Creativity & community-oriented self-care
I’ve been thinking about and feeling into creativity while preparing for tomorrow’s collaboration with The Yards art collective at the Rochester Public Market.
As my kundalini yoga teacher Kia Miller often reminds me, we are all inherently creative beings. You don’t have to be a musician or a visual artist to identify as ‘creative.’
I find that my creative expressions vary considerably by season and phase of life. As I continue to build a fledgling business, much of my creativity goes into programming for Being Extraordinary, a 12-month dynamic community that helps change-makers connect with their intuition and deep self-care.
However, in the last few weeks, I’ve been able to take vacations in Santa Fe, NM and Southern Maine and visit with some of my oldest friends. I stepped away from work and put my creativity into relationships. And now that I’m home, I find that my creative energy is going into caring for Smalley, my plants and my space, and of course into my relationship with James.
All of this to say: creativity is energy. It transmutes and transforms. And the more skill we build in opening to that flow and guiding it with intention, the more vibrant and interconnected our lives become.
For those of us who are deep-carers and change-makers, creativity is ESSENTIAL. If you’re like me and you’re passionate about shaping the shift, as Thea Monyee’ calls it, some things are non-negotiable if you want to stay in the game and avoid burnout.
It comes down to our habits. Around rest, our relationship with nourishment (including food), our ability to think ahead, and around shifting negative beliefs about self-sacrifice and whether we are worth caring for. In short, these amount to deep self-care.
But here’s the thing: self-care has become a buzzword. It’s an eye-rolling turn-off for many of us at this point.
Here’s the other thing: self-care is a misnomer.
YES, we must all take personal (and sometimes radical) responsibility for our wellness, especially when the impact of white supremacist delusion and patriarchal bullshit make access to wellness more complicated for BNPOC, women, trans* folks, people with disabilities, and those in other marginalized communities.
And in guiding 25 people through Being Extraordinary in the last year and a half, all I can say is that habit evolution within a supportive community creates the kind of environment that fosters sustainable creativity. Emily Nagoski’s words sum up my point perfectly:
“Self-care requires a bubble of protection of other people who value your wellbeing at least as highly as you do...the cure for burnout must ultimately be all of us caring for each other.”
If your intuition bells are ringing, and you’re curious about what it might be like for you as a member of Being Extraordinary, I’d love to talk with you.