Seasonal Self-Care

Photo by Tessa Rampersad

December is no joke. Between all the seasonal social messaging and the weight of various traditions, I admit I usually tend to want to head to a tropical location and blow things off for a few weeks this time of year. Since my family isn’t on board with that, I get to remind myself that my perceptions inform and shape my experiences, and that I can shift them at any time.

I’ve had several conversations lately with friends and colleagues where it’s been clear the sense of “holiday season” rush and crush on top of creative projects and deadlines is a thing. And I’ve found myself encouraging more than one person lately to double down on the self-care right now (which is kind of my MO anyway). I’ve also been in conversations where people shared they didn’t even know what that could look like during this season. Which inspired me to write on this topic today.

Let’s get this party started with the reminder that self-care is NOT selfish, especially for creatives. Everyone from Steven Pressfield to Julia Cameron touts some version of self-care for artists as a necessity for creation. And art aside, even cars and coffee-makers don’t work when they’re running on empty. We absolutely MUST tend to ourselves in order to be of service to anyone or anything else.

So, this one is for you creatives - the word-slingers, the world-spinners. The havoc-wreakers, and the truth-seekers. The fearless explorers of the human condition, the sojourners of the psyche, the sherpas of the soul. This is for the dream-walkers and the life-weavers. The fire-spinners, and the joy-seekers. Whether you’re facing the next few weeks in holiday-hustle mode, hermit mode, or something in between, here’s a little encouragement from my heart to yours.

In your process, there may be immense darkness. And there may also be incredible light. Both are necessary and one cannot exist without the other. Allow them to work together to transmute any anxiety or fear into fuel. Allow them both to inform your creation.

You may feel you are alone, but you are not. You may, at times, feel stuck, but there is always an opening. And you may want to live only in the flow, but the ebb is just a vital. Ideas (and rest) come in the silence, in the spaces, in the lulls between the surges. Allow for this. Embrace it.

In this season of bright lights and noise, please be exceedingly kind to yourself. Allow yourself whatever you need to connect with Creativity, and allow your work whatever it needs to become its best self. Don’t know what that is presently? Ask! Ask yourself what you need right now, what would support you? And ask your project what it needs, what it wants to be or do or experience. If you listen, you will know what to do.

Everything we create comes through our bodies. So, please be kind to yours. Honor your current capacity and nurture yourself in ways that bring pleasure and enable you to feel and be strong. This will, of course, look different for everyone and tending to yourself can be as simple or as involved as you’d like it to be. You are the creator after all – the curator of your life, and you know what to do. As an unofficial hydration ambassador, I would be remiss if I didn’t encourage you to drink an extra glass or two of water today. Seriously, water has a multitude of benefits and it’s a vital component in our overall well-being. So, do yourself a solid and drink up!

Find ways to make it fun. Whatever “it” is. Too often we become beholden to this idea that we must “work hard” in order to achieve what we set out to do. What if instead, we shift that focus and allow ourselves to play? Maria Montessori says that play is a child’s work. How can we apply that to our own creative endeavors (or even wrapping gifts or doing chores)? Rather than trying to “work” a situation, what could happen if we allowed ourselves to play? To dissolve obstacles with delight?

Remember, even if it may not appear that way at first glance, we DO always have a choice. Our moment to moment experiences are directly impacted by our perceptions, the filters through which we see our lives. What a gift that we can clean our filters and not be beholden to whatever has gone before (therapy and/or coaching are useful tools for this btw). What a blessing that we need not be weighed down or triggered by things we’ve already experienced. Free will is an incredible and underrated asset. And the speed at which we shift our perceptions, is the speed at which we shift our experiences.

Whatever the next few weeks hold for you, please be kind to yourself. Honor wherever you are, and wherever your art is in this moment. Remember why you began – whether that’s in relation to your current creative project, or why you began creating at all (however many years ago). Recapture that joy, and allow it to propel you forward. Or just take a moment and bask in it, allowing it to fill you up.

Creativity WANTS to express itself through us and the world really does need the things that want to come through – the stories, the music, the paintings, etc. No one else can bring those things that have come to us to be expressed in the world to life in the way(s) that we can. Here’s to celebrating and honoring that. And to supporting ourselves in the process.