Journaling: Starting a Creative Practice with Melanie Karlins
Last winter I signed up for my friend Melanie’s email series Your Next Magical Chapter. It was 30 days of journaling, doodling, and dreaming prompts to design the life you wanted to live. It was awakening, and came at the perfect time in my life. I’ve loved watching her creative coaching practice evolve this past year, and I’m so excited to share this guest post by her with you today. It features journaling questions to help you invite in more creativity to your life. Find the prompts below to help you start or engage better with your own creative practice. And if you need more support on your creative journey, get in touch with Melanie to see how she can help bring forth the creativity within you.
Amina invited me to share a journaling exercise with all of you, so now I'm inviting you to picture your ideal day for creativity. It doesn't have to be a perfect day or a day from the best vacation you've ever had, but imagine a day that you could have over and over again, that you could recreate day after day with the loveliest rituals and routines woven throughout.
Take a few breaths, deep from your belly or lighter and easier, whatever feels good to you and helps you get the clearest picture of this lovely day. When you're ready you can take the following questions to your journal and use your responses to help you start building your most beautiful, creative daily rituals, one detail, one day at a time.
What does your creative practice look like in this day? What are you building? What are you making? What are you designing?
Does it happen in the morning? At lunch time? Just before bed? Is creativity sprinkled throughout your day?
Where do you engage with your creativity? Are you writing from a coffee shop, building beautiful objects from clay in a community workshop, painting in your own light filled studio, designing your next big idea at the kitchen island surrounded by the sounds and energy of home?
Who is there with you while you're creating ("I'm there alone" is a totally normal thing to picture!)
How are your senses activated while you create?
What does it look like to practice creativity? Is there art hanging on the walls around you? Is it your art? Inspiration from others? Is there a candle burning, are there flowers nearby? What do you see?
What does it feel like? Do you have a pen in your hand, scribbling in your favorite notebook until your hand cramps? Are you holding a brush, pushing paint around on the canvas? Are you working with clay? With yarn? With fabric? Is there a breeze coming in through an open window? What do you wear to engage with your creative practice? How do you feel?
Once you have a clear picture, down to some of the beautiful details, think about how you can start bringing these practices, these feelings, these sights and sounds and smells, these rituals and routines into your days soon. Next week, tomorrow, today.
I can't wait to see what you're creating!
