My Journey Back to Creativity

I am trying to pinpoint the exact moment when I realized that creativity could be the thing that saved my life. I know that sounds dramatic, and it kind of is, because it didn’t save me from physically dying. But the first time I had this notion of choosing creativity, I realized that although I was living, I wasn’t feeling very alive. I was moving from day to day in a purposeless trance, doing what needed to be done to keep my head above water.

I think a lot of us end up at this place in our lives. Responsibilities and outside pressures can weigh us down, become the focus of our lives and leave us feeling pretty powerless in our own existence. If you are like me, you maybe even developed low level anxiety and depression, the kind that therapy and medications just couldn’t quite resolve.

As a child I loved to create. I started painting at a young age. I used to ask for painting supplies for Christmas, and I would spend hours in the basement trying to replicate Bob Ross landscapes. I loved to craft, bake and look at wallpaper and paint samples. I created for the sheer fun of it.

When it came time to decide what to do with my life though, the pressures to choose a career that would ensure “success” was overwhelming. A degree in the Arts or in a creative field honestly never even entered my mind. Creativity was wonderful, but only meant to be a hobby. So I got a business degree and eventually ended up in the world of finance. It was around the time that I started university that anxiety and depression started showing up. I honestly just thought that this was normal. School was stressful, work was stressful, why wouldn’t I feel anxious and depressed?

I continued on this trajectory for a long time, even after I left the work force to raise my three children. And although I no longer had school or work stress in my life, I found myself growing even more and more anxious and depressed. I knew how lucky I was to have such an amazing life, a great husband, three lovely healthy kids, a home, family, friends. And yet I felt invisible, like everyone, including myself had lost sight of who I really was.

One day however, I was strolling through the bookstore and stumbled upon The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I swear I could feel its energy, pulling me in, inviting me to explore inside. So I bought it, brought it home, and began reading it right away. And what I realized was that the thing that had been missing for me all this time was the opportunity to create. To be myself in front of a blank canvas. To put on that canvas whatever I wanted, whatever needed to be put on there.

I made the decision to adopt a creative lifestyle. I chose to make it a priority in my life every single day. And slowly, I started to see changes in how I was approaching my days. I started to feel less resentful of the mundane tasks that had to be done. It was as if taking that time every day for me, for my creativity, allowed me to let go of the idea that these mundane tasks were the only thing that defined me, that made me a worthwhile human being. I began to know myself again as a person, a unique human being with my own voice and my own soul.

It is amazing how easily we can lose ourselves in the business and responsibilities of life. It happens gradually, and in the shadows where you don’t notice it.

So I’m sitting here now writing this very first blog post because I feel like I am finally starting to peel back the layers and discover who I really am again. I am trying to recover my authentic voice, the one that is my true essence and the one that is has things to say and is dying to be heard. I am hoping that you might read this post and realize that you have a voice needing to be heard as well. If you hear that voice, don’t ignore it, for it has endless wisdom for you!