One of our chief needs as creative beings is support, and seldom is this more true than when we are beginning a creative endeavor. Especially if we are new to practicing our creativity, it is paramount that we consciously build relationships that can serve as support for our projects and an outlet for our own […]
The Memoir Tool
from It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again THE MEMOIR One especially heartbreaking sentence I have heard over and over from my newly retired students is, “Oh, my life wasn’t that interesting.” The truth is that every life is fascinating. And when we are willing to look at, and thus honor the life we have […]
Morning Pages
The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is something I call Morning Pages: three pages of longhand, morning writing about absolutely anything. They are to be written first thing in the morning, and shown to no one. There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages. I like to think of them as windshield wipers, […]
The Spiritual Power of Routine
Recent retirees tend to speak of having mixed feelings about routine. On one hand, they enjoy being free from the externally-imposed schedule of their work lives— they may choose to sleep later, to travel during the week, to eat meals when they fancy them instead of hewing to a strict timetable of meetings and business […]
Clearing a Path: the magic of decluttering
With more time on our hands, we may find ourselves at home much more than we have ever been. Spending time in our homes, we notice the things we want to improve: the unfinished doorframe, the “junk drawer” in the kitchen that always seems to be jammed shut, the worn doormat that we’ve been meaning […]
Using Our Time
It is all too easy to put undue pressure on ourselves and criticize how we use our time. We rush from this to that. We call ourselves “lazy” when we “waste time doing nothing.” We don’t have “enough” time or we have too much. We regret past uses of time— time spent worrying about things […]
Healthy Risk
Many of us have lives that are, in some areas at least, risk-free. We may have even cultivated these risk-free lives because we think we want stress-free lives. But while stress from negative situations can be damaging, stress from confronting challenges or taking a healthy risk can be energizing and motivating. When our lives feel […]
Honoring Our Stories
Many people retire only to feel overwhelmed by their own space, a space they may have been blind to while they were distracted by the busy-ness of their work life. Sam, a Broadway actor, began working with the Memoir tool when he turned seventy. “I was still auditioning,” he says, “and still getting myself out […]
Never Too Late
The joke runs like this: Question: Do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to play the piano? Answer: The same age you’ll be if you don’t. I posted on Facebook recently that it was never too late to be a beginner. A flood of “likes” came back to me. […]
We Do Not Outgrow Our Dreams
Most blocked creatives have an active addiction to anxiety. They play the game of “What if…” What if I commit creativity and it is ill-received? Note that this thinking indulges only in negative fantasy. It does not fantasize, “What if I commit creativity and it is well-received?” “I’ll look like a fool,” the beginning artist […]
Connect with Julia
