Finding the Creative Life

I started my Sunday with the mindfulness to notice what facets of my day serve my intention to live a creative life and what facets stray my energy from this intention. It began by first limiting my time on the computer. I gave myself an hour to post my blog and to read my fellow lady bloggers. I went a tiny bit over the limit. But not bad.

I proceeded on housework and preparing lesson plans for the upcoming school year. It is possible to take the less “creative” aspects of your life, such as housework and paperwork, and turn it into part of your creative life when you agree to give it your full attention. Why do we rush over the little things? These moments we spend folding laundry, washing dishes, pushing a vacuum, watering the plants, sweeping the patio—they are all real moments of our life. Maybe they are not as memorable and exciting as a graduation,wedding, a birth of a child, or first day of retirement…maybe they are not as fun as painting, bike riding, dinner with friends…but they are our moments none the less. You own them. You possess them. You should live them. I reminded myself that giving my full attention to the task needed to be done, as trivial and mundane it may seem, is a block in maintaining an organized, comfortable creative life.

When work was all finished, I sat down and painted. This, some may feel, is what a creative life is all about…but I disagree. It is only a facet. When you think of Artists like Frida Kahlo we immediately attach the “Artist” label to them because we have hundreds of paintings to stand as proof of this honor. But I know that her life was one that soaked in creativity. Her creative life was not only limited to the moments when she faced a canvas. Her home that she mindfully attended to, the way she styled her hair, the books she read, to the company she kept were all reflections of the creative life she lived.

Eric Maisel says in “The Creativity Book”: “Creativity is a route to fulfillment that you can either add to what you’re already doing or make your central religion.” For me, creativity has always been my religion. When I was just a kiddo going to Catholic grade school, I used to think that exact thing. I believe, simply from life experience, that creativity is vital to existence. In its purest essence, it is life. We, as women, are by nature creative.

I have decided to be more mindfull about my Dirty Footprints blog. I want to share with you my own creative life, and explore ways that you can add creativity to yours. This does not mean you need to pick up a paintbrush or even purchase a sketch book. Whatever it is you have passion for in your life, is your creativity—Reiki, gardening, blogging, hiking, making soap, cooking, Yoga, poetry….the possibilities are endless.

So, let’s start the conversation today. Leave a comment and tell me and the rest of the blogging world about your creative life. What is your passion? How do you imagine your own creative life?