Celebrate Your Creativity

April 4th, 2009

Yesterday, I participated in a super fun celebration call with many fabulously creative women. We gathered by phone to celebrate the end of Jamie Ridler's book club reading of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women (great read, by the way!) and to launch the product Jamie put together, Your Creative Spark.

You can listen to the call here and I recommend listening to it as it's super fun and you get to hear about the wonderful topic of celebration. Many of us on the call, myself included, talked about how we have some trouble with celebrating. For me, it has been something I never really thought much about. When I finish something, my tendency is to dust myself off and move on to the next thing.

But there's something to be said for taking a moment to celebrate your successes, no matter how small. On the call, I mentioned how I've learned a lot about celebrating from the hubster. The way he celebrates a meal he's cooked is hilarious, but it's also fun! He oohs and ahhs over every bite and suddenly you find yourself laughing and appreciating every bite too.

Why not celebrate every bite? Life is delicious!

More recently, as I've recognized the importance of celebration, I've been taking time to celebrate, usually in the form of a happy dance. A little jig (done in your chair or around the room) can be so uplifting and a simple way to celebrate those little successes we experience every day. Why not give it a try?

I'm curious, what do you do to celebrate? How does it impact your creative process?

I hadn't thought much about how celebrating was affecting my creative process until Jamie asked the question, but when I considered it, I realized that celebration is about all self-care and valuing yourself. And you can always create from a stronger place when you're taking good care of you.

Your Creative Spark is now available for purchase from Jamie. It's jam-packed with loads of inspiration from incredibly creative women such as Jennifer Lee, Andrea Scher, Jessie Marianello, Melba, McMullin, Goddess Leonie, myself, and many others! The interviews Jamie did over the last 12 weeks are included in audio and transcript form and there's also some bonus articles from several of the interviewees. Through midnight on April 5th you can get $10 off the price by using the Discount code "celebrate," so if you're thinking about grabbing a copy, now's the time!  Jamie did such a fabulous job putting this together (happy dance for Jamie!) and she's such a creative rock star. Thank you again, Jamie, for inviting me to be a part of this fantastic project!

YourCreativeSpark

Click here to view more details about Your Creative Spark.

7 Responses

It was so great to hear your voice yesterday!

Hope you are celebrating a little today – giggle!

I simply forget to celebrate. I move from one thing to the next without celebrating. I’m going to put the word celebrate on my refrigerator to remind myself. Thank you for the blog.

I created a post about the call and celebration. It was a fun call filled with so much love! Swing by http://www.collagediva.com and oh if you are looking to get lost, swing by my Soul Journal blog for my latest prompt — it is chock full of map play.

I like “Life is a Verb”’s way of celebrating: a birthday candle…not that I do it all the time, but I keep one in my windowsill along with it’s “traveling companions:” a native american figure, an armadillo and a frog (all small ceramic pieces). They are my “crew.”

Remembering to celebrate was something I always tried to incorporate when I was doing community based organizing. There is never an end to issues that need dealing with. I’ve been known to make grown men put on pointed barbie (dollar store – all they had) birthday hats around a cake. One guy said: if they saw me now, they’d *really* have a reason to call me a clown. Fun.

Woohoo, Leah! I had to celebrate with you. I saw a piece of your art on the new cover of Artful Blogger. It looks great. Yay, happy dances!

I loved reading this article. I feel really sad to say this but there isn’t an artistic bone in my body – I wish there was.

But this concept of celebrating – well maybe I can celebrate and be artistic in other ways I never considered. Passover for the family is this week – I have a bunch of cooking to do – could I find a way to celebrate it while I do it?

Oh, I know what I’ll do – I’ll buy the Creative Spark and listen to it while I cook away. That will help me put the happy dance into my food.

What a great idea – I think I’ll go celebrate THAT.
Heck, maybe I’ll celebrate balancing the checkbook too today – that took a ton of time because I made a mistake with entering the amount of the ending balance. BUT, once I figured it out – instead of regretting how long it took me and how dumb it was for me to overlook that – why not celebrate that I figured it out!!!!

It was a joy to celebrate with you, Leah! And to do your happy dance together. Thank you for every glorious thing you’ve contributed to Your Creative Spark.

big hugs,

Jamie

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