Want to Be In Love With Your Life? 10 Quick Questions to Help

Want to be in love with your life?

Specifically, do you want to be in love with your creative life? (Or as I like to call it, your Creative Oasis.)

You know those creative experiences that fill you up with happiness? Anything from gardening to yoga to painting to writing to making music to art journaling to traveling to visiting museums to cooking to photography...all of the creative experience that makes your heart sing and time fly!

Today I'm sharing 10 quick questions to help shift your focus to what's working well and what could use a little help in your creative life. (You know how I love questions! Asking them tends to lead us straight to the good stuff!)

Doesn't it make sense that the more time you spend having creative experiences you love the more you will love your life? (Jack was onto something! Woot!)

To join me, set a timer for 5-minutes and quickly write your answers in your journal or on a sheet of paper.

Either way, please try writing them down somewhere. There's something powerful in the act of writing your thoughts on paper rather than just thinking them in your mind.

Ready? Here we go...

#1 ~ Are you in love with your creative life? 

#2 ~ If yes...what do you love about it? (If no...skip down to question #6.)

#3 ~ What's one simple way you can expand what's working well to enjoy it in a new and different way? 

#4 ~ What's another creative experience you've been dreaming of that you haven't yet tried? What's one small step you could take toward making that happen next?

#5 ~ What if you take a moment right now to enjoy a nice deep breath of gratitude for your wonderful creative life?  (Yay! Gratitude works like fertilizer to feed the flowers of our creative spirit and keep it growing strong! Please proceed to question #10.)

#6 ~ If no...what's worked well in the past? What's one small way you could revisit that?

#7 ~ What's one new thing you'd like to experience that you've never tried before? What's one small, doable step you could take to help make that happen?

#8 ~ If you're feeling stuck coming up with answers for 6 and 7, where might you find help? 

#9 ~ What's one way you can show some compassion and be kind to yourself around this? (*Hint: see question #10.)

#10 ~ How can you spend the next 5 to 10 minutes in a way that feeds your creative spirit and energizes and delights you?* 

(*Ideas: doodle, color, take a few photos with your phone, write a haiku, play a song on the piano or guitar, make a meal using as many colors as possible, take a walk around the block and look for pink things, write your creative self a letter telling her all the things you wish for her!) 

Questions are creative lighter fluid! Here's hoping that by pondering these questions you'll spark your creative curiosity and passion today and move one or two steps closer to being in love with your creative life!

Still need help? The one-on-one creative coaching I offer provides compassionate support, gentle accountability and ongoing inspiration to help you stay motivated and loving your creative life!
Learn more about it here.

You'll also find easy-to-use creative instigation and motivation in my "Create the Summer of Your Dreams  Kit" available here.

Until next time, all the best from my "I Love It!" Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post please share on Facebook and twitter using the buttons below!  If you'd like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

Radical Suggestions & Gentle Reminders ~ A Creative Oasis Manifesto

When we give ourselves permission to enjoy what makes our hearts sing and time fly we experience our Creative Oasis. You've heard me say this before but we can all use a gentle reminder from time to time, right?  

Because our Creative Oasis is unique to each of us and because there are so many fabulous, fun, fulfilling experiences out there waiting to be explored, I decided to write a free-form list poem of some favorite Creative Oasis moments to share as examples and before I knew it I'd written a full-blown manifesto! (Click here to download your free printable copy.)

Of course this list contains only a smattering of the oodles of experiences out there just waiting for you to discover, revisit, explore and savor...but it's a good start. 

Here are five quick and easy steps to help you use my new Creative Oasis Manifesto to spark some creative joy of your own (sooner than later I hope!):

#1 ~ Read the manifesto aloud with a blank piece of paper or your journal open to a new page. Each time you come to a word or phrase that gives you a tingly, energized feeling, makes you smile or sets you to day dreaming about doing that very thing, jot it down. Our body is like our own personal polygraph machine. If we pay attention to the signals it sends us (warm fuzzy feelings, sly smiles, jazzy jitters and what have you) we're sure to stay on the right track!

#2 ~ Next, read over the list you've written. Quickly and intuitively (without overthinking) put a star next to your three favorites. 

#3 ~ For each starred moment ask yourself: "What are three super small steps I can take to enjoy this Creative Oasis moment?" Write those down too. You may feel compelled to doodle hearts, stars, moons and smiley faces all around your steps. If so, my professional opinion is to break out the colored pencils and go for it!

#4 ~ Each day for the coming week, you get to choose one of your super small steps to enjoy! Repeat as time allows throughout the day and week. 

# 5 ~ To make getting to your small steps even easier why not add them to your calendar or day planner? This really helps give your creativity priority just like everything else on your to-do list. 

In fact, I'm going to radically suggest you put your creative small steps at the very top of your to-do list! That's right, you heard me. Puttering in the garden trumps laundry. Felting for a few minutes comes before your meeting. Pulling images for a collage has priority over making dinner. (We're only talking about 5 to 10 minutes here, so I feel safe in saying no one will starve as a result.) 

#6 ~ Also, what if you set a timer for just 5 to 10 minutes to lower the pressure and help you begin?Another benefit of practicing small bursts of creative joy throughout the day is it helps us practice getting to our Creative Oasis more often rather than waiting for those big chunks of free time that rarely, if ever, come our way! If you have time to do more ~ Great! If not, no worries. At the very least, you know you'll be enjoying a few minutes of Creative Oasis time most days.

If you have trouble breaking down your Creative Oasis moments into small, doable steps, please drop me a line in the comments below and I'll be happy to lend a hand.

Until next time, here's to gentle reminders, radical suggestions and the Creative Oasis Manifesto!

Jill

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

Bohemian Snow Day Play

“When life hands you lemons make lemonade,” the saying goes.  The first week of February life handed us school-closing snow and ice that kept many of us in Dallas/Ft. Worth homebound with kids that were soon bouncing off the walls. 

Bikini Snow Chick by Ashley Thames Brown

Snow Rita

What did we make with all that snow & ice? According to facebook posts, on the first snow day my friends made snow chicks in bikinis,  snow ice-cream and even snow-ritas. (The love of all things Tex-Mex runs deep down here y’all!) In other words, we made the best of it. We consumed mass quantities of hot chocolate and marshmallows, made fires, played games and watched old movies. 

Then came the second snow day…as my friend Juliana Finch would say write-play-repeat! We did it all again.

Next came day three. Insert *@*#*&&%%!!!* expletive of your choice. By the fourth phone call from school confirming that once again they would be closed due to inclement weather it was time to put on my get-really-creative-and-think-outside-the-box hat.  Thus “Boho Snow Day” was born.

I had several creative projects that I wanted to get to for a group class that I’m teaching here in Dallas called, “Welcome To Your Creative Oasis”, for a group teleclass I’m participating in with Jill Badonsky – “Blissfully Imperfect – Liberating Creative Joy” and for my Creative Oasis Day Trippers group.

Bohemian Dress Up

My daughter loves role-playing, so I figured if I offered to turn our dining room into a Soho-esque artist loft and us into bohemian artist-types (complete with the proper boho-chic fashions) I’d have a good chance of getting her to hang out and do some fun creative stuff with me for an hour or two and give video-chatting on her computer a rest. 

Scarves helped transform the
dining room into a Soho loft

It worked! The proof is in the photos. We had a blast dressing up, hanging scarves and shawls around the room (it helps that I have a slight Stevie Nicks fascination), lighting candles and playing with creative projects. We wrote in our journals. We made Artist Trading Cards. We listened to music. (The New Bohemians, of course!) And I got at least few things accomplished that I wanted to without locking myself in my office and leaving Riley Anna to her own devices.

Our Boho Snow Day was as fun for me as it was for her, and it was an excellent reminder that when we add an element of child-like play to anything we do – it becomes more joyful. Sounds simple…makes sense…but we can all use the reminder.

Journaling...

is fun!
(yes...we dressed up the dog too, poor guy)

As Bea Silly, Muse of Play, Laughter and Dance says, “Fun is an elixir of spontaneous ideas. Solutions that seemed so elusive earlier appear effortlessly in the midst of play. To engage in the kind of play that stimulates ideas, mortals need to take themselves less seriously and make room for making things up, kidding, and goofing off.” (Quoted from “The Nine Modern Day Muses and a Bodyguard” by Jill Badonsky.)

Artist Trading Card

Can you imagine how child-like play might open you up to the creative process? Why not fetch your feather boa out of the mothballs (or if you don’t own one – go buy one for heaven’s sake – everyone needs a feather boa!) and throw it dramatically around your neck then dive into five minutes of creative play. Write in your journal as if you’re a movie star from the days of the silver screen…create a collage like your Lady Gaga designing your next crazy costume…plan a menu for a dinner party for the rock stars you’re inviting over next weekend (and if you don’t know any rock stars…have your neighbors over to enjoy it instead.)

I’d love to hear how you choose to use child-like play in your creative process! (oooo…and send photos too please!)

All the best from my creative oasis to yours,

Jill

Visit The Creativity-Portal to find this article and many more written by me and other certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaches.

My Creative Oasis Looks Like This (What About Yours?)

My Creative Oasis™Mandala

The mandala above visually represents my own personal creative oasis. It encompasses all the things I strive to experience and share through my creativity coaching and my music. It also illustrates the central role that creativity plays in all aspects of my life. I truly believe everyone deserves to experience creative fulfillment, and whether or not you consider yourself to be particularly creative, you can easily make the time to discover your own Creative Oasis™ and lead a more joy-filled and satisfying existence. 

That's why I'm so happy to offer another round of my unique group creativity classes:

Welcome To Your Creative Oasis™ – 

7 Weeks Dedicated to Gently Lifting Creativity 
to the Top of Your To-Do List 

Whether it’s cooking, writing, painting, making music, scrap-booking, creating collages, blogging, dancing, gardening, performing – whatever it is that your heart longs to do – that’s your Creative Oasis™.  So often we let procrastination, perfectionism, and a general feeling of being overwhelmed by our busy lives stop us from making the time for the things that energize and delight us.  It doesn’t have to be that way. As a certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, I provide a treasure chest of easy-to-use tools and techniques that can help you consistently enjoy creative satisfaction. (The very same ones that changed my life, opening the doors to my creative coaching career and my lifelong musical dream come true!)


If you live in the DFW area, I hope that you'll join me for this transformative 7 week experience. (The enthusiastic participants from last fall's session suggested that I add one more week to the course and I agreed!) The group meetings provide camaraderie, support and gentle accountability and are a really fun way to jumpstart the creative process. Here's the low-down:

What:

“Welcome To Your Creative Oasis™ – a 7-week course dedicated to gently lifting your creative dreams to the top of your to-do list!”

When:

Class offered either Tuesday mornings 10:30am to Noon (2/15/11 – 3/29/11)

Or Thursday evenings 7pm to 8:30pm (2/17/11 – 3/31/11)

(No classes will be held the week of March 14, 2011)


Price:

$275 includes materials and e-mail follow-ups

Register by 2/1/11 or with a friend for just $250

(Discount price applies to all past and present clients as well.)

To register contact me at creativeoasiscoach@me.com.

Where:

Pigment School of the Arts

4605 West Lovers Lane  

Dallas, TX  75209-3133

(214) 352-2787

Are you ready to discover how your Creative Oasis looks?

Please feel free to contact me here if you have any questions or are ready to register today! All the best from my creative oasis to yours, Jill