
Join us, and you’ll be amazed at how FUN it can be to bust clutter!
The session officially starts on November 12th and runs through December 19th, but register now and you’ll get instant access to our rockin’ private Facebook community, and the Great ClutterBust resource page (chock full of worksheets and questions to help you clarify your clutterbusting goals), so you can get a jump on clearing your clutter out NOW.
Click here to read more and register now.
Hope to see you inside!
Note: The links to YNAB in this post are all affiliate links. You’ll save 10% ($6) if you end up making a purchase through one of my links, but I’ll also make $6 in affiliate commissions, and I am ethically (and legally) bound to make sure you know that.
If you don’t want to send a commission my way, you can still get 10% off by finding someone else’s affiliate link elsewhere online (they’re all over the internet — just do a Google search for YNAB discount), and send the $6 to them. Or go straight to youneedabudget.com and pay the full $60. I’ll never know the difference. 🙂
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
When I discovered Golden Crackle Paste, I fell in love. There’s something about crackly textures that has always appealed to me.
Crackly furniture! Crackly pottery! I love the crackles!
As I’ve worked with crackle paste, though, the cracks in my paintings started to acquire a deeper meaning for me than mere textural appeal.
I didn’t have an elegant way to articulate it, but the cracks in my paintings told me something about finding the beauty in brokenness, the redemption in our cracks. They told me something about cracks being the harbinger of new life — like the cracks in an eggshell before the new chick emerges.
The cracks in my paintings spoke to me of persistence, even when everything around you feels shattered and fragmented. They spoke to me of the strength we gain when our fractures heal.
They said all of this and more — messages I sorely needed to hear.
See, it’s all too easy for me to focus on what’s broken — in the world, in my life, in me.
If you know me at all, it may surprise you to hear this. People tell me all the time how much energy I have, that I’m a bundle of positivity, and that’s true — I frequently come across as a human Energizer Bunny. That’s not the whole truth, however.
What’s also true is that I’m such a sensitive person, I have to limit how much news reaches my eyes and ears, so I don’t get sucked into the black hole of depression.
What’s also true is that I sometimes cry myself to sleep if I my thoughts light on something that triggers my sensitive side (especially when it relates to animals: pets I lost years ago and still miss terribly; bears trapped in tiny cages on bear bile farms; basically any suffering, and particularly of animals).
In short, positivity is a sort of self-defense strategy.
It’s not fake by any means, but choosing to focus on the positive is a very conscious choice, a strategy to keep me from getting mired in depressive thoughts.
My crackle paste paintings — what I’m now calling my Fractured Beauty series — are a way of acknowledging the brokenness in and around me, and turning that brokenness into a source of strength and beauty.
As I wrote on the description page of my most recent paintings:
We live in a broken world that often feels cold and inhumane. We often feel cold and broken ourselves, but it is in our very brokenness that our greatest strength and beauty reside. Say yes to your broken parts, yes to the beauty in your flaws, yes to the world, yes, yes, yes!
To that end, here are my latest two paintings, Icebreaker and Breakthrough, and some pics of their creation.
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More #cracklepaste #art #artistsofinstagram #artinprogress #workinprogress #wip
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Added a layer of #pouringmedium to this 5×5 #canvas #workinprogress #wip #cracklepaste #paintingfun #artistsofinstagram #abstractart View on Instagram
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Added #pouringmedium to this 5×5 #canvas too. #wip #workinprogress #artistsofinstagram #abstractart #mixedmedia View on Instagram
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Side view of 5×5 #cracklepaste canvas #abstractart #acrylic #mixedmedia #workinprogress #wip #artistsofinstagram
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Pouring medium drying under colander dust-shield. We make do with what we can! #whateverworks #art #artistsofinstagram #artinprocess #workinprogress #wip #acrylic #abstractart #abstractexpressionism #creativeprocess View on Instagram
And the finished paintings – Icebreaker (thank you to Sally Smith Wightkin for the title suggestion):
…and Breakthrough (thank you to Andrea Lewicki for the title suggestion):
Both are available in my shop (at 54% off for a limited time!) — click on the images to get to the shop pages. I think they work quite nicely as a diptych:
I hope this series helps you see they beauty in your own cracks.
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
Yesterday was the first day of the new Sweetie Saturday Initiative, here at Living A Creative Life HQ.
The Sweetie Saturday Initiative is an expansion on Date Night, which MM and I established two or three years ago, when I realized that I was starting to rigidify into a full-blown workaholic.
That was the first realization, which I’d been trying to deny for years.
The second, equally important realization was that if this wasn’t how I wanted to live (which it very much wasn’t), I was going to have to take steps now toward changing that.
See, workaholism doesn’t just go away. You can’t work yourself into the ground, neglecting self and relationships for years and decades, and expect that down the road life will magically become easier and more gentle. It doesn’t work that way.
How you live your life in the present determines the shape of your life in the future. (Click to tweet this!)
I’ve been on a journey for the past four and a half years to create the life I really, really want, and let me tell you, that life does not include burning myself out!
So a few years ago we implemented Date Night: one evening a week when MM and I would get out of the house together and leave work behind for a few hours.
I must admit I was kind of nervous about it at the time. A night off from working?? Would I be able to manage it?? Surely the sky would fall…?
The workaholic gremlin on my shoulder did its best to convince me that Date Night would be a disaster, but thankfully I was savvy enough not to listen.
I quickly discovered that not only did the sky not fall, but a few hours each week of dedicated Sweetie Time — a genuine break from work (not always easily achieved, when the line dividing work and life and identity is blurry and porous) — dramatically improved my quality of life!
A girl could get used to this! And indeed, this girl did get used to it. Date Night became an instant institution.
That said, I confess we do periodically need to revisit our No Devices policies and agreements, as both of us tend to get lax about smart phones and computers, and then Date Night becomes just like any other night and loses its power to recharge and refresh.
This is where we get to practice my Golden Formula:
Melissa’s Golden Formula: self-awareness + self-compassion = the key to everything good. (Click to tweet!)
Practicing the Golden Formula means we notice where we’re slipping, remind ourselves that we’re human, and lovingly correct forward. No beating ourselves up.
Even with the occasional backsliding, Date Night has generally gone swimmingly. Honestly, I don’t know how I ever lived without it!
Then last week MM and I were talking, and he mentioned that we almost never get any daytime time together.
He’s at his nine-to-five Monday through Friday, and spends every Saturday and Sunday from 9:00am til about 2:00pm “scribbling” (ie, writing screenplays at a local cafe).
Naturally, I champion him in these efforts to feed his creative hungers, and I applaud his commitment and consistency. By the time he comes home, however, I’m typically immersed in whatever creative work (or “work”-work) I’ve got going on, and I keep charging ahead until bedtime.
As a result, we almost never get to do daytime things together like hiking, day trips, fun shopping excursions, etc.
Hmmm…. Perhaps it was time to add some additional dedicated Sweetie Time to our week, during daylight hours, so we could do such things together.
Not wanting to interfere with his limited writing hours, I suggested that we try taking Saturday afternoons as a sort of daytime Date Night, to do fun things together we don’t have time for during the rest of the week.
The Sweetie Saturday Initiative was born.
As with Date Night, I had some initial concerns: would I still be able to get all my work done, if I didn’t have the entire weekend to catch up??
Again, the workaholic gremlin on my shoulder kicked and screamed and put up a fuss. A whole afternoon-and-into-the-evening off from working?? What are you thinking??
By now, though, the gremlin’s fears were nothing more than whispers tickling at my ear. I’ve gotten used to taking better care of myself in the past few years. I’ve been learning first-hand how much better my quality of life is when I’m not constantly busting my butt and driving myself into the ground.
In fact, I started getting really excited about the Sweetie Saturday Initiative! This was going to be so fun and relaxing!
As it turned out, we spent a lot of our very first Sweetie Saturday doing things that aren’t particularly relaxing — for example, waiting around in the Verizon store to talk to a customer service rep about upgrading my phone… Then poor MM waited patiently in a dressing room chair at the Gap while I tried on some cords.
Not the most blissful activities in and of themselves, but as we walked to the car after our jaunt through the shopping center, I marveled at how great it felt to be completely removed from my regular weekday routine!
MM laughed. “Yeah, it’s called a weekend,” he said. “Most people take one every week.”
What a brilliant concept!
Working for myself for so long, I’ve allowed the weekend concept to get very hazy. Yesterday I had renewed admiration and gratitude for my ancient Jewish ancestors, who gifted humanity with the notion of a weekly rest day. Pure genius!
In this modern era, the fact that allowing myself to take a weekend day is such a big deal may seem sort of ridiculous, but how may of us deny ourselves the things we need or desire, even when part of us knows it’s impossible to live our best lives without them?
You may take regular weekends, but maybe you don’t feed your creative hungers.
Perhaps you still haven’t figured out how to integrate movement (aka, exercise) into your day, and your body, mind and spirit are suffering as a result.
Maybe you don’t give yourself the sleep you need.
Maybe you’re caught in a cycle of beating yourself up, treating yourself not with self-compassion, but in a way you’d never treat someone you care about.
Each of those things used to be true for me.
I’ve only changed those habits (and imperfectly so) by making the decision to do so, and taking them on one at a time. And I’ve only been able to take each habit or behavior on when I’ve been ready.
We are ready when we’re ready, and not a moment before. (Click to tweet!)
By making incremental changes now, we prepare ourselves to be ready for bigger changes later. (Click to tweet!)
I couldn’t have implemented the Sweetie Saturday Initiative a few years ago — it felt too radical. I needed to get comfortable with Date Night first. I needed to spend a few years letting it sink into my head that MM and I are okay when I don’t kill myself working, and in fact we’re both better off!
Perhaps I needed a few years of meditating regularly (also known as the best self-contained self-compassion factory ever!); a few years of taking better care of myself physically — getting out of a chair and into a treadmill desk; getting therapeutic massage and chiropractic every two to three weeks, rather than waiting until I’m already in pain.
In other words, maybe before I could institute something like the Sweetie Saturday Initiative I needed a few years of treating myself better, and acknowledging that I deserve to be taken good care of.
Whatever the trajectory, little by little, layer by layer, I am shedding the unhealthy habits and behaviors that have been holding me back, and replacing them with habits and behaviors that are helping me live my best, happiest, biggest, boldest, most creative life.
I’ve come a long way. And I have a long way still to go. Welcome to life.
What’s the next step you’re going to take, in order to take better care of you?
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
Yes, I am going to share a new painting with you, along with process pics of its creation. Before I do that, though, some background…
A few years ago I created a short painting e-course, my Playshop-in-a-Box, with about an hour’s worth of video tutorials (and yes, it’s still available — click here to read more about it). Since then I’ve expanded my artistic repertoire, and there’s so much more I’d love to share.
For a long time I’ve been dreaming of creating a more involved course that participants could really sink their teeth into. Perhaps an online version of the course I’ve been contracted to teach at The Passionate Pen, the international calligraphy conference happening in Sonoma, California, next July: Dancing With Chaos: The Art of Improvisation. [Read more…]
