Permission to Create

Have you ever felt like life is too busy to take time to create? Like you actually might need permission to create and to work on your projects? This is something I’ve wrestled with over the years, and I find it so interesting that even though I consider myself creative, an artist even, the act of setting All The Things aside and pursuing creativity is one where I still have to exercise some willpower. Sometimes I feel guilt from both sides of the coin (“But I should be cleaning up the house” as well as “This gives me so much joy—I don’t paint nearly enough”) which, in typing that out, sounds somewhat hilarious and sad. Ah, me.

Have you ever felt this?

Last Mother’s Day we decided to go to the coast for the weekend and stay in a hotel. This is not something we do often (read, never) as we’re working to get out from underneath our student loan debt, but we had found a great deal and decided to go for it. I find it interesting how something like a vacation weekend can end up being So Much More Work than a normal stay-at-home weekend, especially when you have littles. Or in our case, one little. 🙂

But we packed up the car and headed off on our adventure. The sun was shining, and the weather was warm enough so we wouldn’t have to be bundled up at the beach. (A norm in Oregon. :)) We drove over, had a wonderful day together, took tons of pictures, and then went to the hotel.

That night as I tossed and turned I remembered that I never sleep well the first night in a new bed. I have no idea why this is the case, and I always forget about it until I’m desperately trying to sleep. Apparently, my daughter inherited this gift because she was up most of the night too, but since she’s a toddler, she sang and played and had a good time. Sometimes I think I need to approach life like she does. 🙂

Anyway, I am getting to my point here, I promise, early in the morning I suddenly awoke as if my alarm was going off. I got out of bed, thinking I had slept for a long time, and walked over to the living room. This was one of those fancy schmancy hotels that had two rooms—oohlala! (I love you winter rates in Oregon!) I made a cup of tea and walked over to my book bag where I had stashed a couple of books and my sketchbook. The thought of reading and drawing sounded so amazing—again, something I love to do and definitely make time for on a regular basis, but always wish I could have more of.

At this point, I realized that it was actually 4:30 in the morning. My first thought was, “Go Back To Bed” but I know myself. Not going to happen. (Wow, this post is suddenly becoming about my sleep habits; I can already imagine the emails for remedies. Seriously, this is just a vacation travel thing. I usually get a healthy amount of sleep.) Anyway, it was at this point that I made a decision to take this time to create. I needed this. 

Can I tell you how life-giving those hours were? Because lo and behold, my kiddo slept in that morning. I read and wrote and drew (lots of doodles for my new book—yippee!) and frankly, my creative well filled right back up to the top and began to overflow.

I began to think about how Robin from The Balanced Life talks about “grace over guilt” and how we can so easily get stuck in a guilt and shame cycle when it comes to taking care of ourselves, which in my opinion, includes expressing ourselves creatively.

So, today, if you need it, I’d like to give you permission to create. Permission to stop the hustle for a bit in order to play. It will be worth every single minute.

I truly hope you have a wonderful {and creative} day!

P.S. The permission to create coloring sheet you see photographed at the top of this post is in my new paperback book, The Creative Retreat. It’s a workbook full of ideas of how to get started with your first mini-retreat, encouragement from other women who’ve been there and who have managed to make a creative life for themselves, as well as creative exercises, journaling, and coloring book pages. It’s available for pre-order starting today, so if you’d like to learn more, just click on over to my book page. 🙂