Making Space for Creativity

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.