Season 2 EP 8: Rest is a Creative Practice

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Perfectionist in Recovery

Rest is a Creative Practice

Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!

My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery and today I am sharing highlights from an amazing conversation that I had with a dear friend of mine and talented creative, Jocelyn Mathewes, but first - I want to take a second to say thank you! 

Thank you so much for being here and joining me for this episode today. Thank you for supporting my work and for supporting the work I do for this podcast! I got some new feedback on the podcast this week and I am so grateful always for those of you that send over your thoughts about the podcast. In case you didn’t know, your feedback makes this podcast even better for you to listen to, so, please, send me all of the feedback! If you have some thoughts that you want to share about the podcast, send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.MarcyParksArt.com/PerfectionistinRecovery and submit your feedback through the feedback form at the bottom of the page. I am always looking to improve this podcast to meet your creative needs, so let me know what you think!

That being said, I want to hear from you! Do you have questions about things you have heard on the podcast? Do you want to hear a discussion about a specific topic? Let me know! Again, you can send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or you can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and submit your questions through the feedback form there at the bottom of the page. Again, go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and send me your thoughts! Let me know what you want to hear. 

Now let’s get into it!

Transcripts Coming Soon

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 7: 5 Steps to Overcome Fear and Get Started

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

5 Steps to Overcome Fear and Get Started

Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!

My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery and today I wanted to talk about overcoming fear in order to get started, but first - I want to take a second to say thank you! 

Thank you so much for being here and joining me for this episode today. Thank you for supporting my work and for supporting the work I do for this podcast! I got some new feedback on the podcast this week and I am so grateful always for those of you that send over your thoughts about the podcast. In case you didn’t know, your feedback makes this podcast even better for you to listen to, so, please, send me all of the feedback! If you have some thoughts that you want to share about the podcast, send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.MarcyParksArt.com/PerfectionistinRecovery and submit your feedback through the feedback form at the bottom of the page. I am always looking to improve this podcast to meet your creative needs, so let me know what you think!

That being said, I want to hear from you! Do you have questions about things you have heard on the podcast? Do you want to hear a discussion about a specific topic? Let me know! Again, you can send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or you can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and submit your questions through the feedback form there at the bottom of the page. Again, go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and send me your thoughts! Let me know what you want to hear. 

Now let’s get into it!

Today I want to talk about fear and 5 steps to take to move through it in order to get started. 

So, once upon a time when I was in my late teens and early twenties in college, I went through a period where I did not make any art at all. 

If you are a long time listener of the podcast, you've probably already heard this story, but for those of you that are new here, I will share it again. When I was in high school, I was very artistic, loved art, loved making art. The art I made back then, though, is much different from what I currently make. Back then, my work was much more focused on realism and capturing scenes and people and objects with detailed accuracy. Abstract art was foreign to me and made little-to-no sense. 

Anyway, I wanted to pursue art in college, but couldn't afford to go, so instead I went to college where I had a swimming and academic scholarship. 

For the time I was in college, I did not make art at all. There just wasn't time for it. My creative impulses were still being met because I was studying English and I love reading and writing, but as far as the art that I knew and loved making before, that was gone. People that knew me would ask me about my art all the time, but being a full time college athlete was a really good excuse for not having any time to paint. 

Until one day. It was during the summer when I had no other obligations, other than work. For whatever reason, maybe because I was super into Romanticism and literature of the 19th century, I wanted to recreate this portrait of a princess by a French painter. If you want to know what painting I am talking about, look up the artist Ingres and his painting of the Princess de Broglie. What drew me to this painting was how luminescent the material of the princess's gown was and the satin on the chair. I became obsessed with the way he captured the material of her clothes, silk? Organza? I have no idea, but it is absolutely gorgeous. 

And my intention with the painting was not to recreate the whole portrait. I really wanted to focus my painting on the section where her hand is sort of draped over the back of the chair and really zooming in on the the lace of here sleeves, the fabric of her dress and the fabric of the chair because I was so obsessed with how delicate her clothes looked and the way they seemed to glow and I wanted to be able to do that. 

But the real reason I was only focusing on this area of the painting was because I was already so intimidated to even try recreating it. Fear was present the moment I saw the original portrait. I immediately started comparing myself and my abilities to the abilities of this WORLD RENOWNED ARTIST whose work has lasted CENTURIES. Could I replicate what he did? Would I be able to achieve my goal? Was I good enough? What if my painting sucks? What if my painting sucks and people SEE IT?

 But at that point I wasn’t aware of what those thoughts were really indicating. I wasn’t conscious of the root of those thoughts, or what their impact on my creativity really was, or how they were impacting me in any other part of my life really. 

Now, at that time in my life, those thoughts alone would have probably been enough to deter me from pressing forward, but it had been so long since I had painted and I truly was so ready to do it again, I persisted. I persisted, but still with a hesitation. 

My priority was to recreate that luminescent quality the painting had, and I wanted to get it just right, right? So I watched some youtube videos, which is how I learned about the technique of underpainting, and learned about the concept of “value” in paintings. Then, I went out and bought supplies. I started the sketch of the outline on the canvas. I even went so far as starting the underpainting and mapping out the values (the light and dark areas) of the painting.

Then I realized that the values were a little too dark. I went back to correct them, and they were still too dark. It started to get hard, and I was getting frustrated. 

And then I quit! 

That painting sat unfinished, black and white and gray, for MONTHS. I left it out for a while thinking I would come back to it and finish it later, but it just kept going on, unfinished, and the longer I went without trying again the harder it got to try again. And then one day, a little over a year later, I just threw it away. 

What I didn’t realize at the time, but have come to understand now, is that fear drives a lot of perfectionism and my fear of not being perfect at something was a big reason I never finished that painting - and also a big reason I would go on to not paint again for even longer. 

And the fears can be many - fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of getting something wrong, etc. - but when it comes to perfectionism, there is an avoidance that can happen as we try to avoid confronting that fear. We avoid putting ourselves in the position of being new at something, we avoid approaching that person, we avoid finishing the painting. 

It has taken me a long time to learn how to move through that fear and to allow myself to be new at something, to be bad at something, to get things wrong. Honestly, I wouldn’t even say I am good at moving through that fear now! Ha! I still struggle with it so much - in fact, I started a new painting this week. I haven’t painted in months, but this week I finally started one and before I got started I had all those same thoughts again. What if it sucks? What if I suck? What if someone sees that I suck?! 

And not only did I  start a new painting this week, I also have been Live Streaming the process on my instagram - another new thing that also makes me super uncomfortable because if the painting sucks, people will DEFINITELY see it sucks then! Lol 

But at this point in my life, I am so familiar with those questions and those voices and that fear that I have steps that I take to help myself move beyond the fear and not only get started, but to actually finish what I start, also. 

So today, I want to share those steps with you! 

1. Acknowledge Your Fear

• Fear is totally normal! It is completely normal to feel afraid when trying new things, OR even doing things that you are familiar with! Fear is not a bad emotion, it is just your body’s way of telling you that what you are doing is brave. 

  2. Give Yourself a Pep Talk

• Reframe the experience in your mind and recognize that starting anything new is a learning opportunity filled with possibility! Remind yourself that failure is just feedback and does not define you. Give yourself permission to be a beginner, even when you are a seasoned pro. 

  3. Set Boundaries

• This is a big one! Set boundaries around your action or activity. Leading up to starting my new painting this week, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by just how monumental the task seemed - getting to a finished painting, so I set some boundaries around my time that made it feel manageable. On these three days, for one hour each day, I will work on my painting. That’s it. Depending on what you are working on or wanting to start, this can all look very different, but it might mean setting boundaries around how many days a week you will work, how much time you are going to spend, who you are going to share information with. 

  4. Start Small

• Starting small might look like telling someone you trust what you are thinking about doing or trying. It could also look like going out and buying new supplies, signing up for the class, or sending the email you have been putting off. This week before starting a new painting, my small steps were mixing up colors for fun. I found so much inspiration in just mixing colors that by the end I wasn’t even scared anymore and I was ready to get started painting! Depending on what it is that you are afraid of doing this step will vary, but just think about what is the smallest step forward you can take towards getting started and do that. It is easy to build up momentum once you take those baby steps. 

  5. Do it Scared

• I feel like this is such a cliche at this point, but it is so true. Bravery isn’t about never being scared, it is about doing things even when you are scared. I have already said previously, but I will say it again, I still get scared with every painting. It never goes away! Maybe it will one day when I am 60 or 70 and I have reached peak DGAF mode, but right now, I am still full of fear, but I do it anyway. 

And what I hope you find is that once you get started and find a rhythm to your work, the voice of fear gets so much quieter and harder to hear. 

Journaling Prompt:

What is something you have always wanted to do, but have never done?

Why have you never started?
What are some boundaries you can set and small steps you can take to get started?

For anyone listening today, I hope you don’t stay stuck in fear! Take the leap, and do the thing. Done is better than perfect.

Until next time, friends! 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

My Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps

Listen Now!

Have you listened to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast lately? If not, you need to check it out! On the podcast, You will hear from me, as well as other artists and makers, all about our creative practices and how we manage perfectionism in order to keep creating. 

Every week on the podcast, I share conversations I have had recently with a fellow maker and creative about their creative practice, what’s on my mind about my own creative practice with actionable items you can take to develop or maintain your own creative practice, and meditations to help get you reconnected to your body and get you inspired. 

I have shared on the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast before how beneficial a meditation practice can be to maintaining a creative practice and keeping us connected to our own internal voice. I like to share meditations regularly on the podcast for anyone who would like to start a meditation practice, but isn’t really sure where to begin, or for anyone who needs a little guidance. The reason that I think meditation is so beneficial for creatives specifically is because as a creative person, we spend a lot of time in our heads and that can get a little overwhelming sometimes, especially if your creative energy starts to spiral into anxiety. Meditation, however, is a way to help us get back into our bodies, and when we are grounded and connected to our bodies we can actually take action to channel all of those ideas as they swell up in our brains. Not to mention, there are LOADS of health benefits to meditation, but specifically for creatives, it can be a useful tool for keeping us grounded so we can actually create. 

And if you are not into the meditations, well, just pretend like they don’t happen! Lol

But if you are enjoying dipping your toes into meditation and would like to explore more, I wanted to take a second just to share a couple of meditation apps that I love to use! *And just to clarify, this is not a sponsored post, or anything like that, these are apps I use personally and genuinely love.

1. Insight Timer app
First, I love the Insight Timer app. There are loads of free meditations on this app and that’s not even a fraction of what they offer. They have tons of different types and styles of guided meditations, sometimes even live events so you can practice with others in real time, and now also offer yoga classes! There is so much that this app has to offer, so I definitely recommend downloading it and exploring it if you are interested in a consistent meditation practice. 

2. Calm app
Second, I also love the Calm app. Now this one doesn’t have as many free features as the Insight Timer app, but it does offer several free “7 Days” meditation courses which are really nice introductions into developing your own meditation practice. 

3. Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app
Third, and finally, I love, love, LOVE the Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app. This app is geared more toward kids, obviously, but it is super fun for parents to practice along with their kids. This is a great app for introducing your little ones to meditation and even starting a practice with them. They have cute little animated characters guiding the meditation and there is usually a story that accompanies the practice. Searsha’s favorites are all of the bulldog meditations, probably because we used to have a bulldog named Spud. But she loves doing her bedtime meditations with bulldog. 

If you are looking to start a regular meditation practice, take a look at these apps and give them a try, then let me know what you think! 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 6: Busy Mind Guided Meditation

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Busy Mind Guided Meditation

Hello and welcome back to the perfectionist in recovery podcast. Today is meditation day! I have shared on this podcast before how beneficial a meditation practice can be to maintain a creative practice and keep us connected to our own internal voice. I like to share meditations regularly on this podcast for anyone who would like to start a meditation practice, but isn’t really sure where to begin, or for anyone who needs a little guidance. The reason that I think meditation is so beneficial for creatives specifically is because as a creative person, we spend a lot of time in our heads and that can get a little overwhelming sometimes, especially if your creative energy starts to spiral into anxiety. Meditation, however, is a way to help us get back into our bodies, and when we are grounded and connected to our bodies we can actually take action to channel all of those ideas as they swell up in our brains. Not to mention, there are LOADS of health benefits to meditation, but specifically for creatives, it can be a useful tool for keeping us grounded so we can actually create. 

And if you are not into the meditations, well, just pretend like they don’t happen! Lol

But if you are enjoying dipping your toes into meditation and would like to explore more, I wanted to share with you my top three favorite meditation apps, so I made a blog post sharing just that! If you go to my blog at www.marcyparksart.com/new-blog, you will find my Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps! I promise, this is not a sponsored post, these are just the apps that I use personally and love and I wanted to share them for anyone who is interested in developing a deeper meditation practice.

Now, for our practice today!

Today’s meditation is intended to help settle a busy mind. Now, there is no way to force your mind into stillness, but there is a way to be a better witness and observer of what your mind is doing the stories it loves to tell you.

To practice at home:

 First find a comfortable position for your body. You are welcome to sit up right or lie down. If you are feeling more tired and needing more support at the moment, come to lie down in a comfortable position. Make sure you have good padding underneath you wherever you need support. You can pause this recording for a moment to take some time to get yourself comfortable and then come back when you are settled in and ready.

Sometimes, if the mind is really busy, we can settle it down by actually moving our bodies. If you are lying down, this might just be rolling your wrists and ankles, maybe even turning your head side to side. IF you are seated or lying down, maybe roll your wrists out a little, slowly and gently, then make fists with your hands, then relax them, and do that a couple of times. If you are seated upright, you can start to roll your neck, making gentle and slow circles with your head - first letting your chin fall to your chest, then rolling one ear to one shoulder, then the other ear to the other shoulder, and if it feels comfortable, even letting your head roll back and your throat open up. You can even coordinate this movement with your breath. Exhaling chin to chest, inhaling one ear to one shoulder, exhaling chin to chest, inhaling your ear to the other shoulder. Do what feels good, but take a few moments and feel into these movements, whatever you choose to do. Feel into your body. 

But now, feel the back of your neck lengthen. Feel your shoulder blades flatten and smooth down against your upper back. Feel your chest, broad and open. Feel your chest swell on an inhale. Feel the whole barrel of your chest, top, bottom, front, and back, all parts swell as you breathe in deeply, then soften as you exhale. 

Take a moment to take 3 full deep breaths in this way. 

Now return to your natural, easy breath. 

See if you can keep your awareness on your natural breath, still.

Feel the coolness of the inhale and the warmth of the exhale. 

To help keep your attention focused on your breath, maybe even start to say to yourself, silently, “Breathing in” as you inhale and “breathing out” as you exhale. 

And anytime your mind starts to wander off, which it will, just notice and bring your attention back to repeating your mantra - “breathing in” as you breathe in and “breathing out” as you breathe out. 

And if your mind gets caught up in a fantasy, or dream, or memory, just take note of what it is your mind is reaching for, and without any judgement or condemnation, come back to the breath. 

“Breathing in” and

“Breathing out.”

Take note of any feelings or sense of urgency around the thoughts that captivate your attention. Take note of how enticing they are, or how fascinated you are by them, then, come back to the breath.

“Breathing in” and

“Breathing out.”

And then, let all of that go. Let go of your mantra.
Just feel your body for a moment. Feel the room that you are in, feel the temperature of the room, feel the temperature of your skin. Notice how you feel in this room, in this position that you are in. 

Then slowly, transition back out of the meditation. 

And as you integrate back into your day, take with you this understanding of your mind and your thoughts and how captivating they really are. Take care today to notice your thoughts and what thoughts are pulling your attention away and which of those thoughts have anything to do with the present moment. And when you can, remind yourself that you are breathing in and you are breathing out. 

Thank you so much for meditating with me. Until next time. 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 5: Finding Joy in Creating with Richard Graves

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Finding Joy in Creating with Richard Graves

I had a great conversation with guest speaker and fellow artist-friend of mine, Richard Graves, from Abingdon Virginia about his creative practice, making room for joy in his creative practice, managing perfectionism, and his passion for youth engagement in the arts. This conversation was LOADED with goodness, so I saved some of the highlights for you below! Enjoy.

Connect with Richard on social media!
www.facebook.com/richardgravesart
www.instagram.com/serpounce

“I try to be really mindful of separating the art from the business side of it. I need to have time where I'm working on art just for art's sake and just for myself.”
-Richard Graves

Working as a full time artist, Richard describes his experience of developing a rhythm of working and how a necessary element of that rhythm is making space for him to make art for art’s sake - not with the intention of sharing it.

“I have a sketchbook where if I'm working in that sketchbook, unless something's just a complete home run, it stays in the sketchbook or it's not something that I'm going to sell, but it's something that I'm doing for myself and for my own creative practice.”

-Richard Graves

“I'm trying to remember that the validity of the art has nothing to do with how it's received or where it goes on a show or what type of feedback it gets.”
-Richard Graves

I really appreciated this reminder from Richard about the validity of art and its true value. 

Speaking about Play in his art practice and his passion for youth engagement in the arts:

“There are times where I'm burnt out and I don't feel like doing anything and just making marks on paper and color on paper and mixing colors and playing. I think there's kind of that really great joy in that.”

-Richard Graves

“I love youth engagement with art. I love working with younger artists and kids and seeing how they approach it without thinking of all the tips and tools and all the things that you collect for your tool belt as an artist. It’s more forgetting about all of that and just having fun.”
-Richard Graves

“I have a four or five year old niece at the time, and she was showing some pictures to her grandfather, and I was in the room and they’re at that age where everything is silly, we call this silly and that's silly. And the grandfather looked at her picture and said, ‘Oh, I love this, but the sky is pink. That's so silly.’ And she got very, very serious and said, ‘No, Richard's an artist, and he said the sky could be whatever color I want it to be!’ That is one of my proudest moments, but it's also something that I want to remember myself.”

-Richard Graves

Speaking on the role art plays in his life:

“Art is how I digest feelings. That's how I feel most comfortable communicating with the world. It's where I feel the biggest, strongest connection with other people and with my community.”
-Richard Graves

“There's been plenty of times I've been painting something and I think about what's been going on in my life as I look at it, and I'm saying, ‘oh, this is very much that.’”
-Richard Graves

Speaking on how he fuels his creative practice:

“One big one, big activity that's been kind of a godsend for me, especially in the last five years, is yoga. I'm very much a go, go, go person and being able to kind of center myself and slow down like I see yoga as having a huge explicit connection with with the art of painting and drawing.”
-Richard Graves

“Taking time to appreciate and support other artists. I think being influenced by the community, and particularly the arts community, is very important to me. I try to make a point to go out and see other people's shows and to keep up with with artists that inspire me and the larger community. Being engaged in the arts in a broader sense helps encourage and focus me for when I get into the room alone to start the process of creating.”
-Richard Graves

Speaking on how he manages Perfectionism:

“I don't have those voices of being self-critical while I'm creating. I think once I'm in the flow. . . I'm feeling very present. I often get those voices before and after. It's before when I have to narrow down my decisions of what paint am I using, what colors, you know, the design, who's the intended audience - all those decisions pile up ahead of time. That's when I'm getting kind of the most self-critical, self-conscious, a little too self-aware in the bad way. Then it happens afterwards when it's like, ‘oh, will this sell?’ But the actual process of creating, for the most part, with a few exceptions, once I get going, I'm good to go. And it's kind of having to remind myself... I know how to do this. I've done this before. I might be taking a different approach or trying something new this time, but it's like if I sit down and start working, kind of clear those voices for a second, I can kind of work through it and find those periods of joy.”
-Richard Graves

Connect with Richard on social media! Check him out at www.instagram.com/serpounce or https://www.facebook.com/Richardgravesart

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 4: 3 Steps to Reconnect with Your Creative Voice

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

3 Steps to Reconnect with Your Creative Voice

Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery.

For Today’s episode, I want to share with you 3 steps you can take to reconnect with your creative voice, but first, I want to take some time to thank you for being here, thank you for listening, and thank you for supporting this podcast! I get so much joy from sharing this podcast and creating a platform to support people in connecting to their creativity. That being said, I want to hear from you! This podcast is here to serve you, so I want to hear your feedback on how I can make this podcast better for you. Send me questions you want answered or topics you would like to hear discussed on the podcast! I have added a new feedback form on my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery where you can go to submit feedback on the show, ask questions, and let me know if you want to be a guest speaker on the podcast. Like I said, your feedback makes this show more enjoyable for you to listen to, so go to www.marcyoarksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and send me your feedback. That is also where you can find transcripts for every episode including links to websites for guest speakers and more. 

And for those of you that already love the show, but want to continue to show your support, like, follow, or subscribe on whatever streaming platform you are using and leave a review! Reviews are one of the best ways you can support the growth of this podcast. You can go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery where you will find all the transcripts for each episode and leave a raving review of the show! 

But once more, I just want to take a moment to again thank you so much for being here and for sharing your time with me today. 

Now let’s get into it. 

On today’s episode I want to share with you the 3 steps you can take to reconnect with your creative voice. 

The reason I wanted to share this episode is because as an artist and recovering perfectionist on social media, there is a constant pressure to keep up with the fast pace of social media that has created such short attention spans. If we want our art to be seen, we have to be posting regularly. If we want to be posting regularly, we have to constantly be making art to share. But it is really easy to lose touch with ourselves and our own creative impulses when we are constantly making art with the sole intention of sharing and getting engagement. 

And this doesn’t only apply to artists, or artists on social media. Anyone who may not identify as an artist, but wants to have a creative practice, may feel this pressure, too. Especially if you are someone that is somewhat active or present on social media. It is really easy to fall into the comparison trap when in the early stages of developing a creative practice and find yourself comparing your progress to someone else’s. Really, this can happen to anyone at any point in their creative practice. 

But this is a topic that has been on my mind lately and that I have been struggling with myself and so I wanted to share a little bit about my own experience and some of the steps I have taken in order to reconnect with my own creative voice so that, hopefully, anyone else feeling this way can learn to identify their creative voice among the background chatter of social media and their own inner critic. 

Recently, l have been struggling with the pressure to create and to share new work that was not driven by my own impulse to create new work. If you have been a long time listener of the podcast, you have heard me speak about finding and honoring your creative rhythm. When I think of my creative rhythm, I always think of a tea kettle. There is the rest and recovery period of my creative cycle where the kettle is filling up with water, then there is the inspiration period of my creative cycle where the tea kettle is heating up, and then there is the production period of my creative cycle where the tea kettle is whistling hot and ready to be emptied out. There is no real rhyme or reason to how long each period takes. Sometimes, it takes longer than others depending on what other outside demands there are on my attention. 

My kettle has been in the heating up stage for a little while now. I have been feeling really inspired, but not quite ready to jump into the demands of the production period of actively creating work. 

However, I have still felt an intense pressure to produce work. Not because I have felt especially inspired, but because when I spend any amount of time on social media, I am inundated with images and stories of people doing, producing, achieving, and accomplishing so much! 

And this is why I say this can apply to anyone, not just artists, because this happens to everyone. You see someone sharing beach photos and suddenly you start thinking you need to book your next beach trip even though you hate sand, you see your friend sharing photos of a loaf of bread that looks so good you can almost taste it through the photo and now all of a sudden you start thinking you should be baking more even though you prefer cooking over baking, or you see someone else share their 6-pack abs they somehow managed to grow during the pandemic and now you feel like you need to renew your gym membership that you let lapse because you prefer to exercise outside or in your home. 

Comparison is not exclusive to artists, it happens to everyone, but the voice of comparison is not your voice. The voice pressuring you to create and share your process is not the same voice that inspires your creation.

So how do we decipher which impulses are truly our own and which impulses are driven by comparison, self-criticism, and our aspiration to do everything “right”? How do we come back to our voice?

Three Steps to Reconnect to Your Creative Voice

Step One: Slow it Down

Part of what makes the background chatter in your mind so overwhelming is because it is all happening so fast. Life happens fast and it barely slowed down even during the peak moments of the pandemic. Not to mention, we have all been living in a hyper-vigilant state trying to survive the pandemic. Now, the US is starting to reopen again and the pace of life is starting to pick back up.

Step one is to slow down where you can.
This may look like:
Being intentional about meal times - don’t work through your lunch hour, sit down for breakfast.
Leaving a weeknight or weekend day free on your calendar.
Plan a long evening bath before bedtime.
Practice pranayama or breathing exercises.
Schedule open-ended alone time - time, even if it is only 15 minutes, out of your week where you have literally nothing planned and anything can happen.

The point is to pack moments of pause into your day 

Step Two: Get Quiet
When my head feels too full of chatter, I get deliberate about getting quiet. For me, this looks like media breaks and lots of media-free walks.
Media breaks are hard, but so fruitful. If you want to do a media break intensive, this is when you plan a week where the following is off limits:
No music
No news
No books
No podcasts
No social media

Basically, during a media break, you remove all the external voices from your headspace for any given amount of time, but a week will have you feeling like a new person. Now, this of course is for someone who wants to do a super strict media break intensive, but that's not always possible for everyone. I know that is not always possible for a lot of people, like teachers or students who have required reading as part of their homework or careers, so you can tailor it to fit your needs. Maybe shorten it to a weekend over the summer, maybe only cut out social media and podcasts - the point is to plan for it and try it out. Play around with the concept and how you think it might benefit you the most. 

Media-free walks are like the point of entry into media breaks. Media-free walks just means going for a walk without listening to anything or engaging with any media. I will usually keep my phone with me for time, but to keep the temptation of looking at my phone at bay, I will set a timer to go off that lets me know when it is time to go home. 

Step Three: Start Listening
Y’all know what I am going to say here and if you don’t, you haven’t been listening to the podcast long enough. 

JOURNALING! 

Journal, journal, journal. 

Get some paper and start writing. Open a new document on your computer and start typing. Whatever your preferred method - although with a computer the potential for distraction increases significantly. 

The point is to get to writing. Write down whatever is on your mind, even if you feel like it doesn’t matter. A friend of mine describes this process as a brain dump - just offloading whatever is on your mind for the sake of making room. 

How to do it:

Make a commitment to yourself - establish a set number days of the week/which days of the week you will journal

Set a deadline - Your journaling will be done by fill-in-the-blank-time of day

Give yourself boundaries - 3 pages minimum, or 15 minutes total time. 

What happens as we journal consistently is that we start paying attention. When we journal and journal daily, we start to notice the recurring thoughts, common themes among passages, the pace of our writing, the curve and shape of our letters - that’s where you find your voice. 

And for anyone who wants to start a creative practice, but isn’t sure how or where to start, these three steps are the foundation. By following these three steps, you can connect with the other ways in which your creativity wants to be expressed. For established creatives with longstanding creative practices, this is the way to keep your practice authentic and true to you - no matter what starts trending. 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 3: Guided Meditation and Body Scan

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Guided Meditation and Body Scan

Hello and welcome back to the perfectionist in recovery podcast. Today is meditation day! I have shared on this podcast before how beneficial a meditation practice can be to maintain a creative practice and keep us connected to our own internal voice. I will be sharing meditations on this podcast regularly, but if you find one you like, you can re-listen as much as you please. 

To practice at home:

 First find a comfortable position for your body. You are welcome to sit up right or lie down. If you are feeling more tired and needing more support at the moment, come to lie down in a comfortable position. Make sure you have good padding underneath you wherever you need support. 

Once you are comfortable, take a nice deep breath, drawing your energy back into your body. Bring your attention to your breath, reclaiming your attention back from all the other things that might be drawing your attention away, bringing your energy and attention back into your body with every breath. 

Then just feel your breath as it moves through your body. Notice your breath and its natural rhythm. Know that there is no right or wrong way to pay attention to your breath, no right or wrong way to breathe, just noticing your breath. Notice the filling up and the letting go, the collection and release of breath, the swelling of your body with breath and the releasing with the exhale. 

Then start to bring attention to your entire body. Feel your entire body. Feel all of its parts at once. Feel the top half of your body, and the bottom half of your body. Feel the front and the back. Feel the left side and the right side. Feel the center of your body from the base of your spine all the way up to the crown of your head, the entire centerline of your body. 

Feel the base of your spine. Imagine a warm, bright, brilliant light at the base of your spine. Imagine a light shining bright at the base of your spine. Feel the warmth, visualize the color. 

Feel into the center of your lower abdomen. Feel again another bright, warm ball of light, just above the light at the base of the spine. Another bright, brilliant light of warmth there in your lower abdomen. 

Moving just a bit further up, feel again another bright, brilliant warm light here at the location of your diaphragm. Feel, or even visualize, this bright, warm, light right at the location of your diaphragm. 

Now move further up along the centerline to the center of your chest. Once again feel this bright, brilliant, warm light in the center of your chest. Visualize and feel the warmth of this light. Visualize and feel the color of this light shining brightly in the center of your chest. 

Continue moving upwards along the centerline, move further up to your throat. Visualize and feel into the center of your throat a warm, bright, brilliant light.

Continuing along the centerline, move further up to the center of your eyebrows. In the space between your eyebrows feel and visualize once more a bright, brilliant, warm light shining brightly there at the center of your eyebrows. 

And moving up to the crown of your head, feeling another bright brilliant light, in line with all of the others, there shining at the crown of your head. 

Feel and visualize the string of lights, the warmth from those lights, the colors of those lights, from the base of your spine all the way to the crown of your head like a constellation inside of you. 

As you inhale, trace the line of lights from the base of your spine all the way up to the crown of your head, then tracing the constellation all the way down to the base of the spine as you exhale. 

Repeat this with your breath and your attention. Breathing in from the base of the spine all the way up to the crown of your head, pausing briefly there, then exhaling to trace the length of your spine from the crown of your head back down to the base of your spine. 

After a few rounds, release the visualization and come back to your natural, easy breath. Come back to the feeling of your body and all of its parts. Come back to your body in its position in the room in which you are in. 

Take a moment to notice how you feel and if you feel any different than you did before the start of this practice. 

And when you are ready, open your eyes and take with you this feeling into the rest of your day. 

Thank you so much for meditating with me. Until next time. 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 2: Finding Your Voice with Jason Flack

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

On today’s episode of the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast, I am joined by Johnson City, Tennessee based artist and artist advocate, Jason Flack. You can follow Jason on instagram at www.instagram.com/artbyjasonflack 

In this episode we talked about the role art plays in helping people find their voice and connect with their identity. Here are some of the highlights from our discussion! 

“I’ve always been a creator, but started taking it seriously after the death of my twin sister and needing an outlet.”

-Jason Flack

Jason shared about how his twin sister’s unexpected passing influenced him early in his life and drove him to painting as a way of processing experiences and healing.

“I had an identity crisis through life, and death.”
-Jason Flack 

Jason speaks about how so much of his identity was wrapped up in his twin sister. “I was so shy, she spoke for me. In school, my sister’s favorite color was purple. Guess what my favorite color was - it was purple.” But after her passing, art has become a vehicle for him to express himself. 

“The way I can speak louder is through something bright on my canvas.”

-Jason Flack

“Now, time is incredibly important. Even when I am wasting time, I am thinking about art. Now it is my identity without my sister. Art is my twin.”
-Jason Flack  

After Jessica’s, Jason’s twin sister, unexpected passing, Jason shares how he perceives time and the role art has since come to play in his life. 

“People look at me like I am not from here because Appalachia has gotten away from this creative aspect, but every one of us has someone in our bloodline way back, or even recently, who made their own shoes, clothes, and art as well.”

-Jason Flack

Jason speaks to his experience as being a child of both black and white parents growing up and being an artist in Appalachia. 

“It’s always ‘we’ before ‘me’.”

-Jason Flack

Jason speaks about his work as an advocate for artists in Appalachia and his intention to collaborate with and bring artists together to reach out to the community and bring attention to Appalachian art and artists.

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Season 2 EP 1: Welcome Back!

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Welcome Back!

Welcome Back! 

Hello and Welcome to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast. My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery. 

Welcome back to the podcast! It has been a long, but needed break since our last season, but I am excited and ready to be back sharing with you here in this space. This season I am planning to have more guest speakers on the podcast sharing about their creative practices and the role that their creative practice plays in their life and what that looks like. Some of those speakers will be artists making a living off of their artwork, some of those speakers will be professionals in the corporate world whose creative practice is their refuge, but in every conversation I hope you are able to find and connect with a story that sounds familiar to your own. 

That being said, I will still be sharing meditations and my own musings on creativity in between. I am still going to be hounding you about starting a journaling practice if you haven’t already, but not judging you if you’ve fallen off the wagon or don’t have the energy to start one either. I hope it goes without saying, but in case it doesn’t, I will say it anyway, I want this space to be a resource of comfort, inspiration, and connection. I never want anyone listening to this podcast to feel guilt or shame for not having the time, energy, or resources to commit to their creative practice. There are seasons for everything and it is completely normal to move into a season where creative motivation and inspiration runs dry. 

Speaking of seasons, I thought I would take a moment to catch up on what has been going on behind the scenes during this break. We all know that 2020 was one, long, challenging season for everyone on every level. Following the conclusion of the first season of this podcast last year, I hit a pretty hard wall of burnout and fatigue that led to me taking a long break to try and rest, but my inner perfectionist has a really strong, negative reaction to rest that can make it hard to actually do so. I recently completed a new collection of work titled “Winter” speaking specifically to this tension - the tension of being in a season that calls for rest, the frustrated reluctance of actually wanting to rest, and the transformation that takes place when we are actually deliberate about rest. The collection was inspired by the literal season of winter, but is more about the winter seasons of life. 

Winter is a season that forces us to rest. We lose daylight, it gets colder outside, and rest becomes an essential part of our survival of the season. All non-essential functions and tasks are reduced in order to better our chances of surviving the season. My collection was speaking to this feeling - the feeling when you are in a season of life that is demanding you take rest. Whether it is a pandemic causing a global shut down, or your body shutting down on you, there is a clear message that it is time for you to stop doing and slow down, whether you like it or not.

I am been feeling this so much within myself in the last few months - an intense push to slow down, to stop, and to find joy where I can, so that is where my focus has shifted recently. Right now I am just trying to be deliberate in what I give my energy and attention to and taking care to spend time with my family. Searsha, my daughter, will be four this year and time with her right now is my priority. I gain so much inspiration from watching her grow more and more independent and interacting with her world. Just this morning I was watching her coloring on her own chalkboard and it was so much fun to watch the ways in which she would be coloring wildly one minute and then very deliberate and very intentional in the marks she was making the next. That same freedom and play that she brings to everything she creates is exactly what I hope to one day find and translate through my own work. 

In the meantime, I am back to doing the practices that I know fuel and support my creative practice. I am journaling, meditating, practicing yoga, and making time to connect with the people that inspire me the most. Right now I am binging every episode of The Creative Pep Talk podcast with Andy J. Pizza. It is an incredible resource and I love it SO MUCH! Definitely check that out.  But other than that, I am back to sharing with you here every week! I am glad to be back in the conversation around creativity and finding inspiration in your daily life. Tune in next week to hear from one of my most favorite makers from my area, Jason Flack! You can find him on instagram at www.instagram.com/artbyjasonflack . Jay is such a fun person to talk to, he is so passionate about art and bringing the community together through art and I love that about him, but he is also just a really amazing human being and I was so inspired by his passion and enthusiasm! Tune back in next week on Friday at 12 PM to hear from him. 

Journaling Prompt:

For now, maybe just take some time today for yourself to just write down anything and everything that is on your mind and treat it like you are wiping the slate clean, turning a new page, starting fresh. Just get it all out of your head and on to paper so you can just let it all go. 

Until next time. 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

#PIRPodcast Season 2 Coming Soon!

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Season 2 Coming Soon!

Welcome to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! Your resource for rehabilitating your inner artist and living a more inspired and creative life. My name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery and on this podcast you will hear from me, as well as other artists and makers about how we manage our perfectionism in order to keep creating.

Season 2 is coming soon and I am so excited to share with you what is coming!

This season I plan to have more guest speakers giving you an inside look behind the scenes as they share about their own creative practices, their struggles with perfectionism, and what they do to manage their inner critic in order to continue creating. In addition to these conversations, I will continue to share regular meditation practices, journaling prompts and recommended reading or listening, as well as my own musings on creativity.

I can’t wait to be back in conversation with you all again soon! Stay tuned!

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Winter Collection

WINTER

A Revelatory Season

My newest Collection, “Winter”, isn’t so much about the season as it is about the Winter seasons in life. 

Winter seasons are periods in life marked by change that force us to slow, to stop, and to fortify ourselves. 

Spring is when nature comes to life and the first seeds of the year are planted.
Summer is marked by the peak of sunlight when the days grow long, and so, too, does the length of labor.
Fall is a period of celebration and harvest where thanks are given for the fruits of summer’s labor. 

Winter, though, brings a period of dormancy. The shortening of days ushers in longer periods of darkness. Everything retracts within. All that is excess is shed in order to conserve.
But the dormancy of winter is not passive. Deep beneath the frozen layers of earth is a pulse of heat and transformation. Winter is a call to build resilience and endurance by actively resting.
Winter is restorative.

There is an external pressure to ignore winter seasons for the sake of productivity (what pandemic?), but winter isn’t a season to ignore. Winter is a signal to stop.

Winter has a way of making visible what wasn’t before. In winter, all the vibrant, green leaves from these trees are gone revealing the tangles of branches. 

My own winter period became evident to me in the spring of 2019, though, my therapist noticed it much sooner. My daughter was just over a year old and the same things that used to bring me joy no longer did. There were other signs of course, but the symptoms of my depression were still new to me and were not easily recognized. Then came 2020 and everything worsened. 

What I have since come to understand is that there is still so little known about postpartum depression and the changes a mother goes through postpartum. I was privileged enough to be able to speak with a specialist that was able to walk me through the hormonal changes my body was going through, which were a lot considering I had just weaned my three year old off of breastfeeding. In three months time, I felt like a completely different person. 

My Winter collection came in that in-between period - the period after I had stopped breastfeeding, but before I was feeling like my old self again, when I was riding the waves of huge hormonal changes and not knowing who I was going to be on the other side. This collection was a purging of all the angst at feeling stuck, the shame of struggling so much, the doubting of myself and my sanity, and the feelings of being lost in a thick fog. 

What I didn't see at the time, but am recognizing now, is that this collection is the detailing of my re-emergence into my life. It is the thawing of my own winter.

Are you ready to start your path to Creative Recovery?

Tune into the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 20: Season Finale and Checking In

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Season Finale and Checking In

 Hello, everyone! It has been a minute since last checked in with you all! On the Perfectionist in Recovery podcast the last episode I shared moving through burnout seems really timely now in hindsight, because I definitely was feeling pretty burned out, so I just wanted to check in with you all today.

[00:00:27] The purpose of today's episode is just to check in, to catch up on things that have happened since I last shared with you, and chat a bit about what's been going on, as well as to wrap up this first season of the podcast.

[00:00:44] But before I do that, I want to thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for hanging around for being with me on this journey. It has been... It's just been a year, you know, and I am just so grateful for the community that has formed around this podcast, and again, the support that I received in sharing here and creating this space, so thank you so much. If you all have any feedback to share about the podcast, especially topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast or any other episode, topics that you want to hear, definitely share those with me. Send me a message on Instagram, go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com And submit your suggestions or your feedback through the feedback form or contact form there and let me know! As you know, as I've said before, your feedback makes this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to. So send me all the feedback. And definitely, again, if you have any suggestions for things that you want to hear or things that you want discussed on the podcast, let me know as I make plans for season two of the podcast in twenty twenty one. I want to cater it as much as possible to topics that you all want to hear as well. So please, please, please share those.

[00:02:15] Now, if you are already loving the podcast, definitely leave a review, rate, subscribe, follow - all of those things and whatever streaming platform you are using and definitely leave a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews are the best way that you can support the podcast and its success and keeping it growing. So definitely do that and you can find links to leave reviews at the transcripts of every episode also on my website or just off the podcast link on my website at www.marcyparksart.com .

[00:02:48] All right. So let's get into it! Today, I just want to check in, catch up and wrap things up. This is the 20th episode of the podcast. I'm really excited about that. It seemed like a good number to end on for this season one. The last time I chatted with you all, as I said, I was recording an episode about burnout and I was definitely feeling it at that time.

[00:03:13] November was just crazy with, you know, election madness, not to mention pandemic and getting ready for the holidays and holidays during a pandemic. And I was also releasing a new collection of work. In November, just after the last episode, I was releasing a new body of work - it's a body of small works on paper called Messy Moments and. Man, that body of work is just so representative of this year. The Messy Moments collection is a collection of small, giftable, abstract works on paper, and the pieces are all six by six or nine by six inches. My intention was just to have small works on paper that are affordable for people and accessible, but also that really capture what I was experiencing and feeling overall with 2020, so I titled it Messy Moments because I wanted to capture that balance of absolute mess that has been 2020, but also the beauty that has come from it, if that makes sense. Messy Moments just speaks to those moments where it's really life is just messy, things aren't perfect, nothing's really going right. But good things still come from it. And it was really just inspired by one particular moment with my daughter Searsha. She's three, and three is a tough, tough age to parent and tough age to experience, I think, for her, too, just because, you know, she's three and she has, you know, her a very strong sense of identity coming through and strong urge of wants and needs, and a lot of times, I'm sure to her it seems like, I'm standing in the way of those wants and needs, so obviously conflict happens, but in this particular instance, you know, there was a tiny little meltdown. 

[00:05:56] And when I say tiny, it was lots of kicking and screaming because "no" is not her favorite word to hear (understandably, because who actually likes to hear "no"). So, you know, we worked through it. I try to be really deliberate in affirming her feelings and validating whatever it is that she's wanting or saying in that moment and then trying to work through the conflict with compassion and empathy, but still firm boundaries, and even having a discussion about boundaries. So anyway, this meltdown, it was stressful, it was just not pretty in the moment, but then afterwards, we had a really good conversation around why "no" isn't a bad word. 

[00:06:57] Then we had a good conversation around giving each other grace - which was more for me because it was me needing to give her grace and have more patience in that moment. 

[00:07:09] So we had this not-so-tiny-meltdown that was not pretty in the moment, but then it evolved into a bigger conversation around grace, patience, compassion, forgiveness, and it ended really sweetly with a nice hug. 

[00:07:22] And so there was this moment that was super messy, super sloppy, but ended in such a tender moment with understanding, validation, compassion, and grace. And of course, it doesn't always happen this way, but in that instance, it was just a really sweet moment that had a really sweet conclusion. But it didn't start out that way, right? It was it was really messy in the beginning and a lot of a lot of stumbling on my part in the beginning, navigating that that situation. And so but we couldn't have gotten to the sweetness. We couldn't have gotten to the hug at the end had it not been for just that shit show of a first half and so messy moments is a lot about that. It's a lot about like the stumbling, the mess, the the tripping over your words, the forgetting things, the spilling your coffee as you're rushing to get out the door and getting stuck in traffic or whatever. It's about the mess, but it's also about the beauty that comes from that mess - the chance to start over, the chance to to pause and give yourself some grace, the moment of forgiving yourself or forgiving another person and the tenderness that can come from that and the full embrace of your own humnanity.

[00:08:41] So, yeah. I was releasing the Messy Moments collection and, you know, just really feeling that rawness of my own humanity and the rawness of my own humanity as I was caught up in the flurry of all the behind the scenes work - the taking photos and marketing the collection, doing all of those the business side of things as well. And honestly, it was a really successful launch. I was really pleased with that. There were thirty one pieces in the collection. More than half have sold at this point, so only a few remain, which is really exciting. And again, better than I could have hoped. And yeah, I'm just really excited about that and of course want to take a moment to thank you all for being there and receiving that as well and for supporting me through that and that body of work as well. But so that's what I was I have been working on. And then after that collection, honestly, it was like full swing into the holidays. Right. Because then it was Black Friday or Thanksgiving and Black Friday and Small Business Saturday and all of those things. And so I was doing a lot of promotions on my work and prints at that time and trying to navigate how to celebrate the holiday safely with family, which was challenging. So that's just what's been going on. And I really didn't intend to take such a long pause away from the podcast in the way that I did, so I do apologize for missing the last couple of weeks, but, you know, as I've shared, there have just been so many things going on! The ball got go going really, really fast. So I did really want to come in and check in with you all and just say that I am so grateful for this time that I have had to share, and I am looking forward to sharing more with you in 2020 after a little break folloiwng the first season of the podcast. I definitely want to be more intentional with sharing topics that you all are really interested in and sharing topics of discussion that you all have suggested or said that you want to hear about or even interviews that you want to hear, so I'm really looking forward to that. 

[00:11:58]  I'm really looking forward to taking some time to slow down and just be with my family and really be in the holiday - whatever that looks like this year. I've got a lot of things planned for 2021 that I'm really looking forward to and looking forward to sharing with you, but more than anything, I am just looking forward to a slower, less busy, less noisy, less stressful holiday. The biggest take away I have from this year is the beauty of truly slowing down and doing less, so I fully intend on taking the rest of December and most of January to just really be slow, move slowly, not feel this need to rush out and just, you know, buy gifts for people to buy gifts from people, not feel pressured to be out anywhere or obligated to go to any holiday parties or anything like that and just to stay home and be with my family and be slow, and move slowly, and live slowly.

[00:15:19] But I do want to take another moment to say thank you all so much for being here. I really am just so grateful. Grateful for your presence, grateful for your time, grateful for your support, All of the things! Again, if you have any suggested topics for the podcast or episodes that you want to hear, conversations you want to hear, interviews, artists that you want to hear, please send me that feedback. I would love to hear it. But otherwise, that's all I have for you all today. And I hope that you all are staying safe, staying well, and that you do have a happy holiday season, that you have a healthy holiday season, that you have a sane holiday season, and that you all are staying safe. And yeah, I'm just so grateful for you all, and I will be checking back with you again soon. Until next time.

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 19: Perfectionism and Burnout

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Perfectionism and Burnout

Perfectionism and Burnout 

Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery.

On today’s episode I want to chat about the correlation between perfectionism and burnout and giving yourself permission to let some things go in order to recover from burnout, but first I want to say thank you so much for being here! I missed being here with you all last week and am grateful to be back with you for this episode! Like most of America, I was wrapped up in the fever pitch of the election week and was too busy hitting refresh on my phone to get sleep or do anything else really haha! Which also meant I did not take the time to prepare for the podcast! I am happy to be back to somewhat normal this week, though, and grateful, always, for your time and presence here to join for the conversation. If you are enjoying this podcast as much as I am, please feel free to send me your feedback and let me know! As I have said before, your feedback helps make this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to, so share your feedback with me by either sending me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com and submit your feedback through the contact form there! If you are already loving this podcast, and would like to continue to support its growth, like, subscribe, follow, and leave a review for the podcast on whatever streaming platform you are using! Apple Podcast reviews are the best way to support this podcast and the work I am doing here, and you can find links to leave reviews on the podcast page of my website. 

Now, let’s get into it!

I wanted to discuss perfectionism and burnout on today’s episode because I myself have been feeling a little burned out in the last few weeks and I am sure I am not the only one! 2020 has been a doozy and with the drama of the election draining much of our attention and energy, I know I am not the only one feeling this way! 

So before we begin, I want to talk a little bit about burnout specifically, how it manifests for me, and how you can potentially recognize it in yourself. 

In my experience, one of the first symptoms of my burnout is an overall lack of inspiration. Typically, when I am feeling fresh and inspired, I wake up with a clear vision of what I want for my day, whether it is a list of to-do’s that I intend to get done, or a project I want to work on, or even food that I want to make, I wake up with a a vision for my day. If I don’t wake up with one, I sketch out my intentions for my day first thing, but either way I am feeling inspired and ready to get the day going. When I am struggling with burnout, however, I lack the vision that comes with inspiration and have a hard time seeing beyond whatever is right in front of me at that moment. There may be an element of mental fog present and a bit of disorganization where I am unable to prioritize tasks well. 

Another symptom of burnout for me is an overall lack of motivation. Typically, when I have a list of things I need to get done, I move through them with clarity and determination. When I am experiencing burnout, however, there may be a list of things that I need to get done, but I find myself avoiding those things instead. 

And what I find is the hardest struggle when it comes to navigating burnout is the pressure from perfectionism to just keep going, to keep doing, to keep all of the plates spinning, and to not let anything slip between the cracks. The voice of my perfectionism will feel my lack of inspiration and motivation and start reminding myself of deadlines and commitments. The voice of my perfectionism will pressure me to keep going in order to meet those deadlines, but then be dissatisfied with the work that I have done or what I am able to accomplish and become critical. In that way, it becomes this vicious cycle where my perfectionism feeds my burnout, and my burnout amplifies the harshness of my perfectionism, and so on and so on. 

These are just a few of the symptoms that I feel when I am in the middle of a burnout period. Other things I might experience are irritability, frustration - especially about my creative work, I may even go through a spell of making bad art at this time. These symptoms are very similar to the symptoms I experience with depression as well, so if you are listening to this and thinking, “This sounds like depression,” you are not wrong! I am not a psychologist, but I would be interested to learn more about the relationship between depression and burnout and how one leads to the other, but I do think there is a difference between the two. I think an easy way to tell the difference between the two is if the feelings of lack of inspiration, lack of motivation, frustration, etc. persist after a period of rest, after a period of recovery. So for example, if you take time to recover and restore yourself and the feelings persist through that period and beyond, then I would say what you’re experiencing might be depression and to seek out support from a mental health professional or people you know and trust. But, again, I am not a mental health professional, and I know these experiences are so different for everyone. 

That being said, it is important to develop a relationship with yourself in such a way that when these symptoms do start to pop up for you, you have a plan in place to help manage them in order to rest and recover, no matter what the voice of your perfectionism is telling you to do otherwise. 

So what do we do when we find ourselves in the middle of a burnout period?

Here are a few things that help me to recover and move through spells of burnout. 

1. Recognize when you are burned out. This is the hard one! It is hard to recognize it before it is happening. This goes back to my “learning your creative rhythm” episode where I talk about learning what your creative rhythm is and planning accordingly. In most cases, I know that after a long period of creative output, I need a break afterwards, and so I will plan my “painting calendar” accordingly to try and avoid periods of burnout, but sometimes it is hard to avoid. So that is why it is also important to recognize your symptoms of burnout and what that feels like for you. Journaling is a great way to do this! With a daily journaling practice, you can record your moods and how you are feeling on a given day so you can have a physical record to reflect on to help you recognize when you are entering into or might already be in a stage of burnout. 

1. Remind yourself it is okay to take a break. WOOF. This one is so much harder than it sounds. Again, perfectionism can lay on all the pressure to keep pushing through because we are supposed to be machines, right? We aren’t supposed to break down! But alas, we are not machines, we are human beings meaning we are perfectly imperfect and full of error. Remind yourself of this in a loving way - you are a gorgeous, brilliant human being and gorgeous, brilliant human beings are gorgeous and brilliant because of the ways in which we mess things up and recover afterwards. This is precisely what my new collection of mini abstract paintings on paper called “Messy Moments” speaks to. Life is messy, we are messy, but that’s part of what makes our humanity so beautiful. Don’t resent yourself for not being 100% on your game all the time, acknowledge it as a fact and then step away for a moment. Take a break! 

2. Begin your recovery! What fills you up? What feels like a great big exhale? What does rest look like for you? Do that. Need a vacation? (Or staycation since it is 2020) Take one! Are you restored by the outdoors? Go for a walk every day! Need to flake out on the plans you made last week? Be honest with your friends/family/whoever and stay home! Need to reassess your deadlines? Ask for or give yourself an extension! Self care is such a buzz word these days, but it is absolutely so necessary. The more we talk about it and the more we actually practice it, the better we all are for it. I dream of a day where self care is integrated into corporate culture and workers are encouraged to practice self care for their mental and emotional well being. I don’t know that we are there yet, but in the ways in which you can control, make space in your life for those self care practices that communicate to yourself that you love yourself and are caring for yourself. 

3. Download my creative recovery guide! On my website I have a Free Creative Recovery Journaling guide to help you start your creative recovery. If you are feeling burned out right now, plan a weekend for yourself to dive into this guide. In it I include a journaling prompt, affirmations, and artist activities to help kickstart your creative recovery and fuel your inspiration. 

BONUS: Start a journaling practice!!!

Yes, I said it, again. Start a journaling practice! 

Journaling Prompt: If you don’t have a journaling practice but would like to get started with one, or if you already have a journaling practice and would like a prompt for this week to inspire you, I am leaving you with the following journaling prompt:

1. Make a list of 10 activities that bring you joy (then commit to doing one of them this week). 

Otherwise, that is all I have for you today, friends! I hope this episode finds you well and on your way to creative recovery! Thank you again, so much, for being here! Until next time! 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 18: Breath Work and Guided Meditation

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Breath Work and Guided Meditation

Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast. My name is Marcy Parks, and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery. 

In this episode I am sharing a breathing exercise and guided meditation to help in discharging stress from your body and engaging your relaxation response. The breathing exercise I am sharing is from the yogic tradition and is called the Viloma Pranayama.

As I said, the Viloma Pranayama practice comes from the yogic tradition. It is a great breathing practice for beginners and is a gentle way to expand the length of your breath and lung capacity.

The name “Viloma” comes from Sanskrit. “Vi” meaning “agianst” and “loma” meaning “hair”, the name “Viloma” translates to “against the natural flow”. The reason it is called “against the natural flow, is because it is an interrupted breathing technique where you pause briefly during your breath.

There are three variations to practice this breathing technique:

1. Interrupted Inhale

2. Interrupted Exhale

3. Interrupted Inhale and Exhale

For this practice, we are practicing it by interrupting the inhale three times, then using a slow, steady exhale. It may take a few rounds to get comfortable with the breathing practice, but do not strain or over-exert yourself in this practice. Try to avoid “gasping” for breath, focusing on keeping your breath steady and soft.

To practice the Viloma Pranayama, find a comfortable position. For this practice you can sit upright on the floor supported by pillows or blankets, in a chair with your back away from the chair and feet flat on the floor, or you can choose to set yourself up in a supported position lying comfortably on the floor.

Once you establish a comfortable and steady breath, begin to imagine or visualize that your lungs are divided into three parts - upper, middle, and lower.

On your next in-breath, breathe in slowly filling up just the lower part of your lungs, then pause. Breathe into the middle part of your lungs, pause. Breathe into the upper part of your lungs, pausing at the top of the breath, then slowly and smoothly exhale all of the air out of your lungs.

Continue breathing in this way, pausing three times on the inhale and slowly exhaling out.

As you breathe, try to feel the way your body moves with your breath and feeling the way the air fills your lungs.

Continue this practice for several minutes and feel free to practice as frequently throughout the week!

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 17: Messy Moments

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Messy Moments

Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast. My name is Marcy Parks, and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery. 

I have a lot on my mind for this episode that I want to share today. In this episode I am going to share about the inspiration behind my new collection of work titled, “Messy Moments” coming in November, the relationship between perfectionism and shame, and how perfectionism doesn’t belong in parenting, but first, I want to say thank you! Thank you for being here and joining me for this episode and thank you for supporting my work and this podcast. I have received more feedback this week about the podcast and I am always so grateful to hear your thoughts and how this podcast is inspiring you, so if you have some feedback you would like to share, send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com and submit your feedback through the contact form there! As you know, your feedback makes this podcast better for you to listen to, so definitely share your thoughts! And, if you are already enjoying this podcast and would like to continue to support it, like, share, follow, subscribe - do all the things on whatever streaming platform you are using and be sure to leave a review! Reviews are the best way to show your support and ensure the growth of the podcast! 

Now, let’s get into it! 

I have a new collection of small abstract works on paper titled, “Messy Moments” coming out on November 20th. I have always said of these little paintings that they make me think of what expletives would look like if we could see them when we say them. They are colorful, they are energetic, they are playful, and yes, they are a little bit messy. 

That is because life is a little bit messy. The core of these paintings, as with most of my work, is inspired by the nuance of the human experience. Life is rarely neat and tidy, but that doesn’t mean the messy moments don't have their own unique beauty to them. In fact, I believe that the messy moments are the best and most beautiful moments because they are real and they are honest and the best of us comes from them. 

I recently shared a conversation I had with a close friend of mine about messy moments. We were talking about parenting, clip charts commonly used in elementary schools, and shame. So, in case you are unaware, clip charts, or sometimes start charts, there are many variations, are a system commonly used in elementary schools by teachers, and even parents at home, to modify a child’s behavior. There is a list of names on display in the class and colored clips coordinating with behavior. Green clips are for good behavior, yellow clips are for behavior that needs improvement, and red clips are the no-go zone. Depending on how a child is behaving that day is what color clip they get. With the chart on public display for everyone to see, when a child is reprimanded and their clip changes color in front of everyone, not surprisingly, it can evoke feelings of shame in the child, which I am sure is part of what makes this system so effective. 

And I want to pause here for a beat just to say that I am sharing this as another perspective on these charts. My intention is not to shame or blame teachers or parents using this system. Especially for teachers, I know, you are doing whatever you can to maintain order in your classroom and with little ones, that is a very fine and delicate line you are walking. I am more so sharing this as another perspective on how early the indoctrination into perfectionism starts. 

But what happens next is children become obsessed with the color of their clip. Yes, they will shine with pride at being in the “green” all week, but they will also grow heavy with shame when they are unable to maintain that standard. I am afraid that what happens for children is that their self-perceived value and their self-worth becomes connected to the color of their clip. I wish instead we could teach children that it is unrealistic and impossible to expect themselves to stay in the green all the time. 

And I am reminded of the conversation I shared with Brian Serway recently where he talks about a stretch of time where he was producing really great work and he was proud of every piece he was releasing, but he acknowledged that that isn’t sustainable, and when it comes to his artwork, that isn’t the norm. 

We can’t expect to be in the green all the time. And this is exactly what I told my friend as we exchanged moments where we struggled to parent as our best selves. For me, it was sharing a moment when I was trying to get Searsha into her car seat. Searsha is three now and she is very, very strong willed and that is something I love about her, but on occasion her strong will is also hard to parent. Well, at this moment it was late, I was tired, she was overly tired and I was trying to get her into her car seat to go home. We had been at my mom’s house and were pushing it close to bedtime. All my usual tactics were failing. Usually, I can make it into a game where we race and see how fast we can get into the seat. She wasn’t into it. I gave her choices to climb in herself, or for me to help her into her seat. She wasn’t into that. I finally gave her a countdown for her to get in her seat herself, otherwise, I was going to put her in her seat. I ended up having to put her in her seat myself and neither one of us were happy about it. She cried the whole way home and cried for a while once we got home. I felt terrible and I wanted to cry about it. And of course, I was laying on the mom guilt and shame in my head.

But, Searsha eventually let me hold her and rock her, she eventually stopped crying, and we got to snuggle up at bedtime and talk about what happened. We talked about consent, we talked about safety, we talked about how we could do better next time, and we exchanged “I’m sorry’s” and “I love you’s”. It was a messy, messy moment, but what came after was communication, compassion, empathy, understanding, connection, accountability, and creativity. We were able to brainstorm and work together. I had the opportunity to demonstrate accountability for her and acknowledged the things I should have done better - like honoring bedtime and not keeping her out too late. 

What I told my friend and what I am telling myself over and over these days is that we can’t be in the green all the time. Not as kids, not as adults, not as artists, not as workers, and definitely not as parents. What do we learn from being in the green all the time? What do our children learn from being in the green all the time? Nothing. Yes, we may have messy parenting moments where we fumble what all the parenting books tell us to do, but that is also the opportunity for your child to see what accountability looks like, what an apology looks like, and what being a human looks like. 

And this is what my Messy Moments collection is all about. Those moments when life is really messy and not picture perfect, but we are better for it afterwards. When we take the time to sit with our mess and give attention to it and acknowledge it, we might even see the beauty in it. Beauty is made in the mess. Moments are made in the mess. 

Journaling Prompt

If you have a journaling practice and would like a journaling prompt, or if you don’t have a journaling practice, but would like a prompt to help you get started, the journaling prompt I am sharing with you for this episode is:

1. Write about a recent messy moment you experienced. What did you learn from that moment? What beauty came from that experience?

Otherwise, that is all I have for you today! If you would like to kickstart your creative recovery, be sure to check out my Free Self-Discovery Journal Guide on my website! In the guide you will receive a journaling prompt to get you started, affirmations, and artist activities to help kickstart your creative recovery. 

Until next time!

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 16: Creatively Processing Grief

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Creatively Processing Grief

Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast, my name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery. 

For today’s episode, I wanted to talk about grief and your creative practice. But before we get started, I wanted to take the time again to say thank you for being here and thank you for listening. I am so grateful to those of you tuning in to share your time with me each week and for supporting my work and this podcast. I enjoy getting to share this podcast, and I couldn’t do that without your support. To those of you that have shared your feedback with me this week, thank you so much! As you know, your feedback makes this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to. If you have feedback that you would like to share, please send me a message on instagram at @Marcyparksart or go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com and submit your feedback through the contact form there. If you are already enjoying this podcast and want to continue to support the podcast, like, share, follow, subscribe on whatever streaming platform you are using and leave a review on apple podcasts! Reviews are the best and easiest way to support the podcast. You can find links to leave reviews on my website on my podcast page, or at the bottom of the transcripts for every episode on my blog at marcyparksart.com.

Now, let’s get into it! 

This week’s episode is a little personal, well, a lot personal, rather, but I wanted to share my experience in case what I share could be of benefit to anyone else having a hard time right now. 

This week, my dad passed away. Though he has been in hospice care for some time now  suffering from late stage emphysema and COPD, and I knew this was coming, it still came as a bit of a surprise. I had just gone to see him in Chattanooga last week and, though he was not in great shape, he was bright eyed, alert, playful, and had energy. But, it seems he declined rather rapidly and passed away 6 days later. 

For those of you that know me well, you know that my relationship with my dad was complicated, to say the least, but if anything that just makes this process of grieving all the more messy. My dog, my first born, my first love, my soulmate, also passed away this year back in April, so my dad passing is also making me revisit a lot of my heartbreak and grief around her passing as well. 

But what is really helping me to get through this deep well of emotion right now is my creative practice. I have written more in the last two days than I have in months. I went swimming for the first time since the pandemic began and it felt so good to be back in the water - that alone could have made me cry. I have been taking breaks throughout my day to add to my art journal. Sometimes, just pages of scribbles, sometimes poems, sometimes just colors. I spent the last two days taking photos for my art, a necessary thing, but also something I enjoy doing when I can take my time to do it. 

The timing of the universe can be so funny, and also really not funny. I just shared recently on my instagram a painting from my new collection of smaller abstract works on paper called “Messy Moments” that I am planning to release in November. I shared in the post that these paintings are my way of capturing and sharing the feelings around “messy moments” - moments that leave you so inspired that you are at a loss for words, but at the same time leave you with only cuss words. The pandemic has been one long messy moment for me. It was during the first week of the shutdown, back in April, when everyone and everything was on pause, that my dog died. She had bladder cancer and we finally had to take her in to be put down. It was devastating and I still cry about it regularly, but I was also thankful that I had that last week leading up to her last day to give her my full attention. I took her to all of our favorite places, let her swim in the lake - which she also loved, fed her lots of chicken sandwiches and chicken nuggets and french fries, and really just got to enjoy our final days together. I didn’t have to wrestle with guilt about missing work to take that time with her, nor for taking time afterwards to mourn her. 

And, before I go further, I do want to take a moment to say that I in no way want to trivialize the pandemic and what this experience has been like for people. Over 217,000 people have died from COVID19, the rates of overdose have skyrocketed in communities of people suffering from addiction, people of color are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic only highlighting the systemic racism in our medical system, people are losing their homes, parents are struggling to do virtual learning and work full time and having to make difficult choices about sending their kids back to in-person schooling or leaving their jobs, and this is just what we know. I am certain that we will not know just how devastating this period has been until much later. 

For our family, the pandemic has been a mixed bag of tragedy and tenderness. This is another one of those moments where I, and my family, am devastated by loss, but I am grateful to know my dad is no longer suffering and I am grateful for the space to mourn and grieve.

What I am most grateful for at this time is the memoir class that I am participating in that started just a few weeks ago. When I say the universe can be funny and also not so funny at times, is because this memoir class has been something I have been looking forward to since the early summer and Carolyn, the woman leading this class, postponed it for the fall instead.*Quick shout out to Carolyn - she leads journaling workshops, memoir classes, vision board workshops and so much more. I love everything she does. You can look her up on facebook at Wordcatching.*  It also worked out that the class is with a group of women that I know, trust, and admire deeply, so I feel comfortable sharing honest, open work. I was already exploring my family history as part of this course, so this has really given me the opportunity to write through a lot of the complicated history that I share with my dad - and not only write through it, but to also have a safe space to share it with supportive, thoughtful, and inspiring women. 

But what I want to share with you all and really emphasize here is how beneficial having a creative practice can be in helping to process grief and navigating challenging times. In 2020, we are all grieving something or someone - whether it is the loss of your home, the loss of a loved one, the loss of routine, or the loss of feelings of security, whatever it is - we are all grieving. You can start now to develop a creative habit if you don’t have one. It can be as simple as taking a walk every day. I am thinking back to what Brian Serway shared in last week’s episode about starting out drawing every day - he was saying that when you get in the habit of doing something creative every day, it becomes as natural as brushing your teeth every day. My creative practices have been a lifeline for me in the last three days and because I have already made a strong habit out of them and they are already such a natural part of my day, I literally just fell into them. After I got the news my dad passed away, and Searsha was in bed, without even thinking, I just started writing. 

All of that is to say, GET A JOURNAL! Ha! I am just kidding, but I am also not. 

Journaling Prompt:

For those of you that have a journaling practice and would like a journaling prompt or for those of you that want to start a journaling practice and want some inspiration, the journaling prompt for this week:

1. Make a timeline of major life points or moments. You can draw a long line down the middle of the page in your journal. On the right side of the line, list years or dates of major events starting with the date of your birth to the present. On the left side of the line, write your feelings about those events. 

2. Using your timeline, if there is a specific date that feels rather poignant for you, write about it further in the next pages. 

And as always, if you haven't already, you can check out the Free Self-Discovery Journal Guide on my website at Marcyparksart.com to get some inspiration there. In the guide you will receive a journaling prompt, affirmations, and artist activities to fuel your creative practice. 

Otherwise, that is all I have for you today. I hope this podcast finds you well, safe, and supported. Thank you for being here, thank you for listening, thank you for sharing this space with me. Until next time!

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 15: Brian Serway: Creative Practice and Making Bad Art

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Brian Serway: Creativity Practice and Making Bad Art

I shared a long conversation with one of my dear friends, Brian Serway. Brian is a fellow Appalachian artist and incredibly gifted illustrator. Check out his work on instagram! Here are some of the highlights from our conversation below.

About his own work as a professional illustrator:

• “My work typically revolves around nature and animals, particularly about the Appalachian region in which we live. I come at it from the perspective of a snapshot in the darkness'.”

  View his work on instagram!

On his evolution as an artist and the struggles he has faced at different stages of his career.

• “In the beginning, I had the resolution to just draw something every day… It was easy for me to get into that habit and that propelled me at first… as I started to get better and things started to work out (becoming a professional illustrator) I committed to do less things per week, but making sure they were things I was really proud of - which is also where my struggles with perfectionism started to come up.”

On the struggle he faces now as a professional:

• Because I am only doing two illustrations per week now, “I will invest a lot of time, but then I will self-critique too much, or I won’t start something because I start thinking if I spend so much time on it and it’s not going to turn out how I think it will.”

On routine and rhythm:

• When you get in the habit of drawing every day, it makes it so it doesn’t feel like a chore, it becomes as much part of your routine as brushing your teeth.

• When I am not working on setting up for a show, I have a commitment to two illustrations per week and I will spend a hell of a lot of time on them - right now my rhythm is to release one on Tuesday and one on Friday.

On perfectionism:

• “When I spend a hell of a lot of time on something and then when I finish, I just think, ‘Well, that looks like nothing.’ I try to avoid that feeling at all costs and I think to my detriment. Am I going to spend all that time and risk hating it, or am I just going to go for it and hope for the best. I struggle with that.”

On making bad art:

• It’s never a waste of time, because you’re always learning.

• “Allow for free form space where you just create and throw paint at the wall, literally, until something sticks.”

On spending time daydreaming and taking time to meditate:

• “You’re never going to miss that time (daydreaming), we spend so much time on our phones, you’re never going to miss that time. Time optimization in allowing for that is important… I used to meditate every day for 20 minutes to an hour, and I don’t do that anymore, just because there is this subconscious part of my mind that thinks, ‘Oh, you don’t have to do it,” but the reason I think I don’t have to do it is because it is not perceived as productive, but it is! It is long term productivity as opposed to short-term productivity... Doing things for your mental health is productive.”

On fueling his creativity with other creative practices:

• “I love gardening, and I love reading and consuming media (for inspiration)… and play video games and going on hikes - it’s all creative food…. but I do a lot of those things with the intention of getting inspiration… I have to build more things to do just for no reason.”

On how he incorporates play into his days and how that inspires him:

• “Playing with my cats or being outside or doing things where my phone isn’t near me. I find my most creative peaks at those times. Spending time doing nothing and daydreaming are the intellectual goldmines.”

On making bad art:

• The revelation that comes from making bad art that is out of your comfort zone is far more potent and exciting than doing the work that you know you are capable of.

On creating for the sake of creating:

• The only reason I was able to start doing what I love full time was because I gave up on it. Because I got rid of the expectation of doing it professionally or expecting to make money off of it, I just put it out there and shared it freely.

And my last question for Brian…

“Do you journal?”

“No.”

Catch the full episode on the podcast! Thanks for being here everyone. Until next time.

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 14: The Need for Play in Your Creative Practice

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

The Need for Play in Your Creative Practice

Hello and welcome to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery.

On today’s episode, I wanted to share with you about the need for play in your creative practice. But first, I want to take a moment to say thank you for listening and thank you for tuning back in with me after a brief break last week. I am still working on finishing up some print orders from my “There are No Bad Emotions” print release, and I so appreciated having the extra time to get caught up last week, so thank you for hanging in until I could get back to it for this episode! That being said, I am so grateful to have you here to join me for this conversation. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast! If you are enjoying the podcast and haven't already, let me know! Send me your feedback by sending me a message on instagram @MarcyparksArt or going to my website at marcyparksart.com and submitting your feedback through the contact form. As I have shared before, your feedback makes this podcast better for you to listen to! If you want to continue to support the podcast, like subscribe, follow, share and and if you haven't already, go to apple podcasts and leave a review! Reviews are the best way to support the growth of this podcast. 

Now, let’s get into it!

I was inspired to talk about play in this episode after listening to a recent episode on Brene Brown’s podcast, Unlocking Us. The episode I am referring to is her “On My Mind” episode where she shares her thoughts on recent events. 

In this episode, she is really just checking in and sharing what is on her mind following the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ongoing pandemic. As she shares her thoughts, she references an article that was recently published titled “Your Surge Capacity is Depleted: It’s Why You Feel Awful”. I recommend everyone reading this article, because there is a lot in it and it can help clarify so much if you have been feeling like I have in recent weeks, but it explains that our “Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems — mental and physical — that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters.” (Haelle). The article continues to explain how, at this time, we aren’t just experiencing an acutely stressful situation, because the pandemic is ongoing and is more like a marathon, but because our surge capacity is already depleted, we can feel some combination of exhaustion, anxiety, depression, among other things. 

I had also been reading about the “Six month wall” that people hit when experiencing natural disasters or living in sustained crisis. If you count March as the start of the pandemic for us here in the US, then September was our six month mark. But everything Brene was sharing in her episode was really hitting home for me because I have definitely been feeling that sense of exhaustion, listlessness, and overwhelm much more acutely lately. It feels very different from my brand of depression that I am better acquainted with. I had a day recently where I felt like I was in such a fog and I just really couldn’t even get my thoughts together. I left my house to run errands and had to turn around and go back to my house three times because I forgot x, y, or z. It was so bizarre and I didn’t even have the energy to be frustrated with myself over it. Not to mention Mars is also retrograde right now, so I am sure that isn’t helping anything lol, but I really have been struggling! So I was grateful for Brene sharing this episode because she went on to talk about a new energy resource: play. 

Brene references her book “The Gifts of Imperfection” and quotes she shared from MD and Play Researcher Stuart Brown. According to Brown, “The Opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression.” 

I have so many thoughts about this quote. First, I definitely would have previously believed play to be the opposite of work because of sayings like “work hard, play harder” imply that playing and working do not take place at the same time, but when I think about my daughter and what play is for her, play is very much her work! It is how she learns. And when I think about my art - art is part of my work, but it is also very much my play as defined by Stuart Brown. Brown defines play as “ time spent without purpose, activities where you lose track of time, activities where you feel free to be yourself, liberated, and uninhibited.”

My second thought about this quote is how connected it is to creativity. As I have shared before, creativity is our natural state. There are no “non-creative” humans, there are just humans that use their creativity and humans that don’t. Julia Cameron describes people that don’t use their creativity as “blocked creatives”. Believing as I do that creativity is a natural state of a human being and reading Stuart Brown’s quote that “the opposite of play is depression” suggests to me that, like creativity, play is also a natural state for humans, but we lose that connection to our sense of play as we age. Brene shared another quote from Stuart Brown, saying, “Respecting our biologically programmed need for play can transform us and renew our sense of excitement in life.”

Now, my first reaction upon hearing the word play, I think of things like playing hide and seek, imagination play, all the ways in which Searsha and I play together or I see her playing, and I start feeling more exhausted! Ha! I just don’t have the energy of my three year old to play like she does! But, I think as adults and in our culture, we believe play is reserved for children with lots of energy, and when I think about how Stuart Brown defines play: as “time spent without purpose, activities where you lost track of time, and activities where you feel free to be yourself”, I realize that my previous beliefs and associations with play are just part of my programming and not actually true for me. I don’t know what happens to us as we age that we come to see play as being a “waste of time,” but I feel like it is a crime against our humanity lol. 

I also started thinking about the relationship between play and creativity. Creativity requires vulnerability and play is any activity where you feel free to be yourself. I feel like the two just naturally go hand-in-hand. For example, I think about how journaling is an opportunity to be honest and uninhibited in your expression and how you can also lose track of time when journaling, so to me it would easily qualify as both play and a form of creative expression.Y’all didn’t think I was going to go a whole episode without mentioning journaling did you?  I also had a revelation about swimming for me! I have shared here before that, because of my experience as a competitive swimmer, that I really don’t know how to play in a pool anymore, I only know how to swim laps, BUT, I LOVE swimming and it is something that I very easily get lost in and can lose track of time doing, so by definition, it is still play for me!

Anyway, Brene goes on to talk about creating her “play list” and she isn’t referring to music and I thought this was so creative and a fun way to think about it. She created a list of play activities she enjoys that she can start incorporating into her routine now to start to replenish and restore her energy sources. She shared about how her family even started planning their vacations around their play activities instead of sight-seeing and the usual itineraries and how they actually come home from vacations feeling refreshed instead of like they need another vacation. 

I love the idea of a “play list” and think for everyone it is a beneficial creative activity to indulge in right now, especially if you are hitting that slump. Some things that I have on my playlist are:1. Painting

2. Swimming3. Journaling4. Running, exercising5. Walking or being outside with Searsha 

6. Watching Schitt’s Creek

7. Watching Halloween movies (or any movie, really) with Searsha

8. Yoga

Just to name a few. 

So for this week’s recommended reading:

 I am recommending Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection and also some recommended listening of her podcast “Unlocking Us”.

For your Journaling Prompt today if you have a journaling practice already or don’t have one and want to get started:

Make your “play list”! List at least 10 things you like to do for play as defined by Stuart Brown. Bonus points if you create a music playlist, to accompany your creative play list. 

And if you haven’t already, head over to my website and download the Free Self Discovery Journal Guide to inspire your creative and playful weekend. There is a journaling prompt in addition to affirmations and artist activities (or play activities) to ignite your creative recovery and restore your energy.

Otherwise, friends, hang in there. You are not alone! These are tough times, so be dedicated to taking care of yourself. Take time to rest, reach out to friends, and definitely get out to vote on November 3rd.

Until next time. 

Further Reading:

Professor Ahmaud’s Six Month Wall: Rehumanizing the Virtual Workplace

Your ‘Surge Capacity’ is Depleted - It’s Why You Feel Awful

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 13: Guided Relaxation Meditation

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

Guided Relaxation Meditation

[00:00:03] So today on the Perfectionist in Recovery podcast I wanted to share another meditation because it has been a little while since the last one. Today I'm going to be sharing a guided relaxation meditation because I really just think that we all could use that.

[00:00:20] But also because, as you know and as I've shared before, I think meditation is a really beneficial practice in facilitating your creative practice. Creating that practice of presence, the practice of noticing, the practice of becoming more conscious of sensations in your body and your experience in this body, is a really great way to help support your creative practice.

[00:00:51] But before we get into the meditation, I did just want to say thank you again for listening. Thank you, to those of you that have shared your feedback! I've been getting some great feedback lately on the podcast, and I am just so grateful. As you know and as I've shared before, your feedback is the best way to make the podcast better for you to listen to, so share your feedback either by sending me a direct message on Instagram at @marcyparksart or go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com And fill out the contact form there to send me your feedback about the podcast. Otherwise, if you are already enjoying the podcast, definitely follow, subscribe, leave a review on whatever streaming platform you're using. Reviews, especially reviews on Apple podcasts, are the best way to help support this podcast and to ensure its growth.

[00:01:58] Now, otherwise, I did also want to say thank you to those of you who have been following my collection release for the "There Are No Bad Emotions" collection, as I shared last week, the collection launch was huge and amazing and better than I could have ever hoped or dreamed! And now I am releasing prints coming up on Saturday, so by the time that this episode airs, the next day, the prints will be publicly available. And I am just so excited again to be making these prints available.

[00:02:37] I love making this work accessible to people, and I also love facilitating this conversation around emotions and feelings and how we navigate them, and I love that I'm able to do that through my work, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For those of you that have been following and supporting that work, I, again, I'm just so excited to get these prints out there and to keep the conversation going.

[00:03:09] Now, otherwise, back to the meditation for today. So today I'm just going to be sharing a guided relaxation meditation.

[00:03:18] So I'm actually going to ask that you lay down for this meditation, if that's not possible. No big deal. Ideally, you would be able to find a place to get really comfortable and just lay down. It actually would be a good meditation to even practice before bed. So if you want to do pause, come back to this later when it's bedtime, that's a great idea, otherwise, no problem. You can practice it however you need to and whenever you need to, whenever you have time to. But if it's one that you want to come back to later and practice when you can lay down and really enjoy it before bedtime. That's a great option.

[00:03:59] So let's go ahead and get started. So find a comfortable position either sitting in a chair. Sitting on the floor in a cross legged seated position or lying down supported by blankets, pillows, just get really cozy, get comfortable. And before you allow your eyes to close, so keep your eyes open for just a moment and.

[00:04:32] First, just bring your attention to your breath.

[00:04:41] Not manipulating your breath in any way at this time. Just noticing your breath and how it's moving through your body.

[00:05:07] And then I want you to take a big, deep breath in through your nose. And a big sigh as you exhale it out.

[00:05:27] Let's do that one more time.

[00:05:31] And this time, as you say it out, allow your eyes to close. So now I want you to continue breathing in and out through your nose and breathing more deliberately and with more.

[00:05:58] Attention and intention.

[00:06:02] To start to study your breath, smoothing it out, lengthening it just slightly. Taking in a fuller and deeper inhale. And a slower and smoother exhale. And keeping this.

[00:06:53] Attention to your breath, we're going to start synchronizing a little bit of movement with breath, and it's really not much movement.

[00:07:05] But what I'm going to ask you to do is on your next inhale, as you breathe in smooth and steady, I want you to start to scrunch and tense up your feet, almost like you're curling your toes in towards your heels. Just scrunch. Bring all the tension that you can into your feet. And as you exhale, I want you to relax your feet. Breathing in again, I want you to scrunch and squeeze your feet in this time.

[00:07:47] Let that move into your legs, stretch out your legs really long, tense your muscles, squeeze your feet.

[00:07:55] And as you breathe in, hold your breath at the top for three seconds. Keeping the tension in the lower half of your body. And then exhale, relax your legs, relax your feet. Inhaling Again, I want you to do that same thing, squeeze your feet, turn to your legs, stretch your legs out in this time, squeeze your glutes or squeeze your butt together.

[00:08:30] Hold your breath at the top of the inhale for three seconds.

[00:08:38] And exhale, relax the lower half of your body.

[00:08:46] Next, inhale tends to lower half of your body. Squeeze your legs, squeeze your butt, squeeze your feet. This time, start to flex your abdominal muscles. So tense your belly. Hold your breath at the top of the inhale for three seconds.

[00:09:10] And exhale, relax your whole body.

[00:09:16] Going to keep moving further up our bodies in this same way this time, and you inhale.

[00:09:26] Tensing up the lower half of your body, your butt, your stomach starts to squeeze your hands into fists, and as you get to the top of the inhale, hold your breath for three seconds.

[00:09:43] And exhale, relax.

[00:09:50] Inhaling again, tend to your feet, tense your legs, squeeze your butt, engage your abdominal muscles, make fists and stretch through your arms, bring tension into your arms as well and your shoulders. Hold your breath at the top of the inhale for three seconds.

[00:10:13] And exhale, relax.

[00:10:23] Good, next inhale, bring all that tension back into your whole body. Feet, legs, but belly, arms, hands, shoulders. This time, clench your jaw as you tense.

[00:10:40] Breathing in hold at the top of the inhale for three seconds.

[00:10:50] And exhale, relax your whole body. Inhale tense through your feet, legs, but belly, hands, arms, shoulders, draw now scrunch up your whole face, squeeze your eyes shut. And as you breathe in, hold your breath at the top of the inhale for three seconds, keeping all this tension in your body.

[00:11:26] And then exhale or relax it all.

[00:11:38] And from here.

[00:11:42] Just allow your body to be soft. Notice if there's any tension remaining in your body. And just let it melt away with every exhale. Every exhale, just relaxing more and more. If you feel that there is a part that part of your body that's still carrying some tension, that you're having a hard time. Letting relax. Do that practice one more time where you breathe in and you bring all the tension into your whole body. Pausing at the top of the inhale for three seconds. And then as you exhale, let go relax and be soft. It may seem. Counterintuitive to tents your body when you want to relax. But sometimes it's even hard to know what. Our bodies in a relaxed state feel like.

[00:13:28] We are so acquainted with carrying stress and tension in our body that it feels normal. And the feeling of true relaxation can seem foreign.

[00:13:49] So by deliberately tensing your body. And then relaxing your body. You create this contrast.

[00:14:04] We become aware of what it feels like to relax. Well, so by deliberately bringing tension into your body you can help to release any energy. That might be keeping you from relaxing. So if you'd like to do a few more rounds of that, tensing your whole body as you inhale holding at the top of the inhale for three seconds.

[00:14:55] And exhaling to relax. Please do so. Otherwise. Just allow yourself a moment to be still now.

[00:15:12] And really dwelling in that feeling of release. That feeling of letting go. Keeping your presence with your breath and. The ease with which your breath moves through your body. A soft inhale and a soft exhale.

[00:16:25] From here, you can continue to rest with this connection to your breath. There's a tension on your body. Consciously, with every exhale, relaxing your body more and more. Invite yourself to stay here as long as you please.

[00:17:10] Otherwise, when you're ready. You can slowly begin to open your eyes.

[00:17:22] Until next time.

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!

My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!

So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

YOU’LL ALSO LOVE…

• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation

Ep 12: "The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself" Review Part 1

Listen Now!

Perfectionist in Recovery

“The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself” Review Part 1

The Creative Journal Review Part 1

Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks, and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery. 

Before we begin, I want to take a moment to acknowledge a few things. First, if you didn’t already know, the west coast is engulfed in fire right now to the point that it is unsafe for people to even leave their homes because air quality is so poor. There are photos circulating now showing how the sun is darkening and the skies are turning orange because of the wildfires there. This is absolutely in every way a tragedy and, what is even more tragic, is that our administration is too caught up in its own controversies to even give proper attention and care to what is taking place. If you are in a position to donate, please do. Donate to the red cross and to those individuals out there combating these fires, but more than anything, VOTE. Vote in November for a candidate that is going to support policies that affect climate change. I also want to take a moment to recognize that today is September 11th and marks the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers that devastated our nation and killed so many. I was in seventh grade in Mr. Brandon’s English class at Vance Middle School when Mrs. Russel, the math teacher next door, ran into the room and told Mr. Brandon to turn on the news. I didn’t fully understand what was happening that day, but I remember how different the world looked afterwards. 

Now on today’s episode, I wanted to do a book review! I am always looking for good creativity-related books to help spark inspiration and so I thought it might be helpful for anyone listening who is doing the same, if I shared books that I have found and loved on here. The book I am going to be reviewing today is the one I listed for recommended reading last week by Lucia Capacchione, called “The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself”. 

But before I get into my review, I wanted to say a very big THANK YOU! So, this past weekend was the launch of my new collection, “There are No Bad Emotions” and it was hugely successful! I am still just so blown away by the support I have received for this work. So many of you reached out to me to share stories of how this collection inspired you to reflect on your own experiences, or inspired conversations with loved ones about emotions, and that alone made the work I am doing so worth it. 8 out of 13 paintings sold the weekend of the release! I am just so excited and so grateful for the reception. My goal was to sell 3 paintings and you all completely blew that out of the water, it was unbelievable! I am still reeling from that, so thank you so much for that love and support. 

And for those of you that have also shared your interest in prints from this collection - “There are No Bad Emotions” prints will be available on Saturday, September 19th! I am super excited about these prints because I have made a few changes and updates to my printing process to offer even better quality prints. Something that I shared recently with members of my Collectors Club is that I have changed papers and am now offering prints on a velvety, matte archival paper. Archival just means that the paper is made to resist the effects of aging, so your print will last longer. The velvety, matte texture makes the colors of the prints so rich and so much deeper and it looks beautiful framed either with or without glass. I am also offering larger print sizes! You can get other updates about the prints, including the first look and chance to pre-order your favorite prints by joining my Collectors Club! You can do so by going to www.marcyparksart.com and signing up for my newsletter there or visit my profile on instagram @marcyparksart and click the link in my bio to join! 

Also, several of you reached out to share that you’ve started or have been listening to the podcast and shared your feedback and that also put me over the moon! I am so grateful to have this opportunity to share my love and my passions with you all and so grateful to know that the work is resonating for you. As you know and as I have said before, your feedback helps me make this podcast even better for you to listen to, so definitely share all of the feedback! You can send me a message on instagram at @marcyparksart or go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com and submit your feedback through the contact form! If you are already loving the podcast, please subscribe, follow, and leave a review on whatever your favorite streaming platform is! Apple Podcast reviews are the best way to show your love and support for this work and to help the podcast continue to grow. 

Now, let’s get into this review of The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself! 

Wow, okay, so let me start by saying I am only like chapter 2 of this book, so really this book review is going to come in parts haha! But ALREADY, this book has made such an impact that I just had to share it with you all. 

And that’s the first point I want to make about it - this is definitely not a book to treat like “homework”, it is one that I would definitely recommend taking your time through. You all have heard me rave about Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” so much and I have shared before how it is set up like a workbook covering the span of 12 weeks, etc. Anyway, Julia’s approach is more regimented. You have your morning pages that are three pages minimum and to be done daily, then you have your additional journaling prompts for each week and your weekly artist’s date. I guess I would think of Julia’s book as more of an “intensive” course in creative recovery. Her book lays the foundation for building a creative habit. 

Lucia describes her book, on the other hand, as more of a reference manual. Each chapter has several exercises with a specific intention. She recommends doing each exercise in order the first time through to get familiar with it and the practices, but to use the book in any sequence or manner you choose after that. Where Julia’s approach to her book is more regimented, Lucia embraces more spontaneity. In the first chapter when she is first introducing you to and preparing you for the practice of creative journaling, she explains that journaling is a “means of documenting the spontaneous flow of your life and growth. It is a vehicle for experiencing the present more fully, and also witnessing past patterns and setting goals for the future.” She recommends that you “keep your journal as you live it.” In setting up the parameters of “when and how often” she explains to use it when you feel like it and that you don’t have to use it daily unless you just want to. 

So the first chapter sets the expectations for what is to follow. In this chapter she explains how her journey into creative journaling began, explains what creative journaling is, and sets up some loose guidelines. She explains that creative journaling is a tool for personal growth (****SO IT IS NOT JUST FOR ARTISTS****). Her intention behind this book is to serve as a guide to creative journal keeping with a series of exercises to help you “find and love your own dear self.” The exercises are meant to help you express thoughts and feelings, experience and discharge emotions, sort out the seemingly random experiences in your life, make more conscious choices, define and implement changes, get a clearer picture of your creative potential and how to use it, deal with creative blocks and negative patterns, find deeper meaning in your life, and more. Something I love that she says in this book is that, “By starting with self-communication in private, you can then develop your ability to communicate with others.” Which, if I am being honest, everyone on the planet could stand to do a little better at that. 

I mean, y’all just need to get this book. 

Anyway, moving on! She also goes on to encourage you to modify the exercises as needed, use exercises from other resources, and even invent your own! And that’s something I really love about this book is the freedom she encourages. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Artist’s Way, but there are definitely moments where I struggle with Julia’s approach just because there seems to be less freedom. It is still an invaluable resource and one I highly, highly recommend, especially, as I already said, to help develop a consistent creative habit and to do an intensive course of creative recovery, but I just really appreciate that Lucia’s approach leaves more breathing space and that she invites so much creativity into the format itself. 

As far as supplies go, Lucia recommends a journal with blank, unlined pages and then tools for writing or drawing. The exercises all vary and are all done through different forms of expression including drawings, doodles and scribbles, prose and poetry, dramatic dialogues and letters, graphs and charts, colors, abstract designs, images, and symbols. I love that she even includes examples of pages from other people’s creative journals because you can really see how much freedom there is and that there really is no wrong way to do each exercise. 

The second chapter begins the exercises. Each chapter has a number of exercises with a specific intention, Chapter 2, the first chapter of exercises, has 10 different exercises that are all focused on “Where You’re At, and Where You’re Coming From”. The intention of the exercises in this chapter are to get you focused on your past and present by exploring feelings in the immediate present and then stepping back for a more panoramic view of your life up until now. She describes that in this chapter you will take inventory of “‘what is’ and consider some changes toward ‘what could be’”. The purpose of the exercises are to help you relax and tune into yourself, explore and discharge feelings, gain insight, and more. 

I want to take a second and talk about these exercises because upon first look, they seem so simple, but they really are so profound. 

The first exercise is just a “Warm up” where Lucia invites you to just “mess around” and scribble in your journal. She encourages you to take the pressure off of yourself to make “something” and instead explore with colors or what kind of lines and shapes you enjoy making and to do this for as long as you like. 

I found this exercise to be really liberating because, as someone who identifies as an artist, there is this invisible pressure that I put on myself that everything I touch is meant to be a “masterpiece”. As I have shared in episodes before, it is important to make room for “bad art” in your creative life, and I have intentionally set out to do so in the past. This exercise was another way of doing that. When I approached the exercise, almost immediately I felt the apprehension of “oh my gosh, I haven’t drawn anything in forever,” and was already putting that pressure on myself. But looking at the examples she includes of two blank pages with blue scribbles all over the pages, I was able to take that pressure off and just allow myself to scribble, too (**this is also why I really appreciate her examples because it serves as a good reminder that there really is no wrong way to do this). In exploring this first exercise, I did find it really relaxing to just scribble and doodle away and I saw mirrors of marks that I already make in my paintings (if you’ve seen my work, you know what I am referring to) and it made sense that those just intuitively came forward. 

The next exercise is called “How do I Feel Right Now?” I have to say that this exercise was so simple but really impactful. She invited you to take a second to meditate on that question, paying attention to any physical sensations or emotional feelings that come up, and also take note of any images or words that come to mind. In the next section, she then asks you to channel those images and sensations into scribbles, doodles, shapes, textures, images, and or words. Then, when you are finished, she asks you to reflect on what you have done and take note of any reactions to the work on the next page. 

I found this to be a really powerful way of checking in with myself, especially considering the circumstances we are collectively living in this year. I think about how in America, especially in the south, we tend to greet people, even strangers, by saying, “How are you?” and 9 times out of 10 people will reply, “Good,” even if they are really not good. And in my reflections on this exercise, it also made me think about how even though there is still a pandemic raging on, and half of the world burning down, and the crisis that our democracy is facing right now, we are all still trying to carry on as business as usual. We are still trying to maintain productivity as if none of this was happening. In my meditation and doodling about how I felt in that moment, I was surprised by how drained my body felt and the subtle anxiety that was pulsing just beneath the surface, and I had this “well, duh!” thinking, “Of course you are! Everything is crazy right now! Don’t forget.” But this exercise was a really great way to sort of reset and give myself and my energy needed attention and because of that I was able to take the rest of the day easier and rest because I had actually acknowledged the needs of my being and not the demands of my to-do list. 

I’m not going to get into the rest of the exercises of this chapter, because hopefully, you’re already getting an idea of how the book operates. The theme of this chapter was about checking in with where you are and where you’ve been, so getting rooted in where you are in this moment and reflecting on your life (there are some really powerful exercises for reflecting on your past in this chapter). The theme of the next chapter is “Who You Are”, but I haven’t started it yet! I am definitely looking forward to what else this book has to offer and what else will come from it, but I just had to go ahead and share it here for anyone looking for some guidance in exploring their creativity or getting through creative blocks they might be experiencing! 

If you enjoyed this book review, let me know! I love books like this that help get me thinking even more outside of the box and I love even more when books I have loved go on to be loved by people I have shared them with. I will leave a link to this book in the show notes for anyone interested in purchasing it for themselves! 

Otherwise, that is all I have for you today! For Your Journaling prompts from this episode:

Journaling Prompt:

1. How are you?: Get comfortable, get quiet, close your eyes, and ask yourself, “How am I?” Take some time to reflect on that, observe sensations in your body, observe any thoughts or words that come to mind, then when you are ready, open your eyes and journal about it.

Recommended Reading:

1. The Creative Journal: The Art of Self Discovery: You need this book. Everyone needs this book. Read it, then give it to someone else who needs it!
   You can purchase a copy here:
   https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-creative-journal-lucia-capacchione/1121952849

Check back in with me next week for a guided meditation. And, if you havent already, you can also go to www.marcyparksart.com and download my free Self Discovery Journal Guide to fill your weekend up with creative inspiration. In the journal guide, I include a powerful journaling prompt to also get you reflecting on who you are in this moment, artist activities to get you checking in with yourself and finding inspiration from your surroundings, and positive affirmations to help encourage you on your creative recovery. 

Until next time, friends! 

Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?

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So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!

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• EP 04: Perfectionism Doesn’t Belong in Your Creative Practice

• EP 03: “Who Am I?” Guided Meditation