Creative Well-Being
Tending our creative well-being
Hi, Beautiful One.
Not long ago I heard financial consultant and writer, Barbara Huson, describe the evolution of the word wealth. It was originally used to describe a measure of a person’s well-being, Huson said. Being a big fan of the Oxford English Dictionary, I had to see the etymology for myself. The OED uses definitions like this to get to the heart of meaning:
Middle English welþe or weal (on the analogy of health)
the condition of being happy and prosperous; well-being…
an instance or kind of prosperity; a felicity, a blessing
I’m not here to talk about finances, or even the concept that true wealth can be found in the sinews of our loving relationships and the humus of the very earth beneath our feet.
Those things are true, but I’m curious about exploring the ebbs and flows of creative expression and how we might measure and tend to its health.
So, keeping these definitions in mind, I wonder how you might fill in these blanks:
I feel creatively wealthy when _________.
My creative well-being looks like __________.
My creative health relies on ___________.
These are my own answers to the prompt:
I feel creatively wealthy when I have some uninterrupted time to myself.
Time is one of our most valuable commodities. As a parent, uninterrupted time to let my mind unfurl is hard to come by. When I’ve prioritized 5, 10, 30 minutes (or maybe even a few hours!) to create, I genuinely feel rich.
My creative well-being looks like a fire’s embers.
I keep this image in mind because it reminds me of the energy I exerted, the passion I felt, and the warmth cultivated when I’ve engaged my own creativity, or experienced the creativity of others.
My creative health relies on access to beauty and sensuality; solitude and community.
I’m healthiest when I’m searching for the beauty always surrounding me, when I’m present to the mundane by remaining alive to my senses. I need solitude to create, but I also need community—a community of ideas and voices that enrich and nourish.
In that vein, I would love for you to lend your voice to this conversation. If you don’t mind sharing, let us know your answers to the prompts in the comments below.
Thanks for spending some of your precious time with me.
Yours in creative well-being,
P.S. I’ll be hanging out at Story Parlor, a cooperative arts space in Asheville, NC on Friday, August 19th for an Enneagram-themed Story Mixer. In-person and virtual tickets available here. Join us!!