The Happiness Secret

I came across this photograph I took at a friend's place years ago. It always makes me smile and seemed like the perfect image with which to create this Mid-Week Oasis Moment:

"Learn to let go. This is the secret of happiness." 

– Buddah

Reading this quote, this question came to mind:

When giving ourselves permission to spend time with the creative pursuits we love, what would be helpful for us to let go? 

What if we practice gently letting go of:

* the need to please everyone else

* inner critic voices

* perfectionism

* comparison 

* judgement

* self-doubt

If these seem too daunting, what if you practiced letting go of them just 5% more? 

What if you start by simply reading the words, feeling a glimmer of hope and thinking: 

"Hey! Wouldn't that be awesome if I let go of 5% of my perfectionism today and just enjoyed my creative process?"

Here's to letting go of the thoughts and feelings that don't serve us and embracing our creative spirit instead! 

All the best from my Happy Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

p.s. – If you’d like to receive Mid-Week Oasis Moments (bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration) as well as my e-booklet, “Permission to Be Creative 101” with my compliments, you can sign up for both right here.

Are You Waiting to Bloom?

Do you find yourself waiting to pursue your creative passions? Waiting for the perfect time to begin? Waiting for a sign? Waiting for the ideal place to create? Waiting for permission from someone else? Waiting for everything on your to-do list to be complete? (We know when that happens…never!)

What if you stop waiting and start creating today?

What if you say Yes! to your creative passions?

What if today is the perfect time to begin?

What if this is your sign?

What if you create right where you are?

What if I give you permission? 

What if you move creativity to the top of your to-do list?

Can you imagine how good that might feel?

Just think of how beautiful our world would be if we all allowed ourselves to stop waiting and simply bloom where we've been planted. What's one small way you might allow yourself to bloom where you're planted today? At home? At work? In your community?

Until next time, all the best from my blooming Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

www.CreativeOasisCoaching.com

Maintaining Momentum After Your Creative Retreat

Have you ever felt delightfully wrapped up in the creative cocoon of a fabulous retreat or workshop focused fully on the joy of creating and surrounded by oodles of other supportive creative souls also totally engaged in experiencing their creative bliss? Wow! It’s an amazing feeling, isn’t it?

Have you ever found yourself back in the real world just days later feeling that joyful creative energy evaporate as your busy daily schedule, never-ending to-do lists and obligations take over?

You’re not alone! Luckily, using the gentle yet powerful (some would say magical) methods of Kaizen-Muse® Creativity Coaching, we have a wonderful variety of ways to continue to ride our creative waves.

That’s why I’m so happy to be able to share my special workshop, “So In The Flow –Maintaining Your Creative Momentum Even After the Retreat” on the final day of this year’s Art and Soul Retreat in Portland, Oregon. Find the line-up for seven full days ofmixed media art workshops here. (April 7 – 13, 2014)

We’ll spend the day together exploring a potpourri of fun prompts, activities and discussion topics designed to help lucky participants return home from Art & Soul feeling ready to stay in the flow and maintain their creative momentum. (Read all about it and find registration information here.)

It will be my absolute pleasure to send enthusiastic creativity lovers back into the world with a treasure chest of tools and techniques designed to help them move past procrastination, perfectionism, overwhelm and other creative blocks that may await.

Until next time, all the best from my Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

p.s. – If you’d like to receive my Mid-Week Oasis Moments (bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration) as well as my e-booklet, “Permission to Be Creative 101” you can sign up for both right here.

Sipping from the Fountain of Youth

Last weekend my daughter and I took a fun introductory digital photography class together. I guess you could say I sipped from the fountain of youth that day because studies show learning a new skill is a wonderful way to keep our brains healthy and agile.

In fact, according to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, mental stimulation is one of the five best ways to maintain a healthy brain. (things like learning a new skill or language, playing games, traveling to new places, trying new foods, playing an instrument) Other factors include physical activity, nutrition, socialization and spirituality.

As I shared in an article I wrote in 2011 for Natural Awakenings Magazine (“Is Creativity The Fountain of Youth?”) studies also show that people who remain engaged in some type of creative endeavor, whether it be art, music, gardening, cooking, crafting or other creatively satisfying pursuits enjoy a variety of health benefits throughout their lives.

This is great news! 
We now have more compelling reasons 
to give ourselves permission 
to pursue our creative interests without guilt!

Since I happen to know many of you feel guilty when it comes to taking time for your creativity I hope this will help you to realize time spent enjoying creative pursuits isn’t a luxury…it’s a necessity to live a healthy, fulfilling life.

Here’s a great 3-minute TED Talk by Matt Cutts about the benefits of trying something new for 30 days. 

My fabulous personal trainer, Pauline Stafford, founder of Garage Fitness in East Dallas, has created a year-long contest for her clients in which we’re challenged to add one simple healthy habit to our daily routine for two weeks at a time. 

So far our challenges have included eating at least three servings of veggies a day, stretching at least two minutes a day and listing at list four things for which we’re grateful each day. It’s been a wonderful way to gently increase our health and create new habits with some friendly competition thrown into the mix.

What creative pursuit have you been longing to try for the first time or reintroduce back into your life? What if you took a moment to make a quick list right now of just three creative activities you'd like to do sometime soon? I'll join you. Mine are:

#1 – Try out ZenTangle 

#2 – Practice taking photographs 

#3 – Play piano and sing

Until next time, all the best from my Creative Oasis Fountain of Youth to yours,
Jill

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."  – Mahatma Gandhi

The Ta-Dah vs. To-Do Shift

(Click here to request a free printable Ta-Dah List of your own.)

We all have to-do lists. Whether we write them in our day planners, keep them on our phones or let them swirl around in our minds. Even if not is list form, we all have never-ending things that we need, want and intend to do.

I say never-ending because we’ll always need to do things like shop for groceries…pay bills…do laundry…meet deadlines…drive carpools…have meetings…finish taxes and the like. We’ll always have places we want to visit, new activities we want to try and people with whom we want to spend time.

As I often remind my clients (and myself!) the day we no longer have a to-do list will not be the day we finally get around to our creative dream – in fact at that point our main pastime will be pushing up daisies. (Harsh? Maybe. True? Definitely!)

I am a list lover! I love to make lists and it brings me great joy to check things off my lists. Yet, I know that our to-do lists can feel overwhelming precisely because they’re never-ending. That’s why I also love the idea of the Ta-Dah list.

Though not a replacement for our to-do lists, a Ta-Dah list can shift our focus from the many things we have yet to accomplish onto the things we have actually done – even if they weren’t on our to-do list in the first place!

So often we do much more than we give ourselves credit for. We tend to concentrate on what we still need to do rather than taking a moment to give ourselves credit for what we’ve already achieved. And we rarely give ourselves a pat on the back for something that feels good. 

Five or ten minutes crafting…a good-for-the-soul discussion with an old friend…an impromptu organizing session…a spontaneous backrub for a stressed-out spouse…reading an inspiring article, knitting or writing in our journal while we wait in the carpool line and so on.

This is the good stuff! These are the moments that enrich our lives, bring us happiness and feelings of fulfillment. When we take a moment to give ourselves credit for them in the same way we do our “official” to-do lists, we shine a light on them and affirm their importance. That’s exactly what the Ta-Dah list lets us do.

I’ve decided to walk the walk and share my own brief Ta-Dah list in future Mid-Week Oasis Moments. I’d love for you to join me. I’ve created a free printable Ta-Dah list you can download here and use on a daily or weekly basis or whenever you like. Feel free to share your Ta-Dahs in the comments section below as well.

Click here to download your free printable Ta-Dah List

Can you imagine how good it might feel to shift our focus from all we have left to do on any given day to the delightful things we have already done? What a boost!

Here’s to giving ourselves credit for small steps, surprise detours, simple pleasures and all of the Creative Oasis Moments we enjoy in our busy lives.

All the best from my Ta-Dah Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

Jill Allison Bryan

www.CreativeOasisCoaching.com

I Can Beat Myself Up or...

I can Be Gentle and give myself a few moments to practice self-compassion in the form of pure creative process. You'll be glad to know that though tempted to choose the former I decided to "practice what I preach" and went with the latter. I chose to Be Gentle with myself…and you can too. 

How? I grabbed my Creative Oasis Journal, a few simple art supplies and gave myself permission to play and quickly create a visual reminder of one of my favorite self-compassion come-backs – Be Gentle. I also added a bit of wisdom from the Buddah for good measure with a quote I recently found and love.  It was as simple as that. 

"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete." – Buddah

You can see the process and the end result in the 15-second Instagram video below.





Simple truth – today started off pretty sucky. I'm not feeling all that great. A recent class that I offered didn't make. I'm behind on paperwork and a writing project. And I'm a bit overwhelmed by life at the moment. It happens. You get it, right?

Since I wasn't feeling on top of my game my inner-critic knew this would be a great day to get her digs in so thoughts like these kept rolling through my mind: 

Aren't you ever going to finish that new e-course? How long have you been working on that anyway? Look at those piles on your desk! No wonder you can't find anything! You should have done a better job about getting the word out about your class. Etc….

Thankfully, I recognized right away that those negative thoughts belonged to my opportunistic inner-critic. I also knew that her negativity could be shut down (or at least greatly quieted) by the compassionate power of reminders and comebacks. These are two of the many jewels in the Kaizen-Muse® Creativity Coaching treasure chest and especially effective when combined with some low-pressure creative play. 

I quickly countered the harsh running commentary with the reminder that I have the choice…I can beat myself up (not much fun…not remotely productive)…or I can Be Gentle. (feels much nicer…paved the way for a quick creative collage and this blog post)

Do you ever find your inner-critic sneaking in when you're guard is down? What if the next time you're thinking less than kind thoughts about yourself you take a moment to ponder these two simple (but oh, so powerful) words…Be Gentle? What if you give yourself permission to spend five or ten minutes practicing being gentle by allowing yourself to visit your Creative Oasis? (Remember - your Creative Oasis is anything that makes your heart sing and time fly!)

Until the next time, all the best from my compassionate Creative Oasis to yours,
Jill

Jill Allison Bryan
www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

Making Peace with Time by Making Time for Creativity

Last fall I enjoyed the transformative experience of making peace with time by making time for creativity. This digital photo collage was one of the many easy and fun creative pieces I made last fall while teaching my Creating Time for Your Creative Oasis class. It combines a photo of one of my favorite places on earth…a place that brings me peace and inspiration…the Blue River in Breckenridge, Colorado along with words written with the help of a creative prompt exercise. 

How would you like to make peace with time by making time for your creativity?

Even now when I look at this piece I experience a sense of calm and the powerful reminder that I truly have the power to go with the flow of time rather than fighting the clock. And when I do…I breathe a little easier…I feel more peaceful…I remember to be present in this moment…and I feel so grateful for my new relationship with time. 

Creating and sharing Creating Time for Your Creative Oasis was a life-changing journey for me. It provided a wonderful opportunity to dive deeply into the best-selling book Creating Time - Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life  by Marney K. Makridakis and really spend time with its wisdom and share that experience with a remarkable group of women. 

Together we enjoyed 12 weeks dedicated to exploring and practicing the brilliant concepts Marney puts forth in her unique book. We read, we wrote, we created, we doodled, we discussed, we laughed, we teared up and in the end we all agreed that we changed our personal relationship with time for the better. 

Here's what Debbie Stinson had to say about her experience:

"This class helped me think differently about time. I’ve made friends with time and even though we’re still working on our relationship, I feel it will only get better as I learn to use the tools shared in this fabulous book. I love how Jill guides the group in a serendipitous way. Her willingness to change and experiment with new ideas is contagious.” 

If you're ready to make peace with time and using creativity while you do sounds good, I hope you'll join me as I once again share Creating Time for Your Creative Oasis starting next week. 

Click here for all of the details for the tele class version and live classes being offered in Dallas beginning the week of January 27, 2014. 

Until next time, all the best from my peaceful Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

Jill Allison Bryan

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com