006: Guilt-Free Creativity

Why is it SO hard to invest time, energy and money into our own creative pursuits? As adults, we’re constantly encouraging children to learn, grow and increase their skills and creativity but when it comes to ourselves… We don’t make it a priority!

In this episode, I am talking about the ways in which you can begin to indulge in guilt-free creativity. You deserve to make it happen for yourself and your own wellbeing. All it takes is just a little bit of effort, changing the way you think about it and making the steps to make it happen because nobody is going to make it happen for you. 

I explore how we can change the conversations around creativity and why you deserve to have guilt-free creative pursuits at ANY age! 

What you’ll find in this episode:

• A mindful moment story from her trip with her son down the river
• The pressure that society puts on adults to pursue productivity over creativity
• Why you deserve to learn, grow and progress at any age
• How we can change the conversation around creativity 
• Why it’s okay to set boundaries around giving yourself space for creativity
• Why you have to fill your own tank first
• A story from Lisa’s childhood about her mom practicing guilt-free creativity

Read the transcript of the episode below:

Hello friends before getting started with this week's podcast episode, I wanted to send some love to all of you. This has been such an intense and powerful time as we are joining together to learn more about the depths of racism and how we can help to fight it. I had recorded this podcast episode a long time ago, and I delayed releasing it last week so that we could focus instead on amplifying the voices that really needed to be heard. And of course, will continue to need to be heard in the future. And I want to continue amplifying those voices. I mentioned on Instagram, a couple of my favorite resources and wanted to mention one of them here today. If you're looking to learn more, I highly recommend the podcast called first name basis with Jasmine Bradshaw. The focus of her podcast is how to teach our children about race, religion, and culture. But I have to tell you that even though the focus is on how to teach our children, I have been learning so much from her and I am so grateful. I can promise you that you and your family will learn so much as well. I know you can hear my kids playing in the background, but I really wanted to record this message to add to the podcast for today. And I also wanted to say to all of my black friends here, listening, I want you to know that I love you. And I stand with you. I hope this episode speaks to all of us as a way to have permission, to use creativity in our pursuits for healing and for more meaning in our lives. I love you all so much, and I hope you enjoy this episode. Why is it so hard to invest time, energy and money in our own creative pursuits? No, but seriously, this is what we're going to be discussing today. This is episode six, guilt free creativity. Welcome to the committed to create podcasts. I'm Lisa Funk and I am so excited to hang out with you here. As we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds, I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here. Hello and welcome back. I am excited about today's topic. Guilt-free creativity. It's a topic that I have been asked about more than any other, probably, as far as requests for what we could talk about on the podcast. So it's going to be a good one. I also just wanted to say, thank you for all of you who have been sharing what you're doing for your five minutes of mindful creativity. It's just a great way to get started. It is a way to not put any pressure on yourself to have a perfect product, but just five minutes of immersing yourself in creating something, being mindful and present in that moment. And I'm just so happy that so many of you are just taking that invitation and enjoying it. It's not a challenge that's meant to, you know, put pressure on you. Like you can't miss a day. It's just for fun to get started and to see how healing and enjoyable creativity can be when we take some of the pressure off. I also must admit that I was pretty excited when my husband told me the other day that he is thinking about what he's going to be doing for his five minutes of mindful creativity. So I'm excited to find out what that is, and maybe I will even be able to share with you what he is doing as well. Before we get started with the podcast episode, I wanted to do a segment called a mindful moment. So last week in episode five, I talked about the free guide that I am offering on our website, which is five creative steps to less stress. And I shared how it isn't actually only for stressful times, or just to lessen stress. It's truly a practice in how to become more mindful and present in every moment, even, and maybe especially in the beautiful moments as well. And I had the opportunity to practice this just the other day. So you mentioned that after you've done it with pencil and paper, a number of times, it becomes easier to do some of these creative practices in your mind, even when you don't have access to pen and paper. And I wanted to share a little bit about a moment that I had the other day with my son. So you may or may not know that we live in Arizona and it gets a little warm here. I'm just kidding. It gets super duper crazy hot here, and it already has gotten very warm. And in order to beat the heat, we often seek out water. Ways that we can swim and get wet and stay cool. And one of those activities that I had been wanting to try was floating the river and I had been to the river before, but I had never like started at one part of the river and then floated or paddled to another part of the river. And I really was excited to try it. So. My husband and I had gone. And then we decided that it would be fun to each take one kid at a time. We have four kids, but we thought it would be fun for some of the older kids to take one at a time to do this fun paddling down the river. And he had gone first with my oldest daughter, and then I got to take my son. So my son who is eight years old, and I went for a day paddling down the river and it was perfect. The weather was warm outside, but we were cool because we were on the water and we could get wet if we wanted to. And. We didn't hear anything except for the nature sounds around us. And it was just awesome. I loved it. I loved being there with him and I thought to myself, I don't want to forget this moment. I just had this urge to just soak that moment in. And it popped into my head to do these five creative steps that I had just taught about on the podcast. And so I did them. And so for the first one for what do you see? I, in my mind, I just looked, you know, I looked at everything around me and I kind of traced around it, like it, an imaginary pencil sketch. And I just kind of like outlined. The red rock and the trees that were on the side of the river and the ripples in the water. And I just let my, I focus on everything that I could see in all the beauty that was right in front of me. And for the second step I thought about what can I hear? And I imagined that graph where I've picked a different line for each noise that I was hearing. And I thought about the birds and they're chirping, and my son with his fun storytelling. And I love hearing everything he had to say and the sound of the paddle going into the water. And for the third step, I thought about what am I touching and, and the feeling and the textures of sitting on the board and putting my feet into the water and the feeling of the round paddle in my hands. And for the next step, I thought about taste, which was just the water, but I, the water that we were drinking, but I thought about tracing the words that are on that page and thinking about the cold water that I was drinking and the, for the final step I thought about what do I smell? And the last time that I had been on the river with my husband, he had said, oh, it smells like the desert. And I was like, Does that mean? It smells like dirt, but he said, no, it just maybe, but it smells like earth and it just, it just felt good to be in nature, surrounded by nature and doing these creative practices when I was smelling in for that fifth step. If you'll remember, I talked about breathing in, inhaling as if you were breathing in beautiful, fragrant flower and then breathing out as if you're blowing out birthday candles. And he just took some of those really nice deep breaths. And I thought about all of my different senses and I went through that whole process, that practice, and it just helped me to be more present in that moment. And it was a mindful moment. It was special. And I hope that if you are interested in doing that, you will head to the website. I'll put in the show notes at committed to create.com that you can go and check out that free guide for yourself. And I would love to hear about some of your mindful moments as well. All right. So now we're going to get into the meat of the episode, which is why do we feel so guilty taking time for ourselves to create? And I want to start out by asking another question. Which is why do we encourage kids to do sports, to do art, to do music, to take lessons, to take classes. And I'm not even mentioning going to school. We pay for these things. We drive them around. We invest tons of time and energy and money into children, learning and growing and increasing their skills and all of these different things. Why do we do that? I'm I'm, I'm genuinely asking. I really want you to think about it. It's something that I think about because I think for so many of us, we are so quick to want to figure out what our children are interested in and we want to invest in them. And even if you don't have children of your own, I think that we can all agree that we think it's really important and valuable to invest in children's learning and find things they're passionate about and help them to develop their talents and skills and interests. I would venture to say that the answer to this question of why do we invest so much into them? And their growth would be three things. One is that I think we want them to find a passion that they enjoy because finding something that we enjoy brings vibrancy to our lives. It brings happiness. It brings excitement. And I think we love seeing our children light up when they have a passion or something that they enjoy. The second reason why I think that we love to invest in our children in this way is because we want them to learn and grow. We love seeing them try new things and, and sometimes even failing at those things, but trying again and learning how to learn, expanding their knowledge and their abilities. And the third reason that I came up with today for why we invest in our children in this way is because we want them to have something to contribute to the world. We want them to share their gift. My oldest daughter loves to sing. Anyone who knows her, knows this. All the teachers at her school doesn't matter what grade they all will comment on her singing. If they are walking down the hall and she happens to be in the bathroom, washing her hands, or she's somewhere, she. Is singing. And I love her voice. I love her singing voice and it's something that she could do by herself in a room where no one would ever hear her, but it brings me so much joy when she sings. She has sung for other people a couple of times, and it is. Wonderful. It's a gift to the people that she shares it with and it's a gift to her and it's a gift to share it. I think that it's a beautiful thing when our children and us spoiler alert as well, but we love it when our children can also share these gifts. On a deeper level. I think we also want our children to feel a whole loved and enriched. And why I think is so crazy is that we believe so strongly in investing in children and helping them find passion and follow their interests and learn, and grow and develop and improve in these skills and hobbies and talents. Until you reach a certain age at which point. You will just pour into your children and forget that you matter and completely lose yourself. I know this sounds crazy, but I am just trying to point out that we feel so strongly about supporting our kids in there. Pursuits. I mean, think of how much money you spend, honestly. I mean, you could do this as an exercise, right? How much, if you have children, right? How much money you spend on their different activities? Including the uniforms and the clothes and the instruments and the tools and, and the teachers and the lessons. And then think about how much time you spend driving to these different teams and sports and music and art and dance and tumbling and all of these things. If you think about the time, the energy, the investment that you put into your kids, and then. As a society or as a culture or whatever it is, there's a shift. And at what point does that shift happen? Where maybe as an adult, even before you have kids, you feel bad doing things for fun, because maybe you feel like you should quote unquote, should there the slash should wear it again. You should be doing something more productive or more serious. And all of a sudden it feels maybe a little frivolous to spend time on a hobby, like learning an instrument, and then you think we're all of those things we did as children only trying to lead to something that could be financially. Important. Like if I was going to get a scholarship because I was really good at swimming or playing the flute or, or something like that, why is it that at a certain point, we don't necessarily pursue these types of hobbies anymore. And I'm not saying that no one does. You might know people that are really good at this, but I think that the reason why so many people have asked me to address this topic on the podcast is because it is challenging. It is hard. It is so common, especially if you have kids to lose yourself, to pour everything in to everyone around you, except for yourself. So, so if that is you, I don't want you to feel bad. That you have done that because this exact same thing happened to me. And I love having kids. That's all I ever felt like I really wanted was to be a mom and have kids. And I thought that that alone should fulfill my every need and want and that it should just make me completely happy without needing any other. Outlet or anything for myself. And that just isn't what happened for me after I had had my third baby, as you have heard on episode two on my story about how lettering changed my life, I found that I needed something. I needed something for myself, something that was going to help to fill my creative cup so that I could be fulfilled and happy as a mom. But for some reason, it almost feels taboo sometimes to put yourself on the list to put your passions or your interests or your hobbies on the list. And we are taught this. For so many of us, we get these messages that glorify self sacrifice. Oh my goodness. She just gave up everything and she gave everything to her kids and she never did anything for herself. It's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Tap the brakes. That is what we are glorifying . And that might sound great from the outside. And if, if that's you and you're like, I'm thrilled, I don't need anything else. I I'm super satisfied and fulfilled without anything outside of just taking care of my children. That's awesome. You're probably not actually listening to this podcast because you probably don't feel like you need it and that's totally fine. But for those of you who do feel like you need it, or who do feel like you. Are interested in other things as well. I, I see you. I hear you. I am you. I was you and I am you. And I think that it's, that's all fine and good. If people think it's amazing to completely self-sacrifice from the outside. My point is from the outside, looking in, you might think like, Oh, she's so selfless, but for so many of us, it might look like that from the outside and on the inside, we are falling apart. We have completely run dry. Our Wells are empty. I had gotten to the point where I thought I just needed to pour into everyone else all the time. I wasn't taking care of myself in the ways that I needed to. And so many women, so many mothers will say that they feel guilty doing something for themselves. And this could include taking care of their physical health, their mental health, or finding time for something fun for creativity, for a hobby. Can you imagine if you had a child that just refused, used to learn to do sports, to do music lessons or something, because they told you that they felt guilty doing it, that they felt guilty taking the time or the money or anything else. How would you respond to any member of your family that told you that they felt guilty? For getting to learn and grow and have fun. You would say, no, of course you should do this. This is wonderful. And you deserve the same. Nothing says that learning and growing and progressing and following our passions should stop at a certain age. It doesn't have to be either or. Mom can be a person too. I know this is kind of silly to say, but it's true. When I think about how well I know my children and their needs and their preferences. I know them so well. When my baby. Okay. I'm always going to call him my baby. Cause he's my, I am speak, just turned two and feel sad, but it's okay. I love putting him to bed and doing his bedtime routine. We go into his room and put on his pajamas and I know just how he likes to be wrapped up in his blanket. He just likes, still likes to have a blanket around him. And I know how he wants to sit on my lap and how we're going to read the books and the order of the books that we're going to read them in. And then the songs that I'm going to sing, and even how I place them into the crib, I just know his routine and what he enjoys and what helps him get to sleep. And I could tell you similar things for all of my kids for all of their different times of day or things that they're doing. I know their needs. I know what helps them to feel whole and taking care of, put the question is, do I know my needs? Do I know what helps me feel whole what lights me up? What things I can create that help to fill my creative cup. I believe that we can change the conversation that we can change the beliefs that when you're an adult, all of a sudden growth and interests don't matter so much. We live in a society where it is really valued in some weird way for as adults or mothers or parents to kind of sacrifice our interests or our wants for our children. I don't believe that it needs to be all or nothing. If I decide. That I want to pursue something I'm interested in it. Doesn't all of a sudden mean that I'm not available as a mother. That I am a bad example that I can't be there for my children. For a lot of these things, it could be five or 10 minutes a day. It could be one hour a week. It could be a lot more than that as well. But it doesn't necessarily need to be. You might decide that you want to say, say you're interested in learning lettering, for example, and you get like a lettering course and you get started with it and you can. Do it for a few minutes at a time in our heads, it's this all or nothing thinking where we believe that either I'm going to be super selfish and follow my own passions, or I have to give all of that up for this entire season of motherhood until my children have left the house. And I've forgotten who I am. And I have a midlife crisis that is not what we want to have happen. And I. Kind of hit a little bit of a rock bottom with my mental health before I decided to really take the time and take hold of my creativity and my interests and filling my creative cup. And I don't even necessarily want that to happen to you. I don't want you to wait until you hit rock bottom. With your mental health until you decide, you know what? I really do deserve to take care of myself and it's okay for me to do something that's fun for me. I don't want you to wait until that happens. I want you to believe right now that you matter that your interests matter and to know that taking care of yourself and following some of these interests and passions is going to make you. A happier person, a happier parent, a happier partner. We established the tone of self-nurturing in our homes. We can set a good example to our kids. They can see us. Following our passions, having fun, reading, creating, resting, all those things that we hope that they'll do, we can do as well. We want them to, you know, try a new instrument and be bad at it and, and, and keep going and keep learning and trying what, if we're learning a new instrument and they can see it with their own eyes and watch us struggle and us fail. And us continue to keep trying, even as adults. How powerful would that be? But I think it also teaches them that we are humans. We are people. And that that's okay for them to realize. I remember when my kids were little and I just was in the habit of really catering to everything for them. And I don't think there's anything wrong with this, but I remember hearing a podcast probably cause I love, love me a podcast where they talked about how mommy is a person too. I think it might've been April Perry on power of moms where mommy is a person too. And it's okay. For you to get everybody set up at dinner. And then when you sit down to eat dinner, you let everybody know that you will be sitting down to eat your dinner and you will not be getting up again. I know this sounds so silly and it was like silly that it was like kind of mind blowing for me at the time. But I was like, This sounds like a very small thing. Like it, maybe shouldn't matter that I'm going to tell everyone that once I sit down to eat my dinner, I'm not going to get up again. I guess I'm going to also get to sit down and eat. And some of my children weren't big enough to necessarily go get every single thing they wanted, but I did my best to make sure everyone had what they needed. And then I said, I'm going to sit down and eat my dinner. And my children learned that I was also a person who deserved to be able to sit down and eat. I know. It sounds kind of silly, but it's a mindset shift. It is a mindset shift in believing that our needs matter and that it's okay if we close the door and go to the bathroom by ourselves and sit down when it's time for dinner and enjoy the meal without getting up 15 different times to get someone who knows whatever they felt like they needed. Now, if you find yourself really resisting. These ideas that's okay. If you believe that it's wrong or selfish to follow a passion or a hobby or an interest, or doing something for your own growth, just pay attention to that. Be curious about why you might feel that way. Think about maybe some of the messaging that you got when you were growing up and know that that's okay that you're feeling that way. And you can be curious about it and you can be compassionate for yourself when you're going through this. And you can also decide that maybe you don't want to keep thinking this and maybe this isn't serving you anymore and you might worry what if I do decide to follow some of my interests and what if other people think I'm selfish and you have to decide that you believe. That it is a beautiful thing for all humans to follow their passions, to be creative, to get in touch with their interests and what excites them and what lights them up and that children and seeing a mom who's excited about life and who's trying new things is going to be so healthy for them. And so if other people do think you're being selfish, because people get to think whatever they want, that you are okay with them being wrong about you and that you're not selfish and you're doing the best thing for you and for your family. Can you imagine if someone looked at you eating food and thinking, Oh my gosh, I can't believe she feeds herself. That is so selfish. She should give all of that food to her kids. Or, Oh my gosh. Did you know that she sleeps at night? That is so selfish. That would be ridiculous. That is you taking care of yourself because you matter first and foremost, and you're going to be a much better mother, a happier mother. If you do those things. And some people might say that creativity isn't important it's you can't compare that to sleep and food and whatever. I think it is important. I believe that we were created to create that it's part of our DNA and that it grounds us and it makes us whole, it helps us to connect to ourselves and to others. And that it's a beautiful part of being alive. We often hear people using the analogy of putting the airplane mask on yourself first, before you can put it on your child. And it is so true. I love the quote by Janine bad's guard that says in the end, I am the only one who can give my children a happy mother who loves life. So does this mean that you need to completely abandon your children, neglect them and only focus on you and your interests? No, absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying at all. In fact, you can do so many things together when you're with your children. A lot of this is just a mindset. Shift. So when you're setting out art supplies for quote unquote for your kids, now you might be thinking, this is for me too. I'm going to sit down and grab some markers and I'm going to draw something I'm going to doodle. I'm going to have a chance to be creative right now as well. Or it might be saying I'm going to. Taking our class, or like we talked about before, I'm going to do a letter in course, and maybe I'm going to even turn it on while my kids are awake depending on their ages and their needs. I know some of you are like, You don't know my kids, I could never do that when they're awake and I feel you, I get it. But some of us don't take a minute to think, wait, I actually could turn that on. Even when they're awake and some of your kids might even be old enough to do it with you. And by do it with you, I don't mean that they're going to do it perfectly. They might be really young and they're going to, you know, kind of pretend to do it with you, but they're still going to enjoy it. And even doing a few minutes at a time can just be a really fun activity to increase your creativity and to fill your creative cup. You can show your children that joy and fun are part of your life too. So I remember when I was young watching my mom find a creative outlet that she enjoyed, and that was fun for her and what an impact it made on me. And I did get to benefit from it a little bit. Which I'm going to explain, but I also just loved watching her enjoy something so much. So she got really into gourmet cooking and we used to get the Martha Stewart living magazine. Oh my gosh. It was so beautiful and so fun to get and she would pull out those beautiful recipe cards. Do any of you remember those and try out all of these really. Amazing fun. Gourmet recipes. And she joined with a group of friends and they started the gourmet club and they each had a partner and with their partner, they would host a dinner. And I think they did it monthly, at least at first and with their partner, they would come up with a theme and they would practice their recipes and they would come up with beautiful invitations for the rest of the gourmet club members. And they would. Decorate. And it was not for the husbands. It was not for the kids, which I think is actually really cool that they were doing it for each other. They knew that they all really loved good food and they appreciated it and they wanted to talk about how delicious. Each piece of the meal was, and it was such a cool creative outlet. Now, did I sometimes benefit from this outlet? Yes. But beyond that, I loved seeing my mom excited about something and I venture to say that it was good for me to see that she had something even of her own that she did with friends. I didn't go to these dinners. I mean, it would have been amazing. I would still like to be able to go and taste all of that delicious food, but it was something that she did and that she enjoyed. And it was really healthy for me to see that she had interests of her own and she followed those things. Now, I just want to encourage you. If you're like, I have never really followed a hobby or had a passion or something that I have invested in for myself. It's okay. There's no right or wrong here. And it's never too late to explore your own passions or your own interests. And I'm not going to say that it's super simple and easy. All of a sudden you can just start taking time and doing these things. It's little bit at a time changing the way that you think about it and not expecting everyone else in your life to make it happen for you. You might have to ask for support. I love my friend, Phil Nielsen from the three and 30 podcasts. He always says, ask for support, not permission. Sometimes I used to find myself saying, is it okay if I do this, instead of saying, you know, I'd really like to try this and I'm going to need some help. He's watching the kids or whatever. Now, not everything we do well, we need someone to help us or make it possible. We might be able to figure it out on our own or do it when we're with our kids or whatever it might be. But we can ask for support and you might be surprised at how liberating it is when you start changing your mindset and deciding that you want to try new things, that you are excited for a new hobby, and that you can enjoy it and not feel guilty. I want you to take a deep breath and remember that you. Matter you deserve to feel whole and loved and enriched just like your kids do. And just like we want our kids to find a passion so that they can feel excited and vibrant about life. You also deserve to follow your interests and hobbies and feel excited and vibrant about life. And just like, we want our kids to learn and grow and try new things, even when they're not good at it and continue to learn and learn how to learn. We can also do that and benefit from the learning process. And just like, we want our kids to have beautiful things that they can contribute to the world, even in their imperfect ways. We can also contribute our gifts to the world and share them with others and ways that bless us and bless them. So I encourage you to start small. Think of one thing that you might want to try. Remind yourself that it's a beautiful thing for you for your partner if you have one, for your children, if you have them or anyone around you to see that you're following what you feel passionate about, what you feel interested in and that you can take charge of your life, your creativity and your happiness. You've got this. I am so excited for you. I cannot wait to hear what you get started on and how you can enjoy guilt free creativity. Before we go. I wanted to share an iTunes podcast review with you. This is from a mad waffle iron. I love this podcast so far. I started listening because I wanted to get motivated to be creative more often, but Lisa talks about way more than hand lettering or other creative pursuits. When I found out her mission is to help people find relief from mental struggles and find more joy. I was hooked. These, this voice itself is very soothing and puts me in a good mood. I'm so happy to hear that. I recommend this podcast to anyone looking for more light and love in their life. Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much. Send me an email. If that was you, if that was your review, send me an email at hello, a hand lettered design.com and you get to pick out any of our online courses for free. Speaking of which, if you're interested in doing an online lettering course, trying it out, I recommend beginning. With intro to hand lettering and faux calligraphy. I will link that in the show notes as well. And I just wanted to say thank you for all of your reviews, for all of your feedback. I want to invite you to create something, even if it is taking a quote or a thought from this podcast and lettering it. If you do that and post it on Instagram, please tag me. I am at a hand lettered design. I would love to see it. I love hearing your takeaways. When you leave your review or messaged me on Instagram, I am always so happy to hear from you. Thanks for joining me. And I will talk to you again next week.

 

Links:

005: 5 Creative Steps to Less Stress
5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy
Power of Moms Radio
3 in 30 Takeaways for Moms
Intro to Hand Lettering and Faux Calligraphy

Ready for a fun activity to feel less stress? Come get our FREE Guide - 5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy while it's still available!

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