Creative Wellness Letters - a tale of tiny creative ritual 🍋🍊

Hi Reader, 

Well, it’s happened again - neither of the ideas I was working on to write to you about today are quite ready, and I know you know that we can’t rush the creative process!

Instead of sharing the half-baked version of those topics, I’ll share a little story about listening to your creativity and its desires, and how I made that into a little ritual for myself today.

It’s been quite a busy month, and a pattern that sometimes happens for me when I’m feeling exhausted and overworked is that I gravitate more towards getting boring admin tasks done (appropriate for low energy) on the couch, and less toward doing creative stuff, which often takes more mental energy.

Now, of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t attempt to do creative things and get myself over to the piano, but that has been happening less than I’d like lately.

So, my creativity is getting bored and irritated with me for ignoring her!

Sometimes this also translates into feeling bored with other aspects of life, like food and beverages.

Even though I bought some fun flavors of sparkling water last week, today my creativity asked me to buy some fruit to add to my water.

So, I told her, “Okay, let’s go!” and walked to the neighborhood market with a great produce section. I haven’t indulged much in citrus season this winter, so I bought a small pile for $6 (let’s hear it for affordable treats!)

This little outing was already great: 

• It got me taking a longer walk than usual
• I felt inspired by the foods I saw and their colors
• I was excited to try new foods like the oro blanco grapefruit. 

All of these things, seemingly small, contributed to my positive creative energy today.

Then, when I got home, I decided to make drinking my citrus water into a mini-ritual. 🍊

Step 1: Intention

I picked the one that spoke to me most in that moment, the cara cara orange, and decided that it would represent the brightness, directness, and clarity of mind that I wanted to feel today.

Step 2: Prepare + consume!

Then I cut it in half, sliced off a bit to put in my water glass, and squeezed in a little juice, so that I could actually “consume” my intentions, in a delicious way!

This little ritual brought a bit more joy and magic to my day, and it has felt easier to make music, write this letter to you, and work on Kickstarter / album release prep tasks today.

I’m glad I listened to my creativity and its (conveniently attainable) whims, and I'm wishing you the same magic today!

Has your creativity ever made some strange demands of you while working on a project? Did you listen? What happened then?!

🕸️ Staying on the good side of the internet 🕸️

• Am I bad at resting? / Or: is keeping busy really that bad? - This newsletter from Jamie Varon spoke to me! See also: there are different kinds of rest.
• Overcoming the desire to cancel: how to know when to push through and show up for the magic - As a person who gets overstimulated easily, this one by Kelsey Mech hit deep, too.  
• Since I've paused Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club indefinitely, I'm missing the power of getting stuff done together in our weekly sessions, so I'm attending this (much needed!) Tab Closing Party with Kat Vellos on Feb. 21 (offered for free through Creative Mornings!)