Week 13: The Art of Balance - Self-Care as a Creative Practice

Mindfulness and self-care may feel like buzzwords, but for creatives they’re essential tools. In this episode, we dive into how nourishment, movement, therapy, and even moments of joy all feed back into creativity. We get real about the myth that misery fuels art—and why creating from a place of well-being is both sustainable and powerful. Join us as we reflect on the domino effect of self-care and creativity, and why giving yourself love and care is one of the most creative acts you can choose.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you know someone who needs this kind of gentle nudge, send it their way. The more kind, creative hearts in this space, the better.

And if something in this episode resonates or makes you smile, come say hi on Instagram @theartpeaceexperiment 🤍

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:03

Welcome to the Art Peace Experiment. We're your hosts, two artists and friends. I'm Tasha. And I'm Brianna. At the end of 2024, we decided we wanted to cultivate more safety, peace, love, alignment, and excitement through our art and our art practices. So here we are sharing our journey with you. And we're so excited you're here. We hope you enjoy our conversations. They're honest, raw, just just two friends talking to each other about the realities of life and creativity. We're so excited for you to join us and be along with us for the journey. Mindfulness. Self-care.

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Big

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buzzwords. Whoa. Starting it off strong. I mean, we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about how those things relate to creativity, how they can help our creative practices, and kind of what that means. Yeah. We're going to dive into it. Okay. Head first. Let's go. Yeah. So I had a bit of an experience this week where I was painting all day. Wow. It's a good day. Yeah, it was a good day. And I mean, this happens. I have this experience regularly where I paint all day and then I get up and realize, oh my gosh, I was hunched over all day. I didn't move. And I need to like do some yoga or something. Stand up straight. I forgot. I have forgotten. I've been painting all day and I forgot how to stand up straight. Now I am hunched over permanently and cannot move. Yeah. And it's just sometimes it's as simple as that. But, you know, taking care of ourselves is, I mean, it's important for all of life. Yeah. But it also impacts our creativity and our creative practices and, you know, things that we need to do. creativity is part of taking care of ourselves and it's kind of like the chicken or the egg which comes first but they just they work together yeah interconnected and woven together that you can't really have one without the other right right so we're gonna have kind of a two-parter you know this week we're gonna talk a little bit about the the mindfulness and there's gonna be some crossover but we're gonna talk about like taking care of ourselves so we can show up for our creative practices yeah and then next week we're going to talk about kind of some easy entry creative ideas that are like just some ideas to help spark some ways to like bring more creativity into your life in an easy way natural way where you don't have to have a whole studio to be creative you don't have to schedule a whole day to paint until you need yoga to make life work again right more easy entry but yeah so have you had experiences where I don't know like you feel like you can't really show up for your creativity because you haven't been taking care of yourself yes I yeah so I have kind of I don't know an interesting experience with this I feel because I was in a car accident in 2020 that really I got really debilitated me I had a pretty bad neck injury and brain injury and so I couldn't really function much but I could sit and crochet so it was like when I physically couldn't be up and doing the creative outlets kind of really saved me

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yeah a bit

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but then I noticed as more time went on as I was sitting you know at and not doing like if I would, as I healed, sorry, let me just get this straight. But as I healed and started to feel better, if I sat too long to keep doing my, you know, my crochet or my painting or whatever I was doing, coloring books, I would get so sore and then I wouldn't be able to sit there long. And now, now it's a lot better. But I do find that if I'm not getting up and if I'm not, you know, taking care of myself and stretching or whatever, like moving if I'm not moving. And if I'm not, there are other things too, like if I'm too hungry or, you know, like I can't pay attention, I can't focus. And so then I can't sit and do my creative work. And it really does interconnect. Like I needed the creativity to help me feel good and feel creative and feel more myself. And that helped me, you know, Yeah, I definitely experienced that in a lot of different in all the areas. I think it really affects all the areas, but tell me a little bit more about your experience. Yeah, well, I'm very into holistic medicine and all of this and seeing a person as a whole being. I love that. Yeah, and I feel like sometimes our creativity, creative practices, all of that gets put in the checkbox of something to do for the day. Instead of it being a part of the whole person. Yeah. Yeah. And realizing that it's all like, it's all connected. It's all part of you. It's an important part. And it's not, it's not just part of a checklist to like check off. It's not part of your to do list. Right. And, and it all works. It all works together. And, you know, if I eat potato chips for lunch, then I, It affects, it affects my creativity, affects my, uh, you don't feel good. You kind of spiral a little bit. It's like, well, now I just want to like watch Netflix and just kind of feel very good. Or if I don't, you know, exercise for a long time, then the same thing. And it kind of creates more blocks. Right. Or if I don't drink enough water, then I get a headache and then I don't want to, you know, then I can't, I just want to like lay Lay down. Functioning. Yeah, exactly. And same thing with emotional things that are going on. When I finally went to therapy and made that a regular part of my life, and I found a really good therapist that I really resonated with who just got me and understood and had different ways of helping me work through the emotional blocks and things that I've been through and when I started really taking care of myself that way and healing it unlocked so much more of my creative potential like yeah it allowed me more of that freedom um so it all yeah it all works it all works together and we talked before about like my biking yeah adventures and like that exercise and how that helped unlock more of my creativity and yeah I just think I think it's important to just recognize like you are a whole being it's not compartmentalized no different aspects of ourselves i mean yeah it's just it's all all works together it all works together and it's not just one one thing at a time it just one thing impacts all the other things you know it's like a domino effect in a lot of ways but it's like a circle domino that just keeps going around and around and around and it it it doesn't uh it doesn't it stop in one spot and then start in another and then you know like it just keeps going yeah yeah and then same with like um you know like social interactions and connect like making sure you have like are filled with your need for like connection yeah that also is huge yeah and it affects your like mental state like it's hard to get creative when you're depressed yeah it's hard to do anything when you're depressed it's so hard it's so hard Yeah. I mean, speaking for personal experience, it really is so hard. I remember after, you know, I had some postpartum after having my son and I didn't really realize either, you know. Yeah. Like, it really is like a fog, right? Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, therapy definitely helped. But social, you know, friends and things like it, it really does make a huge impact to have your community and to have– take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, all the aspects.

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Yeah.

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And to feel aligned in that way.

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Right. And

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that is when all of the areas of yourself– are feeling taken care of.

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They

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don't necessarily have to be like, everything's going perfectly in my life.

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But

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when you're taking care of yourself in the ways that you need, that's what's important, right? And that's when the creativity really opens up a lot more, I feel like, when you're feeling like you have space to do that, when you're allowing yourself to have space to do that. Yeah. So I found it really helpful when I have had creative blocks and feeling like, oh, I can't create. It's like, okay, look at my life as a whole. Look at me as a whole being. Yeah. Where am I not getting the nurture and the love and the support that I need? It might be in my physical being. Yeah. you know do I need more you know meditation more like yeah something to connect with myself am I needing a journal like am I like emotional spiritual kind of a little bit go together for me but it's like am I having a block that way am I am I going through something hard there like where you know where is the like don't you don't need to just jump to beating yourself up of of not, you know, being creative or I should be able to be doing this, you know, I should be doing this. I should be doing that. Yeah. Or talking yourself out of it because of guilt of like, oh, I should, I should be focusing on other things and making all the excuses when really it's like, okay, okay, honey, let's look at it. Where are you? Look, where are you needing some love? Where are you needing some attention? And, and how can you be giving that to yourself? I heard this thing that was really impactful or early on in my therapy days, but that it's nobody else's job to take care of your needs. And that was really impactful because I feel like so often we do make excuses on not even knowingly, you know, but we're like, oh, it's because of this. Oh, because of that. You know, we kind of like, if this were to change, then this, you know, then it would be better. Or if I just didn't, you You know, like if I was there, then it would be fine. But we kind of push off the responsibility in some ways, you know, of, I don't know, making things better for ourselves and taking care of our needs. Like it's just because of outside circumstances that my needs aren't getting met. Right? Right. And it's been so helpful for me to really change that mindset and know that I– I can take charge of my own self. Yeah. And I can take care, I can take care of myself and I can figure out how to get my needs met. That doesn't mean that I have to do it all alone. No. And you should not what that means. And you shouldn't, right? Right. Not meant to be solitary. We're not meant to be all alone. Right. But nobody can really heal you. Right. But yourself and, and we have the power inside of our Mm-hmm. um, like holding my power and within myself and, and saying, I can do this. And if I don't have a need met, well, let's think creatively. Right. Right. If it's, you know, if it's not getting that because of something, like how can I get it met in a different way, you know, or what can I do differently? And so, um, that, that really helps, but yeah, definitely. Um, it definitely all the aspects of life affect creativity and creativity affects all the aspects of life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes showing up for yourself in certain ways is, is, is an act of creativity, but also the creativity helps like it can help. Like there are some creative practices that are really good for, you know, mental health and other things like they kind of, it kind of gets all jumbled together. So it was kind of hard being like, Oh, how do we separate this conversation? But it's okay. Yeah. two-parters. It's going to be good. What was I going to say? We aren't therapists. No. We're not doctors. We're not healthcare providers. We don't have any training. We have been to therapy. All we can share is our own experiences and our own learning and what's helped us in our personal life. An art practice is not a replacement for therapy. We're not going to promote that or like pretend like it is that's the thing but it it is uh it's a helpful part of it. Yeah. You know, it's a part of the whole, it's a part of, you know, it will. Self care. Self care. Like it all supports, it all supports each other.

SPEAKER_00: 15:52

And

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sometimes, you know, like I've been in a place where I am like, I need like a professional to talk to and to get insight and help from. Yeah. Who really, you know, like understands like, you

SPEAKER_00: 16:07

know,

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human psychology. Right. Exactly. And give me, you know, an outside perspective and then other times it's like I just need like a friend I just need someone who will like just be like cheerleading yeah commiserate with me and be there have my back love me right it's been a process of like just learning what I need and getting to a point of being able to be honest with myself yeah I feel like that is the main thing is that it is a process it's a big learning curve yeah because we're not really taught how to do this and and it does take a lot of conscious effort to to even recognize you know recognize our needs and what we're what we're thinking what we're what our habits are you know and what our our perspective is and and it is a process yeah yeah so if you're having creative block Yeah. Think of yourself as a whole being. What do you need? What areas of your life are you really needing support? And it's kind of like a cliche it feels like at this point to be like, go exercise, eat healthy, go for a walk, do some stretching, do some breathing exercises. Right. But it can be really helpful. But the reason that it feels like a cliche is because it actually works. And so that's why people say it all the time, because it does make such a huge difference. Yeah. So just try, you know, just try it. See, see what works for you and, and treat it as an experiment. Right. Right. What works for me? Uh, sometimes I've had people, you know, share, like, tell me to do this one thing and I try it and I'm like, I really didn't like that. Right. It just really didn't work. That didn't work for me. And you know, I'm going to add to this, like as creatives to this list, just take in creative things. Yeah.

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You

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know, like sometimes we're like output, output, output. Sometimes, you know, notice the beautiful flowers. Yeah. Notice the sunset. We just went through a phase of, I just want to watch Jane Austen movie for a little bit. Like, you know, and, and, you know, sometimes it's, it's music or books or another person's creativity that they put out into the world. Like just allowing yourself space to, to, um let that fill you

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

yeah

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just delight in it and enjoy it um we were just at um we were just somewhere um at a pottery place and we were watching this this man make a vase and it we just sat there and like watched him do this and it was like when I turned to you and I was like that was so relaxing like that was so fun to watch it was really cool yeah to you know watch someone else create like that which I feel like you know that's I that's why I get on to you know why I start doom scrolling is I love to watch people in their creative creativity you know that's really I love that but and so taking that you know in moderation right we don't want to just like sure go down that and then never never create ourselves but sometimes we do need to be filled you know yeah and and so watching other There's, you know, seeing other creativity can do that, but yeah, being in nature, seeing, seeing the, paying attention to those things that are beautiful and delight us and taking that, those moments, right. And having that awareness, that's huge. It makes such a huge difference and it makes life so much more enjoyable, you know, and, and special and, and taking in those moments or it's just, it's powerful. And it makes a huge difference. Yeah. I find it so funny that in media and everything, there's like this portrayal of artists as like, I can only create if I'm miserable. Right. And it's like what I'm feeling truly miserable. A lot of times it's really hard to actually. I don't want to make anything. Like, I don't resonate with this. I don't need to be miserable and doing drugs to be creative. I don't know. I mean, sometimes. getting creative helps me out of those places but I like sometimes it's glorified to like search for the misery to yeah like I can't create unless I'm in this miserable place it's like no more of that no more of that we're gonna create from a place of joy yeah right but I mean it can be helpful like if that's what you need you know like sometimes when I am struggling and this was you know when I was a teenager a lot too I wouldn't if I was really sad um i would go play the piano and i played really sad songs on the piano you know yeah i mean i don't think it helped me right but yeah that's not the only place that the that the creativity came from right and i didn't feel like i have to be in that mode to be a true artist yeah i think that it's so silly yeah so ridiculous yeah um yeah and i wasn't at all saying like if you're miserable don't create it's like yeah i Like if it's not coming, that's totally fine, right? It's totally fine. If that's not something that you want to be doing when you're upset or sad or having low moments, then that's okay. Don't beat yourself up about it either. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're feeling like, I just have to get this emotion out of me. Right. Whether it's I'm miserable or I'm happy or, you know, like all the emotions are valid. Yeah. Right. And creating within any of those emotions is also valid. I think this is interesting too, because I have, I've done art therapy, like, you know, I've gone to art therapy and so using art as a therapeutic outlet, but it's also in a very specific way, you know, because there are actual exercises and things that are meant for certain things and for, you know, in psychological ways right that like help you or your brain it's super cool you should totally go check it out because the psychology and art and like everything is it's very fascinating and the way that your brain works it's really cool but um that that can it's been super helpful and i've really loved it because it's combined the creativity and the art with like therapy you know and it's been really cool um and then impactful for me personally um but then in my own creative outlet in my own art outside of therapy. Like it's a little bit of a different thing, but it still can have like therapy, like it still can help me process or, you know, it can help me feel better and get that out. And, and, and what's the word I'm looking for? Like satisfy that need inside of me. Right. And satisfy whatever feelings I'm feeling. And so anyways, but it's, it's a little bit different, you know, art therapy versus art as, as, you know, kind of therapy. It's not necessarily therapy, but as of that creative, right. Well, I mean, it can be so good for, for, you know, like you said, mental health and, and that, you know, part of that healing process. And, you know, I, when I was trying to convince myself it was safe and okay to be painting Trita traditionally again. I went through this whole journey of like, I can't paint traditionally. That's too scary. I'm not good enough. I can't waste the paper, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I ended up starting embroidering again because that felt somehow safer. Yeah. Right. There wasn't this pressure of, I have to be this grand, great, amazing artist. Yeah. It was just, I'm going to sew this dinky little thing and I don't know how to sew. And so there's no pressure and I don't know what I'm doing and it's fine. But then it became, it just, it was fun. It was just really fun. And I got to, you know, sketch the designs and it just became another creative outlet for me. But then I kind of got into the, some of the science of, cause I was like, this is like calming me down. This is helping me feel good. And so, yeah, I was like looking into like the science And same with crochet and knitting where it's just this like repetitive, it's like really repetitive thing can be really calming and really good for the brain. It can be very, um, you know, meditative and yeah, 100%. I, it'd be so helpful. Yeah. I've been feeling so drawn to, I mean, I love to crochet. I like, I've done embroidery too, and I think it's fantastic, but I am in the crochet mode right now. Yeah. And, um, and I have been feeling so drawn to that in moments of like I'm feeling anxious like I just want to sit down and just crochet that's really interesting because it does that repetitive motion and stuff and it's like how many blankets do I need right but I'll take some but just the repeating that movement and it's like I don't know it's creating something in there you can see the growth of the of what you're making and it's just it's very satisfying and it's and it is it's calming and it's and it's soothing and helps to just feel like calm that anxiety see I don't like crocheting yeah I tried it because I think a lot of crocheting things are very cute and very cool and I was like oh I want to make these things and then I tried it and I was like I have to count I have to do numbers what and my hands get I have some issues with my hands they get tense and yeah I can't ever get the stitches like even and it's just like this is stressful I don't like this it's okay so it's like not to like I'm not bashing on crochet like I love that you are because I kind of live a little vicariously through you it's like I wanted to do this but then I realized it wasn't for me but I still gotta watch you do it yeah satisfying to me um and then I because of that I found you know embroidery and it's you know it's okay find the things that work for you and if you realize like this thing is supposed to be good for me and it's supposed to help and I don't like it that's like this totally okay yeah there's something else out there that might be great right and might be helpful maybe you like to make little pottery out of air dry clay you know like I love that it's so fun little little plates or bowls or whatever or whatever you want to make oh my gosh if that's your happy place and you make make little air dry clay figurines and things please share with us please show us we want to see I would like to also live vicariously through you and see what you're making please yeah but I mean when I was younger too like I mean I guess this is getting into our next week's conversation so we'll talk more about this but when I was younger I loved doing making bracelets with beads you know and it was so it was kind of meditative like that like putting the bead It's that repetitive again. and helpful to our mental health and our emotional well-being. Yeah. And our growing and our flourishing and connecting with ourselves. And being more aligned, which really helps with the depression and the anxiety and all of these things. So I love that. I love that idea of coming back to ourselves and taking care of ourselves as a whole being. Yes. Yeah. So this week, think of something that you find calming and, and helpful, and maybe take a little time, take a little time to do it this week and share in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you. Yeah. And next week we'll dive into more of our creative, uh, the easy entry, low stress ways to just include more creativity into your life. Yeah. So check in next week. We'll have a little, a little something for you as well. So we'll see you. We'll see you next week. That's it for today, friend. Thanks for spending this time with us. We hope you're leaving with a little more light, a little more peace, and maybe even a nudge to go be creative just because it brings a little more joy to your life. If anything in this episode spoke to your heart, sparked a thought, or made you smile, we'd love it if you'd follow the show, leave a quick five-star review, or share it with someone who might need a little creative encouragement too. And remember, your creativity matters. Your voice matters. You matter. We're cheering you on Always until next time, keep making, keep softening and keep showing up as your whole beautiful self.