The idea of creative living has been floating around in my mind for quite some time and so writing about it seems like the logical thing to do. The concept of creative living reveals itself to me as an artist, mother, writer, creative, daily. The question is how do we make more time for creativity in our lives that are so full? I want to try to answer that with a mini course here on my blog and over on instagram.

I have put together a two week mini insta-course over on instagram and this post and my next one will dive deeper into the more broad thoughts I share these two weeks on instagram. If you like the information you find here, hop on over to my new instagram account creativelivingbyamy and follow along!

This post is the recap and more explanatory version of what I have posted this week on instagram. So if you’re here you’ll want to go to instagram to check out the broader concepts of what has been posted and you’ll want to follow and finish the series (I hope!). This first week has been all about defining creative living and what it means to you. So let’s jump in to what has been posted on creativelivingbyamy this week.

What is creative living? Well to answer this question we have to really think about our life, the lives of those around us, the lives of people that inspire us. The next part is to come up with your own definition.

My definition of creative living is: Living a life you set up that is not determined by outside perspectives but rather is something you define and keep redefining based on your beliefs. 

What does this mean exactly? To me, it is a combination of following my heart and my head. My heart because we need to have love for the things we base our life around and my head because it requires critical thought. It requires a belief system to measure your decisions against. I am a Christian so this is my belief system. But we all have our own belief systems.

Often, I think we are so ingrained with the way we were raised for better or worse, our surroundings, our friends, colleagues, family etc. that we just live and don’t even question our direction. These outside perspectives are often the reason our lives become stagnant and lack creativity.

Now, don’t mis-interpret the above to mean you shouldn’t care about those around you— you absolutely should and these people are the foundation of our lives. I’m also not saying that creative living gives you the right to disregard your responsibilities. Creative living doesn’t mean neglecting those around you to have selfish pursuits. It means having an overall trajectory that is in line with your beliefs and goals. To me, it also means allowing yourself to disagree with the trajectory that your neighbor, best friend and colleagues are on while still respecting and loving them for who they are.

Becoming closer and closer to the person we want to be is the end goal in my opinion. Creative living is the key to this accomplishment. Changing our opinion and having persistence to pursue the things that make your heart on fire even when we feel lazy. That is real creative living.

Where to start? Start by tracking your happy. What makes you happy? What do you wish you had time to do? For me this pursuit came to an obvious intersection when I had my oldest daughter. Now seven, she was the beginning to my creative living journey.

At the time, I didn’t know I was on any kind of journey but looking back I can see it. For the first time in my life after college and marrying a man I love dearly, I really wanted something and that was to spend all of my time with her. I wanted to be a full time mom and my work to be raising a family.

Beyond spending time with my now three children and husband, what makes my happy is painting, writing, and teaching art. I also love working out, traveling and planning events. Realistically, I can’t do these things all day everyday but I can fit them into my life in small doses while maintaining my work.

The first step to living a creative lifestyle, defined by you, is to know what makes you happy and what you want to define yourself by. If you don’t know off the top of your head what these things are; start by thinking through the broader concept, what do I want to be known by?

Next, we have to lighten our load. Based on the above look at your own happiness and assess, are there things in our life that are burdening you? Moving toward happy means moving away from things that are burdening your heart, moving toward light love and grace.

How do you know what is burdening you? Something that is causing you elongated bouts of anxiety, someone who you frequently feel conflicted by, something that just doesn’t seem right. The key here is you are always looking for a different outcome after spending time with this thing but the outcome is always negative. Listen to this feeling, it’s not a good thing, it’s a warning of something.

Sometimes, this is people, their influence that is strong in your life but it doesn’t serve you well. As sad as it may be, sometimes we have to let go. To redefine our happiness. Additionally, this could mean a job, a habit, an addiction. Think about things that take your time and energy but that you walk away from feeling drained, unhappy or stressed out. It might be time to rethink some of these things. And if its a person, I’m not saying walk out on them or never talk to them again, I’m saying, it may be time to establish a boundary.

I leave you with these thoughts on what creative living means to me and I challenge you this week to start thinking about what it means to you. If you have any thoughts on this idea please leave a comment or send a message!