5-Step DIY Creative Mini-Retreat
(Vision board created by a participant from last week's Creative Oasis Retreat.)
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun.” ~ Mary Lou Cook ~ 1918 -2013 (Activist, artist, minister and founder of the Santa Fe Living Treasures)I just love this vibrant, complex and inspiring definition of creativity!For one small section of last week’s Creative Oasis Retreats I transformed it into a series of prompts to help us ponder, brainstorm and explore our vision for our creative lives in 2018.Today I want to share these prompts with you and invite you to enjoy a little DIY Creative Oasis Mini-Retreat of your own.Here’s how:
- Permission ~ Give yourself permission to spend 10 or 15 minutes enjoying your mini-retreat. If you have 30 minutes to spend ~ fabulous! But please know you don’t need vast amounts of time to enjoy some good creative self-care. Ten minutes is less than 1% of your day. Don’t you deserve to spend at least that much time doing something nice for yourself?
- Comfort ~ Find a cozy, quiet place to curl up with your journal and maybe a nice cup of hot tea.
- Questions ~ Often we feel we should know what needs to come next in our lives, but rarely do we take the time to ask ourselves questions than can help us unearth those answers we hold inside our hearts and minds. Inspired by Cook's lovely creativity quote, here are some questions for you to ponder during your mini-retreat:
* How do I envision experimenting with my creativity in 2018? * What might I use my creativity to invent this year?* How do I see myself growing creatively?* What creative risks do I want to take in 2018?* What rule can I break using my creativity? (One of my favorite answers someone came up with during our retreat was “I want to break the rule that the dinner dishes have to be cleaned before I can go into my studio at night. They’ll be there when I come back out!)* What’s a mistake I might make along the way?* How do I envision myself having fun with my creativity?
- Choices ~ Read over your answers and choose one creative experience or idea that seems to pop off the page to you, something that really energizes you!
- Small Steps ~ Write a list of as many delightfully doable steps as you can to enjoy your creative endeavor choice. During the coming week practice giving yourself permission to savor a few of the small steps you came up with.
I hope you enjoy your DIY Creative Oasis Mini-Retreat! I’d love to hear how it goes so please feel free to share your experiences with me if you like!If you live in the DFW area, I hope you’ll consider joining me in person for a special day of pampering, play and personalized creative guidance during a future Creative Oasis Retreat. (Let me know if you’d like to reserve one of the five seats available for my "Loving Your Creative Life!" Creative Oasis Retreats coming up February 8th and 10th.)Here’s what one participant had to say about her retreat experience:
"Jill ~ Thank you so much for hosting the Creative Oasis Retreat. It was a fabulous experience, being led by you, sharing the creativity process with the group, and enjoying the delicious, healthy meals.
The JOY in the planning and all of the elements of the day were so evident.
Thanks for helping me re-focus on my creative activity. It is easy, when one is working in a creative field, to neglect one’s own personal growth.
Your professional expertise in creativity coaching, was just the thing I needed to begin 2018!"
Here's to experiencing the pure JOY of your favorite Creative Oasis Moments in 2018!Until next time, all the best from my Creative Oasis to yours,Jill