It may be a cliché, but we’re going to spend November talking about gratitude. I’ve written about gratitude in past Novembers, but I always did it with one eye on Thanksgiving and not with both eyes on all of every day life like I should have. November is a wonderful time to kickstart thinking about gratitude but if we let it go as the turkey wallows in our stomachs, we have rather wasted our time. 

Each November is a lovely opportunity to reconnect with our gratitude in such a way that we are able to treat it as a kind of “gratitude new year.” Just as we revive our commitments to various areas of our lives each January, I think that November it’s a wonderful touch stone to have in place to revive our practice of gratitude. 

I love this quote from Oprah Winfrey:

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

It’s true, isn’t it? When we have a level of contentment with life—not complacency, but contentment—a lot of the stress and anxiety of “leveling up” dissipates.

If it wasn’t so sad I would find it kind of comical the way our society tries to embrace both gratitude and constant discontent. Mainstream shops are full of signs that say things like “choose joy“ and “blessed and thankful” and popular blogs ooze with articles about thankfulness and being present.

But self-help books and TV shows run rife with promises about achieving something, whether it’s organization, enlightenment, the perfect relationship, or even the life changing magic of tidying up, that will finally make life enough. Enjoyable. Whole. That feeling you’ve been looking for is right on the other side of your next achievement.

It’s so worthless. Just like a relationship won’t fulfill you if you are not already fulfilled as a person, cleaning out your sock drawer or getting your dream job will never make a miserable person into a happy one. It just doesn’t work that way.

We control our responses to the situations in front of us. And one of the responses we can choose is gratitude.

Gratitude matters because it allows now to be enough, making joy in the present moment attainable. No longer will our eyes be stuck on the future when what we are finally hoping for will come to be, but they are fixed in the present, where gratitude feeds the grace that God has available to us.

Gratitude allows us to be at rest. And as we get ready for the busiest time of the year for many of us, it’s well worth it to take some time to nurture gratitude and protect our rest. 

God deeply desires that we rest. It’s right there in the 10 Commandments when He asked us to keep Sunday holy and set apart. In the spirit of the Old Testament, I don’t think that this is an arbitrary commandment – it gives us what it is that we actually need. God commands rest because as human beings we need to rest. And it’s so much easier to rest if we can be grateful for where we find ourselves and not trying to squeeze in one more day of hustle to try and get ahead (oh boy, #preachingtomyself right here).

This month we’re going to be talking about ways that we can build habits of gratitude that can carry us through this month and beyond. I’d like to start by asking you what your greatest struggle is with gratitude. What is it that makes the daily practice of gratitude easy or hard for you right now? 

I’d love it if you leave a comment and let me know. 

Let’s do this together.

with joy,

Jill

It has been such a joy to spend this month talking about creativity with you. After several years of struggling with what exactly I’m supposed to say in communicating with all of the wonderful people that follow my work this month has been a breath of fresh air for me as well. The clarity that the Holy Spirit has given me through this process has been a tremendous gift and all of you that I’ve reached out to me with words of thanks and encouragement for the good that this month has brought to fruit in your life has been the icing on the cake.

As a final reflection on creativity I want to talk a little bit today about how we make space for creativity. 

Our world is loud. 

There’s so much going on, and we have so much information thrown at us every day that it can be hard to get in touch with the voice inside ourselves which is essential for creativity. Here are a few ways that I have made space in my only for creativity and hopefully they will get you thinking about what you can do to not only give yourself space to be more creative, but cultivate a greater sense of peace throughout your daily life.

1. Limit social media. I’ve noticed a huge shift in my anxiety level as I have severely ratcheted down my social media use, but that said I have done this by using tools that support me in healthy social media use and not total eradication of social media. I use the Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator extension for Google Chrome that gets rid of my Facebook newsfeed so that I am not trapped in endless scrolling. I also use the time limits available on my iPhone to let me know when I have spent 30 minutes on Instagram and then I log off for the day. I’m not personally on Twitter, but if you are, I would personally recommend you stop. I know some people like it, but that of all social media channels is a cesspool of negativity and anger. Your creativity doesn’t need that. (Feel free to disagree, but find a healthy way to limit it if you choose to stay active there.)

1. Limit sound. I try and make as much of my day silent as possible these days. Now, ambient noise from the people that I share my life with is not included in this – I’m talking about manufactured, additional noise – TV, music, podcasts, etc. We enjoy music as a family some throughout the day but by and large I try and keep things quiet. My children’s imagination flourish and I have space to become aware of my own thoughts.
   
   
2. Clean up. It’s hard to be creative in a messy, chaotic space. And this is coming from the girl who is chronically a mess. I know it’s an old stereotype that creative people are messy, chaotic, and flighty, but these things don’t truly nurture creativity. We practice a version of minimalism that is a work in progress, but helps simplify tidying so that I don’t spend my creative time cleaning the whole house (most of the time).

1. Gentleness. Be gentle with yourself, just as much as you would be gentle with your own child. Our creativity is a version of ourselves as a child and it doesn’t respond to admonishments and competition. It responds to love, space, and room to play.

Those are just a few of the ways that I have created space for creativity in my life over the last few months and they’ve made a great deal of difference. When we limit what we consume, in all manners, we are able to better direct what we produce.

But now is the month draws to a close it’s time to make some decisions. Was this month of exploring creativity just a one off for you? An opportunity to try some new things but ultimately not make any big life changes? It’s OK if it was. Change isn’t right for everybody at the same time and you’ll always have these materials and emails to return to shed the time be right in the future.

But if these resources and words have touched something in you that you want to continue to nurture it’s time to commit. After today I won’t be showing up in your inbox talking about creativity anymore. (We have an awesome new topic planned for next month that I’m equally excited about, but it’s bittersweet to let creativity find its way into the archives.)

If you’re ready to commit to really changing the way you go about your day today life to create more space for creativity and infuse your faith life with creativity there’s two things I’d like you to do. 

First of all, I want you to download and print this commitment card. It’s the size of a business card (and pretty!) so if you print it and cut it out of the sheet of paper it will fit in your wallet, pocketbook, or the corner of your mirror. Put it wherever it will remind you of the commitment you have made – to live with greater creativity in all areas of your life. 

The second thing I’d like you to do is consider selecting a physical item to support your commitment to creativity – an item from the Creativity Collection or one of our brand new creativity bundles – that can serve as an every day reminder of the revival that you were seeking in your life. That’s the whole reason we make these products. This is what they’re for – to reinforce the work the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives and draw our mind constantly back to the commitments we have made.

With Joy!

Jill

If you have friends that you think would benefit from the Revive Creativity resource package and the other content we are putting out this month, I encourage you to point them to this link: https://pinksaltriot.com/creativity/. There they can sign up and receive the packet right away in their inbox and follow along with the email for the rest of this month and beyond. 

I think it’s unfortunate how often we throw around phrases like “Sarah is so creative.” Or “Maddie doesn’t have an athletic bone in their body.”  These kinds of labeling situations, especially amongst the young, can create beliefs that define our perception of what we are capable of. One of my great creativity teachers, Julia Cameron, emphasizes how important it is for us to move through these preconceived ideas we have about our creativity if we’re going to actually be creative. 

If you are one of those people that were affected by negative reinforcement of your creativity throughout your life, I’m sorry. 

That shouldn’t have happened. 

Whether you can’t draw to save your life or can’t sing a note or couldn’t tell a sonnet from a haiku, it was unfair of whoever said it to make the general statement that you were not creative. Even if you believe it is true.

I think it’s so important that our faith creates a place for us to grapple with these damaging beliefs about ourselves and move through them. Connection researcher Brené Brown also talks extensively about the “creative wounds,” her interviewees often speak of which go on to affect them throughout their life.

All this to say that you don’t have to listen to all the voices from your past, even your own, when it comes to your creativity – or anything for that matter. You are not defined by the words that are said about you, but it doesn’t change the fact that they can hurt. I think that a huge part of the healing process is to accept both of those things and hold them both in your heart no matter how hard it might feel.

I was one of those kids that was just always the “creative one.” My life has been defined by music, theater, fashion design, graphic design, photography, all culminating in my career as a creative director. I’ve never met a creative endeavor I didn’t want to try my hand at. 

But subsequently I was also labeled the “not athletic one.” It was the whole cliché 9 yards – the last one picked for teams, lowest grades in gym class, and I think I cried through every one of the six soccer games I attempted.

It was only as an adult that I allowed myself to believe, even just a little bit that maybe being “not athletic“ was not a defining fact about me. Seven months after I had my second child I signed up for my first 5K. Obviously not a feat of massive athletic prowess, but definitely more than I had ever attempted before. I trained all summer, faithfully following my couch to 5K running plan. Even on the morning of the race I didn’t know if I could do it and the memory chokes me up even now – because I did do it. I did what I had always believed was not possible for me even if it was for other people. I proved to myself that “not athletic“ was not a static truth about myself.

So if your version of my story is about being the “not creative” one, take heart. You too can prove to yourself – because you’re the only one that matters in the situation since God already knows the truth – that your non-creativity is not a static truth about yourself. Just as I have a body that is healthy and created by God and therefore able to run despite my lack of natural inclination to do so, you have a complex and beautiful mind that is all your own able to undertake feats of creativity in the image and likeness of God your creator.

So that’s all mushy and well and good and stuff, but what do you actually do if you have always believed that you’re not creative and now want to try and move the needle? You’d be hard-pressed to find a “Couch to Watercolor Florals“ training program, right?

Well, you’d be surprised. If you really would like to test your specifically artistic use of creativity then there is a wealth of beginner materials available. The biggest obstacle people face is the simple fact that it is a struggle for many people to allow themselves to be beginners. You’re early art is going to be bad. Your middle art is probably going to be mostly bad. And yes, even when you reach the later stages of artistic creative expression there is going to be a lot of bad art. And so being OK with that is an integral part of the process. 

To get started, why not jump on Youtube and search for some tutorials? Maybe test out a membership teaching platform like Skillshare that will let you learn lots of different types of things from lots of different professionals? (If you use that link for Skillshare you will get two months of premium membership free to test it out!) Creative friends are also a great resource. See if they will let you join in or observe their creative juices at work to get yours flowing. And last but not least, there’s always the trusty library. Check out a book and learn about a new skill that interests you.

But you definitely don’t have to jump into an artistic creative pursuit if you’re looking to dip your toes into creativity for the first time in a long time, or maybe ever. Throughout this month I’ve shared lots of non-traditionally artistic creative activities you might enjoy – photography, cooking, music appreciation, tinkering, and landscaping. You can pick one of these or another that appeals to you and get your feet wet. A simple book from the library on any of these topics will greatly expand your horizons and give you lots of food for thought.

And also, if you feel that you are harboring a creative wound from childhood, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that you admit that and also reject the lie that it has superimposed on your life. God wants to heal all our wounds, whether in this life or the next, and that includes our creative wounds. Admitting what you have been through, no matter how small and petty the story my seem, and vocally giving those wounds to God and rejecting the lies attached to them can be a powerful agent of change in your life.

PS. If you have friends that you think would benefit from the Revive Creativity resource package and the other content we are putting out this month, I encourage you to point them to this link: https://pinksaltriot.com/creativity/. There they can sign up and receive the packet right away in their inbox and follow along with the email for the rest of this month and beyond.

I have been so overwhelmed at the enthusiastic response to Revive Creativity so far! Thank you to all of you that have emailed me, sent me DMs, and otherwise let me know that this topic and resource are meaningful to you. 

Creativity is so powerful in part because it looks at problems and life and the status quo and says “This is not the only way.” And boy do we need that right now.

Creativity can lift us up out of the concrete situation we find ourselves in and be a conduit of light and possibility – just like our faith is. That’s part of why the combination of faith and creativity is so powerful and makes so much sense. The world needs our faith, and just as much it needs the eyes our faith gives us – the vision we can cultivate in ourselves and transmit to the world through our empowered use of creativity. 

Later today I’m going to share this quote on Instagram that I thought you might enjoy pondering from author and artist Julia Cameron: 

“Those who speak in spiritual terms routinely refer to God as creator but seldom see “creator” as the literal term for “artist”. I am suggesting you take the term “creator” quite literally. You are seeking to forge a creative alliance, artist-to-artist with the Great Creator. Accepting this concept can greatly expand your creative possibilities.”

Julia Cameron is one of my great teachers of creativity. I embarked on her “Artist Way” program of artistic discovery while I was studying art in Florence, Italy at the ripe age of 20. Though I have no idea of her personal religious beliefs or affiliations, she emphasized throughout the program how much a sense of a Creator, whether religious in nature or not, was essential to tapping into your own ability to create. We, of course, know this Creator to be God, and I find it interesting (though honest unsurprising) that even a book on secular artistic growth cannot grapple with creativity without Him.

He is creative energy. He is renewal and revival. He is force actively creating each of us each moment of every day. If we’re looking breakthrough creatively we’ve got the hook up – He’s the one we need to pay attention to. 

So here’s my challenge for you this week: look at your spiritual practices, your prayer life, religious reading, Bible study, attending church, and think of a way to bring something creative and new into at least one of them. 

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• If you listen to religious podcasts, worship music, or other faith based audio, trying doodling or coloring the mandala style coloring sheet from the package while you listen. 
• If you like to pray in your own words, why not try writing out your prayers? You could even try your hand at a poem prayer, especially if you haven’t attempted poetry since your vaguely emo high school days. Other options include writing a dialogue between yourself and God, kind of like a play, or writing a hypothetical letter from God to yourself or someone else. 
• When you go to church, try to dress with some creativity, putting thought into it prior to getting ready. This is not about vanity or being showy, but accepting how God created you and working with His creation, your body, to creative effect. 
• Another beautiful way to pray is to watercolor or paint while you pray. The outcome can be abstract and doesn’t have to be Instagram worthy, but use the brush strokes as you pray. 
• Experiment with movement, cooking, art, sculpture, music, or rhythm in conjunction with your spiritual life this week! 

There’s no right or wrong way to be more creative and God will rejoice in any efforts you give to him, no matter how cringe-worthy you might deem them. This is for you to grow with the One you love. I think everyone that’s married will tell you that laughter is recommended throughout the loving and growing process.

To sum this all up I have a simple little lock screen for you that you can use throughout this month to remind you of the goal of your creative endeavors. It features one of my favorite quotes on the intermingling of spirituality and creativity from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

 “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” 

You can download the lock screen right here.

That’s all for this week, but I will see you next week to chat about creativity and people that swear they aren’t creative. (Spoiler alert: I think they really are.)

With joy!

Jill

PS. If you have friends that you think would benefit from the Revive Creativity resource package and the other content we are putting out this month, I encourage you to point them to this link: https://pinksaltriot.com/creativity/. There they can sign up and receive the packet right away in their inbox and follow along with the emails for the rest of this month and beyond.