Transcripts
1. Introduction: Some of the biggest impacts I've made in my life
were less about the act of doing a tangible activity and more
about shifting a mindset. I'm here today as your creative cheerleader
and as your friends elevate your creative journey
and ultimately revolutionize your
process, mindset and self. So you can feel empowered to be the best creative version
of you would make something extraordinary
in any life or experience is the person
or people behind it. Anyone can buy a nice
brush or cook a meal. You are the most
important asset to your projects, impacts
and successes. It's time to invest in you. I'm here today with this four-day creative reset to help break down any
walls holding you back. Provide new clarity and big ideas and take
your productivity, of course to new heights. It's time to break
free from bad habits, intrusive thoughts and stress. So you can feel more
energized and stronger and excited about your
creative goals and of course, life development. I have personally spend the
last five months digging into the soil of my
personal creativity to define common roadblocks, stressors, and accelerators
that most of us experience. I have put them together for you today in bite-size exercises, things like
high-intensity workouts. So you can feel like a new
creative you and you're ready to keep going after
your dreams and goals. This class can creatively
excite anyone regardless if you feel like you need a
total kickstart and reset, or ever just looking to polish the great path that
you're already on. This is also an
awesome supplements who my existing
skill share classes. So welcome back friends. If we pan out before, this class is designed for every type of creative
and creative person. And I believe that these experiences and
exercises are not just helpful for they
are necessary to take your goals and
journey to the next level. All my classes are designed
around the understanding that every mind is different
and important. Emotional wellness and health is at the forefront
of my teachings. And this is because I am a narrow divergent as
a narrative version. I know what it's like
to feel alone and left out of the common way of
teaching and curriculum. I used to struggle
with learning. So I've aspired to
become a teacher, to create a more diverse
learning environment with new tools, ideas, and ways of educating
so that everyone can be included and feel like they're not left behind and lifted up. I grew up with learning
disabilities and I have multiple chronic physical
health conditions as well as multiple
mental disorders. And this includes complex
post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, obsessive
compulsive disorder. If you're going through
a season of struggle, if you feel like you are
stuck and you can't move forward and that you aren't worthy of investing
this time and yourself. I'm right here with you. I know firsthand how that
feels and I know what we can do about it and how that impacts your life
and your creativity. And I want this class to
be an advocate for you, a companion to help you
in times of need or when you're just feeling
stuck and without direction. So through actual exercises, here's what you're
going to gain. If you spend the next four days, you're going to
learn how to reduce feeling overwhelmed
and stressed, and take the consideration of your mental wellness
into your process. You're going to
overcome feelings of self-doubt and on worthiness
and creative talents. And of course, individual self. You're gonna learn
actionable steps to bring passion to
your creative life, your workspaces
and relationships. You are going to feel empowered
to take care of yourself. And of course, long term, huge thing and happiness. You're going to boost
productivity by understanding your physical and
mental space and more. So please join me on this four-day journey and
let's discover a new part of note that you are more than welcome to do these
exercises at your own pace. Maybe that's all in one day or over the
course of a month. Also, feel free to
invite a friend into this mix and party or a group of people
do this with you. Accountability is a key tool for completing goals,
habits, and challenges. Talking through your
findings, your dreams, your struggles with
another person or people can be an amazing
bonding experience. It can deepen relationships
creatively, which by the way, we have a whole exercise and segment dedicated to connection. Because human connection,
in my opinion, is a core piece of creativity. Whatever it is, that it doesn't
matter how long it takes. You only fail if you quit. I'm here for you along the way, so please reach out,
send me a message. I want to support you. One last note, becoming a full-time teacher
is my personal goal. So please feel like I'm a
resource to you and you can support my mission by
starting discussions, leaving reviews when you're done and sharing this course
with those around you, checking out my other classes. It really means the world to me. I am obviously very
caffeinated and talking fast, hopefully not. So let's just jump
in and get started.
2. The Class Project: Alright guys, the class project. This class project will bring continued good habits
and mindsets to your creative goals
and endeavors after the completion of
this course and are four big exercises together, you will be able to fill out each section of what I'm
calling the journey map. And it's going to be a reminder of what you've learned
in this course, as well as actions for
continued success. You can fill this out digitally printed or use it as a guide and use your own notebook or stationary, whatever
works for you. The journey map
template is found in your class resources as a
standalone PDF for easy access. Great feature of
the journey map is that it can be
done over and over again as a check-in
or maintenance tool for your creative block. Things like changing
the oil in your car. Don't worry, we're
going to cover more of that later on in the class. If you spend some time with me before in previous classes, it comes as no surprise that I, obviously I'm going to be including a workbook
in this course. Don't panic if that sounds
really heavy and intimidating. The workbook is designed
and meant as a tool for you to help you have the most success possible
throughout my class. Your workbook can also
be filled out visually by printing key, local or pages, or as a guide for you to then pull out on
your own screen, have digitally, you can use your own notebook
or stationary, whatever works for you. Your workbook is a larger file, so you can access this
by the links, please, throughout our class
descriptions and enforced in the class resources at
the end of the course, I hope you feel
encouraged to share your journey map with
the other students in our discussion sections, this is a great way to
motivate your peers and have a sense of
shared completion. I'd also love to see what you're doing and build a relationship
with you as your teacher, I'm a resource for you, so please reach out, please show me your works in progress. And I would love to
keep you motivated. Speaking of motivation
to keep you motivated, I've also included some principle digital
downloads to cheer you on now and even after
the class is completed, these can also be found as
high resolution PDFs in our class resources and their including or it's
0 kindness cards, which is a great way to spark
new conversations, ideas, thoughts, and
surrounding words of affirmation to
yourself and others. Understanding your joy cards, which are an impactful way to discover the things
that bring you joy. Intentional connection
poster, a reminder of crafting intentional
conversation and creative ideas. This is a segment in
our course today. Habit trackers and important
visual aid for good habits. A major theme in this class. Gratitude challenge a
simple principle way to ground your
happiness and reality. Creative self-care
challenge to push you towards 16 additional
days of self-care, which is another big theme. And to brain break
principles to contribute towards our relaxing
working sessions that we will cover
in this course. I hope you guys find
those encouraging. I am beyond excited to be
here and you guys know, I love teaching, so I'm ready to jump in and I'm excited
for you to join me.
3. Redefining Success: How do we reshape, how we see our goals
and redefine success? As I said at the
start of our class, some of the biggest impacts I've made in my life were
less about the act of doing a tangible activity and more about
shifting a mindset. Exercise. One is having
us do just that. And then we'll define the
remainder of this course. Like you, I've done classes, I've done self-help books, I journaled, I've screamed into both the void and my pillow. Yet still the days
occurred where I felt this pressure while I worked or when I thought about new projects or
creative pursuits. So much so I could
tangibly feel it on my chest is deep longing,
clinging stress. After talking to a lot
of creative people, they share the same feeling for myself and those around me. It tends to be one of the biggest and loudest voices and get in the way of
our creative work. This feeling of
being inadequate, untalented, and unsuccessful. When I took a step back, I realized why my
efforts were failing, why I felt overwhelmed and
scared and foggy when working. The truth is, I felt a
satisfied with all the work I've done and hopeless to
what I would eventually do. Therefore, the
actions, the work, and always felt powerless despite powerful
methods like classes, worksheets, prompts,
and just doing art. I was a hamster running
on a spinning wheel. These methods and
habits were working, but if I didn't change how
I measured their progress, I would never feel or
recognize the progress. It didn't matter how much I journal or what to
do list I made, if I didn't change how I define success and how I process
daily experiences, I was always going to
feel unsuccessful. So then I went on a mission
of redefining success. In that mission, I've come to understand that most
of us were not taught the correct definition of success with modern
technology and media, it would stay that way. I am totally fanned by the
way of all kinds of media. However, it's so important
to take inventory of how these tools have
downsides, not just upsides. The biggest downside is we are mass exposed to millions of successes all mixed together in our face, beautiful and loud. We aren't exposed to
those individuals full processes of creating and that perfect photo or
how many years it took another to create all
that huge oil painting. We're constantly
measuring our progress against the final product. And the output of that is
a feeling of inadequacy. I used to look at
people I admire and I'm jealous up or gain
inspiration from. And with every post
article or book, I felt more and more
like a failure. So therefore, when it's
time to work for gout, read practice, half of my
headspace is CPT and anxiety. The other half is
baked in doubt. Obviously makes for a challenging ecosystem
to create habits. This makes the body
wants to say, Heck, no, and running the
other direction, which for me is usually the process of Netflix and pizza are hiding
under a blanket. So how do we even treat
ourselves as worthy? How do we get past this? How do we stop comparing? First, we need to realize
we've been taught in a lot of things about success
and how to measure value. In school success was the beacon of a
student's experience. Everything was graded, even
friendships and social life, like participation and speed. But this time there isn't a single teacher grading
you, it's the world. So of course, social media and yourself are the grade books. The world is also your rubric, which for many of us
is our Instagram feed. You might find yourself saying, this is how I should be doing. This is how my work should look. This is how my life should be at Insert age times,
ys and et cetera. But if those final products
on social media don't show the process or maybe even
the truth because editing, staging, manipulating,
selecting the best outcome. How do you define success
is using this grade book, Kathy, do you have to do what
you've always been taught? Now? You have the power
to set impactful, actionable goals that will
actually get you success. That success is
defined by you and it takes into consideration
your body, your mind, your
lifestyle, and desires. Not everyone else's. In today's exercise, we're going to make your own
rubric of sorts, your own definition of success. So you can stop using the world. This is exercise one, crafting healthy,
impactful, lasting goals. Crack open your workbook, jumped to exercise one
and let's get started.
4. Exercise 1: Crafting Healthy, Impactful Lasting Goals: Feel free to pause as we go through as you
complete the steps, or you can go back and do the exercises after
this segment, It's totally up to you. But obviously if we're going
to start with step one, step one is to write down
four of your current goals. These goals can be literally anything in
your life right now that has been at the forefront of your mind and maybe
conversation. Perhaps it's a physical goal, a tangible skill, habit, a project of mindset and so on. If you can write
about a sentence in each column to
describe the goal, don't worry, these are only a few of probably
your money goals. Or if you can only come up
with one, that's totally fine. Doing these as an example to help you think
about your goals and a new way and
redefine success. Once you have your four
goals written down, we're gonna move into step two. What outcome do you
want, why and how? Follow me to the next page
in your workbook where we're going to break down
and goal in a healthy way. When we decide we have a goal, what is the decision
we're ultimately making? We're making a goal to be different than who
we are today in the future under
a certain set of consistent steps and standards. Now, growing and
becoming new isn't bad. It's expected, it's designed. But what if we set the
goal with the intention of being in a different
place than we are today. And who we become
on that journey is just a part of the
process, not the reason. That way we're not looking at what the outcome looks like, but why we want an
outcome to begin with? We're not clenching onto a standard of what
we should become, rather why we want to become it, and the steps it
takes to get there. I say this because a lot of
our goals today are rooted in comparison and wanting
to become someone else. This impacts how
we define success in life if we're
comparing ourselves to others or to other skills and work and saying that
it is the goal, then success isn't going
to ever feel achievable. The problem is we don't
tend to recognize this until we're deep into
the creative process, constantly feeling burnt out and unable to meet those
strict benchmarks. So instead we put ourselves down saying you're
not talented enough, you're not good
enough, et cetera. So I want you to ask
yourself this and stuff. Why are you setting the
goals for yourself? You need to make your
goals in a space that is not comparing who you are now, where you should be or
where you want to be. Rather believing that
you are worthy and deserving of achieving something simply because it's
close to your heart, it will make you healthier, happier and so on. So in your workbook,
I want you to fill in the blank spaces in
this table structure. Pick one of the goals from your previous page and
write it at the top. So it's the focus. Then take a moment and
think in detail why you want the outcome of this
goal, what's driving you? I'll show you my example. So moving on to the
second part here, I want to know what
are three steps or tasks it takes to
achieve that goal. You may have more than
three, which is okay. But again, this is
just an exercise. So jot down three, don't worry, you don't need to do these for all of your goals in your life. But if you practice
this way of processing your goals and
focusing on outcomes, you will do it organically. Next to each of those tasks. You're going to then write down a hypothetical barrier that might get in the way of
completing that task. If you're checking out
what we have on the screen here and in your workbook, you're going to see
that we're moving from left to right again, next to each of those tasks, you're going to write
a hypothetical barrier that may get in the way
of completing that task. Think about your
current life situation. The people around you. The time in your day
is the predicament and the past experiences
you've had with doing this. You're taking the light
away from the goal or the end result of someone
else's journey and making it specific to
us guys, this is key. The sets us up from true success because we're
thinking through true steps. Lastly, next to these, you're going to think
of something to increase the likelihood
of completing this task. This might counterbalance
the previous column or just be a general tip for making for yourself to make it more likely that you're
going to complete this goal. So here's the example that
I have now on the screen. Why do you want the
outcome of your goal? The golden I picked is to
write five days a week to post on my personal website,
magazine, or blogging. And why do I want the
outcome of my goal is I want to write more frequently to increase skill and stamina. I want to connect more with
my readers to populate resources and just honestly
populate existing creativity. As I move over here to the
right and the next column, I was thinking through what are the three steps and tasks
to achieve that goal? Well, one of them for me is to create a set time
to write every day. That's super important for me. I'm a very repetitious person. And then I also thought about coming up with ideas to write. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I'm
like staring at a blank screen or
canvas and I'm like, Oh my goodness, I
have no idea what I should do today and I'm
watching that clock ticks. So that's definitely something that I need to always do
to achieve this goal. Then lastly, I thought
about how to make additional time to edit and publish on my website
and share to readers. This is something I have to
do is definitely a part of my goal because that's how
I complete the process. I wanted to think
through specifically what is something that might
get in the way of the task? Well, for starters. Creating a set time
to write every day. Well, if you don't
process it correctly, you might not be getting enough sleep due to
writing in the morning, which is my best time. So e.g. I. Might stay up really late
the night before because me and my husband are
bingeing and Netflix show. I don't get enough sleep because my alarm
goes off at six, so I have that hour
or 2 h to write. And that's definitely
potentially a problem for my second task coming up with
ideas and things to write. Well, sometimes,
as I said before, I'm staring at a blank screen, which basically means
I'm going to potentially have some decision fatigue
of deciding what's it right? It will take up time
in my precious, I should say a writing space and I might burn out
or lose some energy. And then lastly, making additional time to
edit and publish. Sometimes I spend too much
time writing or perfecting, or my writing is too
long that I don't have enough time to actually edit the article and to
post the article, which is another big problem. Then moving on to
the third column, what could increase the
likelihood of this task? Well, in terms of
getting enough sleep, I might need to communicate with my family and my husband that I need to sleep earlier in the
evening to wake up earlier. So for me that conversation
look like, Hey, can we start the movie
right after or during dinner so that we go to
bed at a certain time. I'm very you it might be moving your schedule around a bit
or asking other people to shift their schedule around
to accommodate whatever that writing time is for you or whatever time it takes
to achieve that goal, especially conversation
with others is important if this is
a repetitious goal, like I said here,
five days a week, it's a constant thing. If you have a constant space you're trying to
create for your goal, communication with other
people is probably crucial. For my next section
here it's to create a list of prompts or
topics and advanced. This was a game changer for me until I process my
goal in this way, I did not realize it. So I actually went through, I created almost a
year's worth of topics. I just jotted them down randomly throughout
the day and research some things and that's really eliminated my decision fatigue. It's made me feel more empowered to finish my goal
in the morning. And lastly, give myself a word range to follow so that
I actually write enough, but also not too much. And I like to also
set an end timer. So this definitely
ensures that, yup, I have enough time to post
without fail every single day. Now, if you process your
goals in this way it please know that stuff being
not be perfect, okay? You still might make slip-ups. You might discover new
things holding you back. You might discover
new cheat codes to process your goals
differently, which is awesome. You're going to have to refine your process all
the way through. But starting here
is so crucial guys, this is how you can really
make it specific to you. And not just I want this other person's
life or outcome or experience, that's not us. This is a way to be
kind to yourself. So now you've made these micro goals that you can incorporate
into your schedule, into your process that
are specific to you. When we build goals
and thoughts off of the idea that we're
not good enough today, we are basically invalidating
our present selves. Are present self obviously is who we live with
every single day. This presence cell phone
not be gone tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the new today. And suddenly you're still left unsatisfied
and discontented. So if we decide that our goal setting because
we are unworthy today, then all we're doing is telling ourselves that we will be
unworthy tomorrow guys, this is crucial, so almost no vague goals can
be achieved overnight. There's a series of steps over weeks and months and
maybe even years. If we condition ourselves
that we're not going to be successful or good until we
hit a certain benchmark, which are usually
large benchmarks like writing a new book. Or even when we get there, we're going to have open
wounds of basically a lack of self-care and a
lack of validation. It will leave you starving. When we pursue our
goals with a sense of bigger that will lead to
burnout, to exhaustion, to cutting other
important things like mental wellness and social time, it will ultimately lead us to. So now let's taking
us into step three, a new success, macho. If you've spent some
time with me in the past and now I have a
thing about mantras. And now that you understand
your example called Better, we've done the breakdown of the previous steps and it
feels connected to you. Let's write a new
mantra of success. I want you to go to
the next page of your workbook and on that page or again
on a separate page, rewrite your goal and the why your outcome
from your previous step. Once completed, move on to
the bottom of that page. Combine your findings of
the right two columns to define what success would
look like for this goal. It should include the steps or changes that would
increase the likelihood of completion and be mindful of any obstacles in the
way I'm gonna go through and explain my
example to you so that it makes sense and that you feel
empowered to do it as well. So my module for success, based on my example, is success to me is maintaining my balance
with sleep and rest. Being proactive about writing
topics that excite me, focusing on quality over
quantity of my words, and reaching the
finishing line of posts Monday through Friday on
my site and social media. You can see here that I've
incorporated a lot of my previous step examples into this one to three sentence,
new success module. I'm acknowledging that I am concerned about my
sleep and rest, that that's still a priority despite having morning
writing session, I want to be proactive
about writing topics to not only excite me, but prevent decision fatigue. I'm going to focus
on quality over quantity and I'm not going
to overwrite or underwrite. And I'm definitely going to make that goal happen by posting Monday through Friday and even more specifically on my site, on social media, I'm going to have time to edit and publish. So this is allowing
me to get very specific about what
is successful. I also know that based on
the tasks I've put in place, the conversations,
I'm going to have the adjustments I'm going
to make in my life. This is most likely going
to be successful because this access mantra and
the tasks I've put in place are based
on me and me alone. I hope these new
goals help you shape your future successes
and support and lift you up and
who you are today, which is an amazing and beautiful
and wonderful creative. Join me on the next
exercise when you're ready for day two and, or that could be in 5 s. Whenever you're ready. I'm excited to keep
working with you.
5. Exercise 2: Creating Intentional Work, Projects & Ideas: Day two guys, I'm
super excited to creating intentional
work projects and ideas. Are you feeling unmotivated to start your next
creative project? Or are you uncertain
about your next big idea? What do we do if we feel
completely out of ideas? Perhaps you are burnt out
or need new inspiration, or you feel that your latest
idea is missing something. Remember, a creative project is not just limited to
an artist by title, but it's done by everyone. Regardless, if you are
constantly trying to set your next dinner table or
your next board presentation, understanding the
creative animal is a must and can truly
elevate their life. However, I want to start in
a place that is uncommon, maybe uncomfortable,
and not often thought about when we set
out to create a project. And that is intentional
relationships. Perhaps relationships is not the first thing
that comes to mind before you apply your
new kitchen back splash. But I promise it's one of the major muscles of creativity. Let's start with
intention first. When we know the intention behind something,
we give it depth, a firm foundation, a sense of meaning that gives
it a set of lungs. Why do lungs matter? Lungs in a creative exercise or project means it can
coexist on its own. It has the ability to
continue having an impact and breathing life after
you bring it to life, projects that we
create the do not have intention or
don't think about human relationships
often require constant CPR or are
abandoned entirely. They don't last,
they die quickly. Why does the life cycle
of project matter? When we give a
creative project life, it continues to serve us
by making new connections, new ideas, and new avenue points in our life that
leads to new things. This is true for others as well. Now, I know what
you're thinking. Even for a backslash, they're really let me explain. Why are you putting
up the backsplash? Perhaps it's I want to make
the kitchen more colorful. Well then I would ask why? Maybe you want the kitchen
space to become more inviting, more welcoming, and really be a space of beacon point
for hosting parties. Perhaps you make baking
videos and you want a nice background for your social media
or online business. This will drive the decisions
you make surrounding well. So we've identified
the meaning and intention of the placement
of the backslash, it has value now, but I want to add more story to this hypothetical concept
and really push creativity. Stick with me. What colors are you
picking and why? What did the colors
make you feel? What does it introduce
into the space? A sense of bread attention, or a neutral color to
tie the room together. Maybe the patterns speaks to your childhood or your heritage. Suddenly, all these
decisions draw people to this creative element
or environment in your home and it
starts conversations. Now it's showing a piece of your personality, your family, and you are trading
creative insights within those conversations provoked
by this one element, if we think about who the
creativity is reaching, we are strengthening the
concept and reach our impact. That one decision time after
time sparks more creativity, more thought, I'd build
your life around you. All creative endeavors
can do this, even the typical corporate
business presentation. Now, let's talk
about relationships. If you are taking
someone's time, the most valuable
asset we all own, it's an opportunity to
deepen relationships and create intention and it
should not be wasted. So you might be wondering,
how do you use the above to motivate new ideas, get passed, burnout, or build upon your
creative concepts. What does that have to
do with relationships? If you don't want to waste
your or others time, you need to start
with your intentions. Why does it matter
in creative work? Why does that matter in ideas? A good idea, make people believe that they're
spending their time, money or assets wisely. That may mean a purchase, watching a video, or even
reading a quote from you. Building a space for
people, the presentation, or even sewing new clothing also falls into that category. Imagine your creative
project or idea, like it as a
three-dimensional thing. Ask a questions. What does it say back? What do you want to
save back to it? When we incorporate
communication and relationships
into our ideas, we get human
connection, the breath. Creativity is connection
and relationship. It is the art of
translating information. If you are feeling
unmotivated or uninspired, I want you to ask yourself, what do I want to
say these days? Who had I've been wanting to
talk to you and how and why. If you have intention
lungs and you have the idea of human
relationship and connection, the air, then you've got
a strong idea starting. This can take work. However, as you all know, how do you discover your next intentional project or idea, you might need to
start with the art of perfecting
intentional questions. If you start asking intentional questions
with those around you, your audience, and yourself. It might lead you to
your next big idea, or healthy strengthening
existing one. It's common for us
to get caught up in the repetitive nature
of introduction, check-in or surface
conversation questions, the below categories. And this exercise will help you with moving past this habit. This is especially important for moments of quick
passing of thought, texting, running into a
co-worker or a friend, quick meetups, et cetera. If we aim to show deep
empathy and intention, this will increase the
likelihood of learning more and experiencing more with
that particular person in the present and the future. Trust me, I understand
that this can be a challenging exercise as someone with severe
anxiety disorder, I also have social anxiety. And over the years, especially since the pandemic, I've become a natural introvert. So take this at your
own pace and know that these intentional
questions are also for you to, I think regardless of where
you are in your life, this exercise will
seriously benefit you. This is also huge Organic
Research and insight. When we're ideating as people
or for an artistic purpose, we're going to learn how to
craft intentional questions so that we can also
craft intentional ideas, projects, and
project life cycles. You'll walk away with a
whole new perspective on creative longevity and
a whole new bucket of ideas hopefully for
your next big project. So at that, crack
open your workbook. Join me an exercise to, we're going to start
with step one, understanding intentional
questions and ideas first, let's look at the
categories for intention. These are ones I
personally designed after some research
and personal thoughts. Are categories are with
questions at the center. Feelings, how and why
passed definitions, favorites, present,
desires, and future. Feel free to re-review these in your workbook or to take notes from our
conversations today. But I'm going to read you
through each category. So starting with past, what is a joyful
memory you have with this person or yourself
that you'd like to relive? Could you ask a
question that promotes action in recreating
the memory or experience in both
conversation and actual events present based on the person's
lifestyle and age. What new or relevant life
experiences are they going through that you could
specifically inquire about? Take it a step
further and ask about any new lessons they've
learned along the way. Again, guys, these
are applicable to be self
conversations as well. Future, depending on the
relationship level or type, sometimes a powerful way to
use the future as a tool and conversation is asking about someone's fears
are worthy goals. This can invite opportunities to reassure, discuss IT gate, and even insert yourself into someone's life to assist them, support them or solve a problem
for them, and vice versa. Feelings. Asking what action
makes someone feel a certain way or emotion
can give a great, sometimes unseen insight into
a person's needs, traits. Or once definitions, asking how someone defines
a certain word, e.g. success, can provide
thought-provoking answers and conversation and
create a sense of relatable connection
or room for debate. How and why. Asking, how would you, or why would you. Hypothetical questions
or practical can be a beneficial
conversation. But also one of
thought and comfort, especially when we
share our thoughts in an area of expertise or craft. This can create a
sense of excitement, authority, and bonding with
another person or group. Favorites. And
obvious store often overlooked is
directly asking what people's favorite things are, animals, food, drinks,
music books or so on. This will create conversations
and connections, but also store up a bunch of thought pieces for
future events, gifts, moments, and interests. This is also a great
question to ask yourself to think
about new ideas. That means something
to you, desires. Martha favorites, but with a more hypothetical
or futuristic edge, inquiring what
people desire for, maybe in their home
body mindset and so on, can promote deep understanding, Focus, value, and dreams. Again, guys, also applicable
to self conversation. This is step one, familiarizing yourself with these
intention categories. So now we're gonna
move on to step two, writing an intentional question. I want you to
challenge yourself by writing and intentional
question today, I know this may seem distant
from your creative goals, but remember, this
is a four day reset. It's about shifting
your mindset. We want you to think differently
now and in the future. When we think differently
and we find different ideas, different methods,
projects, truths, experiences, and so on. In your workbook, I popped
in a few example questions. Pause the video and meet me back here when you're
ready to discuss. Awesome guys. So I hope you took
some time to write some intentional questions based off of each category
we discussed. So now obviously, we're
moving into step three, which I'm really
excited about this probably my favorite
step in the class, so please pay attention and
stick around for this one. Step three is ideas for
intentional projects. So now that you
are on step three, we're going to be breaching back to that creative
soft a little bit more. Now that you've been exercising
intentional questions, I want to challenge
you and see if you can come up with a few ideas for intentional projects based on your understanding of intention, I want to see if you can come up with a
creative project idea. This can be maybe
how your art or medium can solve a question
that you maybe wrote down. It could be a social issue or
a social conversation that you want to include in
your project messaging and meaning in the future. It could be an
emotional provoked idea from your question, exploration, a community or person you want to help or communicate with, or even an act of kindness
through your art. One of the intentional
questions I wrote down is, what does a memory
in the past you are still struggling to overcome. So I might want to create an intentional
project that helps people overcome maybe trauma or challenging memories
that they had, or even making a creative group, an art therapy group that
meets a few times a year to help people reflect about past and painful
memories and experiences. Really challenge
yourself. Spend some time writing down
intentional projects. Remember everything that you
do right now in this class, anything you'd write down
you logged for the future. It's only going to
benefit your future self. So take some time to come
up with that catalog. Remember back in exercise
one when I said that I personally got decision fatigue as my writing
process progressed, we all get decision fatigue. Writing down a batch list of intentional projects can
seriously be a game changer, especially when unexpected
opportunities pop up with other creatives or the workplace and
things like that. So, Spend some time, I would like for you to
write down at least three. Again, I would love for you to share these
in your discussion, so please, please post
them so I can read it. But that is the end
of our exercise here. I'm excited for you to join
me on day three or 5 s. See you there.
6. Exercise 3: Becoming Free From Work Related Stress & Feeling Overwhelmed: Do you guys know when
a movie character makes a huge
life-altering decision? And then like a fun
montage starts. And they're packing, moving boxes and they throw
their phone away with a smile and then a carefree music tracks wobbles
the backgrounds that you, the audience members are
too busy dreaming that it's you and the movie to not
think about logistics. Logistics, it's a dirty word. It sounds so fun and
so proper to say, but it's a kick in the stomach over and over again
in real life. Also, just to comment
on the side here. Their hair always looks
great all the time, but it's not fair because even
good hair takes logistics, planning and time management
decision-making skill. And the biggest
thing, discipline. There was a time
many times where I had pleased too
much on my plate, too many commitments,
projects and ideas. All of it overflowed like literally a heaping
mess spilling out onto other life buckets,
things like sleep, exercise, my inability to
finish a load of laundry, my chronic health
conditions flared up like a Christmas
tree in July. So I started working
in bed for weeks. I realized I had no direction anymore and I didn't know
why I was working so hard. When I woke up in the morning, I was a sinking feeling of anxiety and dread
even on the weekend. And I was constantly exhausted and was known as the Kinsler
in the social circle. I couldn't commit to
anything anymore. My creative desires, goals, commitments and deadlines
were entirely out of control. And in short, my pride
gotten the way of change. It tends to happen
for most of us. We cling onto a salary, the job title of
bragging, right? Or embed our entire
identity into what we do. Not we are, this includes
cleaning onto goals we set for ourselves commitments
we back ideals we have for an end
product and so on. But it's not what you're doing. It's why if you're feeling
constant pressure and you have the self-awareness site
for changing in your health, that your mindset is
shifting and your actions, and you're starting
to ask yourself why? This is a part
there'll be tempted to skip because of pride. If you're feeling constant
pressure and you've had the self-awareness that you're changing negatively
in your health, your mindset and your actions. It's time to start asking why. Welcome to our first
step of exercise three. Crack open your
workbook and join me on day three for step one. What are we feeling? First, ask yourself, why am
I feeling this way, right? And list out all the reasons that you know or can predict. Write this down
in your workbook. There's a space for you or on
a separate piece of paper. Maybe you're thinking
that you're not feeling anxious and stressed in
this moment, That's okay. If you've ever felt a
sense of pressure or stress or you have waves
and seasons of this. I still encourage you
to maybe write down reminiscent of what
that felt like. Maybe why you're
feeling that way and how overwhelming were
underwhelming that feeling is, once you have a few
thoughts written down, I want us to dive into step to understanding
what is driving you. I want you to ask yourself, why do I want more? Why do I feel the need to work
so hard? What drives you? What makes you passionate? It might be a
project and outcome, a large or small goal, a dream, a culture, a group of people, whatever
it is, write it down. It might also be negative. You might feel
unworthy that you are avoiding something
or someone once you've taken some
time to write down what's driving you or
some thoughts there. Let's go into step three, and this is creating
connections. In step three, I
want you to compare these two responses
from step 1.2. What do you notice? Anything connected? Here's a few thoughts
that came to mind for me and I'd love to share
this example with you. And I'm going to talk you
through some elements here. For the first question, some things I wrote down was, I feel like my worth is
defined by productivity. I'm not getting enough sleep
and I'm tired all the time. I'm not taking enough breaks
and doubtful that it will work out the way once I feel
like my health has declined. Again, this is for question one. And that question was, why do I feel like
I'm feeling this way right now not to be
redundant for question two, what's driving me some
things I wrote down was, I want to see the final product after so many years of work. I want to meet this milestone. And I actually wrote
down a similar thing that I had to question
one which is, I feel like my worth is
defined by productivity. I felt like that
was both a why am I feeling this way and what's
driving me right now? And when I see all these
responses together, this lets me build some
connection points. So here's an example of
connecting two responses. Question one, again, why
am I feeling this way? I'm doubtful that it will
work out the way that I want. So I'm feeling this way
because I have doubt in the project or
doubted myself. Question to what's
driving me is I really need to make
money from this outcome. So this is an example of
two thoughts arrow down, but I just want to
give you a taste of some things like connected. So why is it
important to connect? Why we're feeling a certain way as well as
what's driving us. So here's an example
based off of these specific Q1
and Q2 responses. Perhaps doubt has ensued
because if you are in a negative financial
situation or pattern, your mind is doubtful of your ability to be
disciplined or meet goals. You also have this very
intense pressure of not just a once for your project to be a
success but in need. So what I'm connecting here
is that my doubt might be feeding into
the money need as well as this pressure of things needing
to work out the way that I want because it's more than just a
creative pursuit. Maybe it's a livelihood
issue or an emotional issue. One in need are very
strong emotional states. When combined, it can honestly
be very overwhelming. Battle each other. You want your project
to be impactful, beautiful, creative, enjoyable, but you also need to have a successful outcome
for monetary gain, which might require a cost of less creativity or enjoyment. So I want you to take some
time to draw some connections between your Q1
and Q2 responses. Again, this is step
one and step two being combined to draw
some connections. For step three, you can
do this in your workbook. You can do it visually if
you wanna do to let out and do some Venn diagram things. I also recommend that you can
probably find connections between multiple or
overlap things together. So feel free to
draw connections in different spaces and
start writing down some reasons as to
why you're having such a strong emotional impact
between feeling and drive. And the importance of
this is we want to understand what in
your project space, in your lifestyle and your
life can we eliminate or increase or remove to
alleviate some of your stress, to disconnect some
feelings of doubt or need and want with
your creativity to really free up space. And you can have
creative freedom, which is going to
be our next step. Step four. Essentially,
what responsibilities either a job mindset, belief structure, or project
is no longer serving you. Based on my example, I could say that my mindset of money or time could change. Perhaps a don't need as
much money as I think I do, or I can cut back in
other areas of my life. My lifestyle aspirations
at this moment in time are not
serving me anymore. Or maybe I need to let go of my original timeline
so I can invest both creatively as well
as quality to have a higher success of the
outcome that I need. What I'm doing is I'm
taking a stress that I'm having about a creative
space or project. I'm breaking it
apart so I can see the insides and really identify why I'm feeling
certain pressures. A lot of pressures that we have are self-inflicted or they're from exterior circumstances that we're not processing correctly. So in my example, I'm not processing correctly, is the connection
between the outcome and the financial need that I might be having in my life, right? What other areas of my life can help alleviate the stress? It might not all be on
this creative outcome, which would free up space
for me to feel more energized and relaxed in
this creative pursuits. So now we start the montage, the span of time when
you begin to take action making micro
and macro decisions, plan and prepare for change. What steps can you
take to remedy or alleviate some of the above? The hardest changes usually
have the biggest impacts. Heart of understanding
what drives us as well, of course, is our
successes and calls. But the fears that we have, situations that we faced help
us understand who we are. You have control to process your circumstances in the
way that you need to. And you also have
the freedom and the power to take
your creativity, put it on a higher
priority scale and say, this matters to
me, this project, this Bull's vision that
it has matters to me. What can I change in my life to make room for
this creativity? Sometimes be this big
beast of a thing. It might require us
to make sacrifices. That is the end of day three. I really hope you spend some time thinking
through this more. It's a quick exercise, but I would really
encourage you to take any current goals or
projects you have going on now or will be soon. And running through
this exercise, really break down what their
stresses you're having. And this is also good
for non project work. This is good for
life and lifestyle. So I hope you sit
down and do this, really started to break apart. What's adding pressure
to your life? And join me when
you're ready in today for our last exercise. Can you believe
it we're cruising through either in
5 s or tomorrow. See you there.
7. Exercise 4: Eliminate Distractions & Increase Focus: Welcome to exercise
for day four. In our four-day
creative reset exercise for is eliminating distractions
and increasing focus. I used to think that refining my process was a waste of time. But then I discovered that investing time into
the way that I work gives me back significant time in the long run by figuring out our to-do list and our daily schedules
is super important. It can create a shadow over the Achilles heel of
the creative process. The Achilles heel, having
an inability to focus or keep distractions under control that is specific to you, your environment, and your mind. In short, a weakness is when
a creative individual or a productive worker
doesn't take the time to study the things that interrupts
their day or workday. They allow the cycle to
keep repeating itself. They don't study the
changes that need to be made for a greater output. To be clear, I'm a big
advocate for not feeding the hustle workaholic
culture that Western civilization has tossed horribly into modern play. The intention of discovering this part of ourselves is not to become these idolatry,
productive gods. Rather give us time back. I want you to spend time
with your families. I want you to shut your
computer every night and get excited about the evening
hours or the weekend plans. Identifying
distractions and focus inconsistencies can be one
of the most game changing things you can discover
about yourself by getting the things done that structured under
healthy standards, reasonable goals and tasks
that we've discussed. You what your day
increasing herself satisfaction and
mental wellness. This does not include
consideration for any mental or focus
related conditions. But I imagined that in
conjunction with a mental health professional or
a medical professional, these supplements can
help someone with severe anxiety disorder,
obsessive compulsive disorder. The below has personally
really helped me learn about how I operate
without further ado, crack open your workbooks and
let's move into step one of exercise for knowing the
mind, body connection. It's no secret that
your body's health plays a role in your
minds functionality. Perhaps you're rolling
your eyes at this and it's totally understandable. We hear this a lot. But have you actually
done something about it? What I got honest with myself, I honestly was mortified and I realized I really
needed to change. The reality is many of
us get comfortable with our own complacency
that we're slow to change or make no change. E.g. you've accepted, you are unable to get
reasonable sleep and you've built your life
or your creative work around that to
accommodate that truth. Now, sometimes we are in
temporary situations where yes, we can't make a change,
e.g. new parenthood. However, I think many
of us can identify physical body health elements or self-care that we've slapped on. The impact is energy,
focus, space, and time for creative
thought research, time and discipline
and good habits. When we accept a bad habit, we are also accepting, We are able and allowed to
make another bad habits. As a creative person, you are often seeking new
ideas and inspiration. But I realized that a
lot of my ideas and inspiration or buried
under poor habits. Poor habits take up more time the long run than
healthy habits. Sometimes my productivity isn't excuse to not take
care of myself. And I've learned that that
is not a good enough reason because taking care of
ourselves is productive. It's healthy and it's more important than anything
on your to-do list. I know you're thinking,
hold on, zara. This was a four-day
creative reset. We've talked about goals, we've talked about how to
come up with inspirational, intentional ideas,
human connection. We've talked about
different ways of understanding why we're
feeling overwhelmed. But I want you to know that
how you treat yourself, the main tool of
your creative world, is equally important to
all of those things. So with that being said, please refer to your workbook
and we're going to start the first step of our exercise. Your first step is
both something to acknowledge potentially
write down, and also actually due this week or today before
this course wraps up. So before your next big
creative undertaking, do a check in with yourself
and seriously get on us. I'm going to ask yourself, what physical elements for
your body could you shift, add, or remove in your day? Do one of those
changes this week. Try changes by the way, one at a time
instead of piling on a bunch unless they
are closely related. This can be a big
or small change. The trick here is picking
one and doing it. I recommend writing down which one you'd like
to pick because that's going to be
relevant to what we wrote down on our journey map. Next, Now we're gonna
move on to step two, and that's taking
inventory of distractions. You can control. There's going to
be distractions. You have literally zero ability to handle, prevent, or monitor. We don't need the
most peaceful days or the most perfect environments to achieve something or be
creative, by the way. But I am talking about
distractions, you know, the text messages, the phone is being
picked up every 45 s. Music that works against you, not with you, or even
picking your workspace. Remember that the
more you get into a distraction or the more
you accept its existence, you are picking that
experience over your creativity by checking
Instagram every 2 min, you are telling yourself that
it's more important than your writing assignments. Sure. Maybe it's more
engaging or relaxing, but is that your
equivalent to important? If you don't finish your
writing assignment or goal, is that going to make
you feel better or worse at the end of the day? Here's how I want
you to incorporate step two into your life today. These are some examples, but see where you can take
this after you identify some of your specific
distractions. Add-in focus settings on your
phone notification or apps to reduce the amount of pop-ups, pings, and things that can
draw in your attention. Really take inventory
of the music that works better for you at different
times a day or working types, or invest in noise
canceling headphones. This also includes
any sounds you listened to or sounds
that might distract you. Put do not disturb
around meetings if you need to prevent
excess conversations, schedule or use a timer for
working sessions and breaks. Add an, a reward or a more relaxing type
of working session. I will cover this
more in a second, Moving into step three, I'm calling this swallow
your frogs first. Mark Twain famously said, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first
thing in the morning. And if it's your
job to E2 frogs, it's best eat the biggest one first and loved this quote and you've probably
heard of it before. Having a productive
hierarchy has been my new crucial element
in my workflow process. Productive hierarchy
is the process of assessing the weight value
in time of your tasks. This allows you to
counterbalance them with specific parts of yourself. And it's tailored
specifically to you. E.g. as someone who has anxiety and knowing I work
better in the mornings, I will do my most
laborers stress inducing tasks earlier
in my day than later. It gives me peace of
mind during the rest of the day and then work faster in the morning
to get it done. I also know that I hit an
energy slump around 02:00 P.M. so I'll incorporate a relaxing break or
relaxing working session. You're probably thinking, Sarah, What the heck is a relaxing
working task or session? I mean, how can relaxing and work be in the same sentence? Look, I get it. It took me a while
to learn this, but you can slow
down your mind or speed up your mind with
your body like breathing. You don't always have to
power through everything, which is a common thing
that we think we have to do in the workday here in at
least Western culture, I'd like to identify
tasks that are very rudimentary or don't require a ton of thinking space, e.g. cleaning dishes, deleting emails or scheduling
social media posts. Maybe I'll put on an episode of my favorite show
while I do this, get a fresh cappuccino
and sip while I work. Other times, it's
a podcast episode that I can listen to or taking 15 min to read
while some videos export. Obviously this is going to be something very tailored to you. But I think
incorporating relaxing working sessions
allows us to break up our day to continue forward
progress and keeping things moving off of our to-do list and breaking up those really
labor-intensive tasks. Now I want to be clear. Relaxing working
sessions are not intended to replace
your actual breaks. Things like eating a lunch, taking a walk outside, that's for your 15-minute break or whatever that looks
like in your day. These are things to slip into your active
working sessions. You're lighter tasks are great opportunities
to slow down, but it's important
to keep going if you can with these small tasks, these guys can add up throughout our week
and then overwhelm us. Have you ever seen
that to-do list that just keeps getting
bigger and bigger. Now that you understand
productive hierarchy, I want you to rearrange your current tasks to represent
this new understanding. Maybe it's your
daunting to-do list, your big master project workflow or even just
your tasks today, exercise for day four, we've gone through three steps. Make sure you pause
this video or come back and take time to do
each of these steps. For some of you, this could
be done in a few minutes, writing down your
thoughts and ideas. For others, you
guys might need to process and think about
what these things are, rearranging stuff and
what that looks like. So do this all at your own pace. We're moving into
step for this is reinventing your workspace to work for you, not against you. This is seriously a
game changer guys. For so long, I was
making a crucial mistake and that was not investing
time in refining my workspace. This is like picking the
soil before you plant. Having water available. It's all crucial to grow and
have consistency and output. A workspace should have
three main components. That should be the path
of least resistance. Meaning you can get to easily
and get to work easily. If you have a ton of hurdles, you're going to lose
energy and focus fast. You're also going
to feel discouraged and skip out on consistency. It should also have the
tools within it that lessen the need for
you to do extra tasks. E.g. your charges are all plugged in and fastened
to your table so you don't need to go
searching for them every day or you get cold often. So you have a pair of
slippers and the room. The last thing, it should
have your ownership. Even if you have a small
desk tucked in the corner, it should be yours. Meaning you have the control to clean it up at the
end of the day so you can start fresh and keep your
items and systems together. You waste processing energy
with decision fatigue. If you constantly need to move things around and
make space to work, take some time to do this, just like all of our days
in this course so far, they might require
some time investment, conversation with other
people around you in order to achieve
these reset tasks. Most of the things that we do that are impactful
and are going to have long-term gain
can't be done overnight. But writing down some thoughts
and ideas from all of our exercises that we've done is probably possible to
do in this setting. So even if you're not able to make these changes right now, whether that's your
physical situation, self-care or
swallowing your frogs first or adjusting
your workspace, I'd encourage you to at
least reflect and write down a few things you can
do in the future or in the near
future for yourself.
8. The Journey Map: Welcome to the journey
map you've put the work in and now I
want to help you put it all together with
your new thoughts and skills and actions that will impact your
creative journey today and in the future. The reason I actually
wanted you to not fill this out at the
end of each exercise, is to really force your
brainpower to go through a state of deep reflection and to re-review your learnings, written responses,
and your workflow. We're going to do a
little recap by going through each section of
our journey map together. At this time, please pop over to your class resources
and download the provided landscape PDF, the template that you
have a clean slate. I would encourage you to print out the blank journey
map template, fill it out digitally or Krieger own in a blank space
that's suitable for you. The journey map functions as a tool to help you check in with yourself anytime you feel like you need to
readdress your goals, especially when
planning new goals, as well as good and bad
happens on your screen. This is an overview of your journey map and
the structure it takes. The four exercises
connect and build on each other for clear and quick
reset for the future. You can also do these exercises for each project
that you have, e.g. perhaps you want to
cross check each goal by going through the first
exercise category structure. Why do you want the outcome, the steps it takes to get there
and the things that could increase or decrease
the likelihood of that goal or projects. You could do that while planning any project big or small. Or maybe you want to use the intentional
question categories to craft intentional
impactful ideas. Also big or small step one. For our first step, you'll notice that there
is some color coordinating happening between the
outline and your template. I want you to write down
your new success mantra for one of your goals
for that first box, you may have done more than
one and that's totally okay. It's up to you on
how much or how little you want to write down. I hope this reminds
you that how we define successes for milestones, or even small and big goals, have an impact on the
outcome of the journey. Step two, I want
you to write down one of your intentional
questions and one of your intentional
project ideas or idea in the space provided
on your blank template. Again, it's totally
okay if you have many of these are
just one of these. We're really just trying
to track your progress. Step number three, after you spend some time
with exercise three, you should have a few
emotional or mindset dialogues that you wrote down, including the connections or potential changes
that need to be made between certain thoughts,
projects, and actions. At the end of the exercise, you are challenged with
identifying one habit or mindset that may need
to be adjusted this week. Write that down in
the color coordinate section of your journey
map, step four. Lastly, moving into
our fourth exercise, you were challenged to
identify a physical habit or space such as your
workspace that may need to adjust this week to
decrease distractions and improve your productivity
or improve your self-care. Write that down as well. Again, feel free to be as detailed or not as
detailed as you wish. This is really a tool that really can inspire
us to go through these exercises
again and again in the future now that we can see how our mindset has shifted. And if we practice this
way of thinking routinely, we will begin to subconsciously
process our goals, successes, projects, and creative thoughts
in this healthy manner. Even the work you've
put in today or over the past couple
of days has had the ability to already
great new positive changes in your creative self. I want to also list
here a few things we've discussed in
our final exercises. These small adjustments
for distraction should be addressed occasionally
or checked in on. And I like to consider this the health check-up of productivity, digital notifications
and distractions. How has your changes
have been working? How much content are you
consuming and what working times and your schedule are you making space for
working sessions? Are working on
optimal times that your brain processes
information. Is your plate too full or are you filling it with
the wrong things? Work rewards and relaxing tasks. Did you do a discovery of some relaxing working
tasks that work for you? How about any rewards to work towards when you hit milestones? Productive hierarchy for
today or this week's tasks, make sure you organize your
daily or long-term tasks and to-do lists in a
way that honors the swallow their frogs mentality. Don't forget the weight of different tasks
throughout the day. Physical workspace. How are you maintaining
your physical space? Has everything getting in
your way or distracting you? Can you improve anything
or modify anything? Guys, this is truly amazing. Can you believe you've gone
through four major changes? And now you have an overview
of what those changes are. You should be seriously proud. Committing to a journey of
any size isn't achievement. But sticking to the
changes long term is when we can start to feel the
distances in our walks.
9. Final Thoughts: I hope you are feeling
refreshed, reset and empowered. After this four day reset, it would seriously
mean the world to me if you could share
your final project, your journey map with me and your classmates if
you're comfortable. This helps so much
with inspiration and filling a little
creative community. One of my goals is to be a full-time teacher
here on Skillshare. And you can help me on that
mission by following me here, sharing my content,
or leaving a review. If you enjoyed the class, please help me on my mission of bridging the gap between mental
wellness and creativity. And also feel free to
follow me on other socials. Instagram, TikTok,
facebook, YouTube, I even have a podcast. My name is Sarah Edwards. I'm seriously so honored
to have had you today and all the other days
and that you took the opportunity to let me be
your creative cheerleader. Again, you can find me all over the web from a digital magazine, a podcast, or YouTube channel. Name it. It's all on set
apart company.com. Head over to my
Skillshare profile for all of the related links. Thank you so much for
watching. I am here for you. Please feel free to reach out. I can't wait to see
what you create next.
10. Bonus Lesson! Navigating Intrusive Negative Thoughts and Planting for Creativity: Hello, Skillshare family. Thank you so, so much for taking my class and
spending some time with me. I actually wanted to provide you guys with a
bonus lesson today. In this lesson, I'm going
to be taking you out of my office and into my son room for us to talk
about intrusive thoughts, anxiety, how to navigate
our emotional states. Because as you obviously
know by taking this class, are emotions deeply impact
our creative success? Hello, welcome, Welcome. I'm so excited. We're going to take some time, chat together about
mental health, are going to have a little
relaxing self-care day today. To me, self-care is learning
more about oneself because you are so important and
amazingly complex and loved. So let's dig in literally. I've been wanting
to clean out the small screened in center
and porch for weeks now and turn it into an inviting work from
home flower space. So we're going to get our
hands a little dirty today. My friends, do you
have a space in your mind or home
that needs cleaning? I used to think I was on
flexible and disgusting, ugly and perfect because had
to get rid of some clutter. Guess what? We'd take out trash almost
every day because that's life. Your daily interactions
in and outside of your control and dictate
your build-up and yes. Requires you to
put on the gloves, tie up the garbage, or breakouts, cleaning supplies. It's not about having the
clutter and the trash, aka the complex emotions, are the thoughts or the
stressors in the first place. It's about being aware of the
trash and how much exists. This little sunroom first was
empty when they moved in. But as I broke down moving
boxes and ordered things nonstop that I needed this
cute space became a holder. Well, trash. At the time I needed
to move everything there to create space
for other projects. Guys don't may have
been a time or season in your life
where you had a pulley, certain emergency
plan, or having an ideal thought process or actions to get through
something big. You may have had to
protect herself and store away emotions for
a period of time. That's okay. Sometimes we need to prioritize, but as long as you know you're doing it in the first place. If left unresolved,
two things can happen. The buildup becomes so extreme that you
cause other problems. Or like the sun
room where you're placing those thoughts,
anxieties and emotions. Taking up space that if cleaning can be a beautiful
place, if retreat, new opportunities and happiness, you identify a
built-up emotion or a thought that's preventing you from creating
a space of growth. Good, Let's clean it out. Imagine what you would
grow if you didn't have that thing
holding you back. We can't get rid of our
anxiety permanently, but we can declutter often to give ourselves our
imagination back, compartmentalizing both the
weeds and the flowers help us cough control and let
us water and what we want and need to
based on our goals, ultimately to separate
thoughts from one another and most
importantly from yourself. You are not your thoughts. Good soil doesn't
haunt me. Easy soil. Let me say that again. Good soil does not
mean easy soil. What kind of soil do you
have for your thoughts? Certain anxieties,
emotions, and dreams? Is it a healthy place
to put your ideas? More so guys, maybe you
actually tossed out good soil because you
confused good with easy. Now for the seed, some seeds are unseen to the human eye due
to being so small, but they hold a lot of beauty. They're germinated
and cared for. They can fill a space of joy,
nourishment, and provision. Oftentimes, we think the size of our opportunity or skilled dictates the growth
that we may have, what something can become. However, the seed is a perfect
example that how big you are before starting something is less important than
starting at all. So begin, we all
have micro seeds inside of us that are grown to the center
of our kindness, self-care patients and love. I also want to touch on
related to the seed is a great introduction
to intrusive thoughts. Like little seeds
scattered in the brain. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. They are involuntary and
usually disturbing in nature. And for me and many others, that causes a sense
of distress and anxiety as someone with
obsessive compulsive disorder, I tend to think that
my anxious reaction to set that means something
when in fact the salts, also known as obsessions, have no meaning, but I give them meaning and I find
myself extremely scared and therefore
I tunnel into my convulsions to
elevate the thought. But it's all one
big cycle, a weed. What intrusive thoughts are? Giving too much
attention to friends. Maybe you're always thinking negatively when you
wake up or you think constant by how much you hate your appearance and
you only notice the wilted leaves and not the beautiful flowers you've grown. Knowledge is power.
And the second I learned about intrusive
thoughts and how they worked. And hey, I can't control them, only feed them a ton of
my anxiety improved. There's lots of methods of dealing with
intrusive thoughts, but you should always turn to professionals don't
work on these. You shouldn't feel shame
or fear by expressing these thoughts as they are just thoughts, guys, a brooding. These weeds create space for amazing fruits and
vegetables that are going to feed you and your many paths of
growth and goals, you're going to
continue to grow weeds. A perfect field does not exist, but hard work can
create good lessons. When my intrusive thoughts
progress throughout my life, eventually I became
debilitated and thought about suicide because the traumatic
pain of these tough, terrible thoughts
felt unbearable. However, I improved
that you can fight past that season of your life and
come out on the other side. I can give a little
knowledge bag of what I wish I knew and honestly what
I'm still working on. I love to hear some
mental health processes or thoughts you guys are also working through in the comments. It's easy to watch
videos and assume that the person has it all figured out and they're
talking about it. It means they've mastered it. This is not true,
at least for me. I am sharing what I'm learning because I'm a
student and disabled for my whole entire life and
we're all very layered. So guys, maybe you have an
anxiety or thought that is manifesting throughout most
of the seasons of your life, but actually turn into something
beautiful and healing. Not all anxiety in my
experience leads to bad Things. Mental health has made
me more empathetic, patient understanding of others, your kindness from
what you've learned in your heart walk because it
spread like wild flowers. I think sometimes, I
believe being in the state of emotionless feeling
nothing is good, or what quote unquote normal is. So when I'm a little
tense or overly jittery, I assume that's a bad thing, but in reality
it's just a thing. One emotion always
replaces the next, are always existing,
what some sense of feeling or process. So just because you're
tired, a little restless, or thinking of something, automatically override
happiness and having some good pockets of sunny days. But in the end, it
doesn't matter if you're looking to
plant marigolds, wildflowers, or basal, you need to water
whatever you're planting. I wish guys, I wish, I can tell you
there's some easy, simple thing like
water for our minds. I wish I could
tell you that with that water only best
thoughts emerge. You can have the best
intentions and still have involuntary
intrusive thoughts. Negativity, weeds. Due to your efforts, water can still grow bad
things guys or experiences, but it doesn't make
you a bad person. It doesn't mean you're
tarnished field means your tarnished field with immense purpose and nourishment. That's every single
one of us broken, but in all the best ways
and well-designed ways. So what is the water for the mind's not to be corny friends, but I believe it's love. The most wonderous,
amazing thing. Sorry if you were looking
for little more complicated. But don't be fooled. Love is very complex
and it takes a lot of work,
level, grow weeds, it will create pain, cracks, problems, and honestly
be our greatest loss. Mental health loves to make us second-guess how much water
we need before we drown. It makes us think we need water from others and abundance. But we also must. First start with ourselves. With plants. Sometimes you use a
big watering can, but other times you
use a spray bottle because maybe they're
a little more fragile. Some ideas needs to be gently worked on in water,
like a spray bottle, while others need an
aggressive big push, love is identify your delegate changes
you're trying to make. Some are more emotional wrong, but are still worth
pursuing the wheel. It just means you
may need to change your approach on how
to ten for them. The mental health at times we need to ask others to love us differently or in
new ways if we're trying to overcome new things.
Sarah Edwards, Art Director & Creative Success Coach
