Blog
Creating in Recovery, Part 2
Maybe you’ve come to realize that your addiction has gotten the better of you and you decide to enter into recovery via a 12-step program or in some other way. What then? Well, creating itself can prove a threat to recovery. The very act of creating is a voyage into...
Creating in Recovery, Part 1
Maybe you’ve come to realize that your addiction has gotten the better of you and you decide to enter into recovery via a 12-step program or in some other way. What then? On top of the common challenges that any person experiences in early recovery—the cravings, the...
Picking Your Stopping Place
Active stints of creating last for just a certain amount of time. Creators work and then they come to a stopping point—and how they choose that stopping point may prove to be the most important decision they make all day! Some creators like to...
Take creative escapes in 2019
A creative escape is a little time-out-of-time that you carve from your schedule to devote to running away TO your art! A creative escape is like getting away for a romantic weekend with your lover—except in this case your lover is your creative nature. It’s the...
When Your Mate Brings Home the Bacon
Let’s say that your mate brings in $60,000 annually from his or her job and you bring in $1000 annually from your art. Given that that disparity is likely to put a strain on your relationship, what can you do to reduce that strain? You can’t just snap your fingers and...
Your Artist Plan for 2019
Ready to start fresh in the coming year? Ready to engage in some useful planning that will help turn 2019 into a great year for you? Then consider the following seven tips as you work on creating your excellent plan for the coming year! 1. Understand what you are up...
The Mind/Body Connection for Artists
It has genuinely surprised me to learn how many of my creative and performing artist clients are burdened by physical problems. Almost every single client has some persistent, chronic ailment, many of the mysterious variety that can’t seem to get diagnosed properly....
Artistic Anxiety, Part 5
Creating depends on you having a mind quiet enough to allow ideas to bubble up. Your emotional health also depends on your ability to get and keep a grip on your mind: on your ability to extinguish negative self-talk, foster productive obsessions while minimizing...
Artistic Anxiety, Part 4
As we discuss anxiety and anxiety management, we also want to take a look at the thing commonly called “mania.” Mania can hit anyone, since it can be induced by street drugs and by other causes as well as by the dynamics of one’s own racing, needy brain. But I want to...
Artistic Anxiety, Part 3
Most people who know that they are anxious do not make a sufficient effort to improve their anxiety-management skills and, by improving them, becoming less anxious. Instead they opt to “white knuckle” life or medicate themselves with anti-anxiety medication. Your core...