Take care of yourself

I've noticed a trend with artists: we're not so great at taking care of ourselves. We live for our craft and often don't pay that much attention to our physical selves while we're doing it. This can be especially true for those of us with less physically demanding creative endeavors, like musicians, visual artists, and writers. (I know I'm usually more interested in having a beer and playing my piano than going for a run.) Conversely, dancers, acrobats, actors, and other physical artists might push themselves too hard, sometimes to the point of injury. Many of us start to feel mortality creeping in right around age 30. The invincibility of our teens and 20s behind us, we start feeling those late nights a little harder and our bodies start to ache a little longer, our friends have babies, and our parents and grandparents get sick. When you've been downing beers and pizza at rehearsal every night (or whiskey and...um...whiskey for the Hemingways), there is often a moment where you ask yourself: "Should I try to be healthier?"

A couple of months ago, my grandfather passed away. He was the sweetest, wisest, most understanding and open person I know. He was also a WWII veteran, an engineer, an artist, and a writer. Then, a couple of weeks ago, my therapist and mentor died after a 6 year battle with cancer. She left a huge imprint on the world as a helper, friend, and genuinely authentic person. These losses, coupled with friends and family members struggles with illnesses, really affected me. At 34, I'm starting to feel the spoils of my lifestyle which, while not terrible, could use some sprucing up in the health department. But it's hard. I have so much reading and thinking and writing and talking and performing to do. These things are much more exciting to me than my yoga practice or taking a walk. But I have to remember: I can't be a great counselor or artist if I don't feel good. I could for awhile, but eventually, it would catch up with me. It'll catch up with you, too.

Beyond the physical benefits, it could also help the creative process to take a break, move around, and do something new. Some of us act as if our bodies are separate from our minds, but let's be honest, it's all one. In fact, what's good for the heart is good for the brain, too.

Now, you're not stupid, so I'm not going to give you some list of stuff you can do to take care of yourself. You're an adult, you know how. The one less common piece of advice I will give is this: consider taking Vitamin D. Unless you're outside a lot, you're probably deficient. Vitamin D is good for all kinds of stuff, including energy and mood. Nothing is black and white, though, so I've provided you with a link to an article with experts who argue for and against supplementing Vitamin D, so you can make up your own mind.

Look, I know some of us aren't accustomed to being healthier, but try to remind yourself of this: Taking care of myself is not just good for my body, it's good for my art.

So when did you realize you had to start taking care of yourself? Got any brilliant ideas on how to combine art and health? Share in the comments below!

Goal-setting is SO not punk rock

This may come as a surprise, but I really don't like planning. Some people love it - they organize, research, make notes, put little tabs on pages, and get everything together. These people (see: my mother) are my saviors because they make my life more manageable, even when they're just managing their own lives. They even make my life more exciting when they plan fun, new activities and invite me.

I'm a coach, so I help people plan and get their lives somewhat organized. Mostly, I facilitate ways for my clients to figure out exactly what it is they want and how they want to get it. Planning for myself is an ongoing challenge, especially when it comes to creative work. To me, the phrase "goal-setting" used to feel restrictive and strained. I often go to my coach for help when I feel muddy and overwhelmed. I know planning can be difficult for many of you, too, so I thought I'd share my observations and suggestions from both personal and professional perspectives.

Planning vs The creative process Ah, the creative process. That roller coaster of ups and downs; of laying on the floor in a ball to creating a masterpiece in 3 hours. Motivation and inspiration wax and wane. If you decide to make a carefully laid out schedule, it can be hard to stick to. Obligations come up or sometimes the creative juices just aren't there. Other times, the inner rebel chimes in, "I don't have to do what you say! You're not my Dad!", and it's all over. When you don't meet your plans it can make you feel shitty, depressed, anxious and then you feel shitty about feeling shitty and maybe even feel bad that you want to do artsy stuff and not "productive stuff" and only you value you and no one else does so why even try….AH!

When to listen to the inner rebel, when to tell her to eff off What does your inner punker tell you? Mine says, “Screw this, let’s party!” Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about rebelling. Sometimes the rebel shows up when you legitimately need the break. Sometimes she is screaming at something that isn't right, like a forced professional or gender norm that doesn’t align with your values. Other times, you need to tell the rebel you’ll party later. Ask yourself: "Is it advantageous for me to put this off?" If the answer is no, then barrel through. Note: Try to avoid saying “Should I put this off?” Should is the surest road to feeling shitty. Don't should all over yourself!

How to plan without being boxed in

• Get focused - write down your values, what you think about the world, your aspirations, etc. Use one my handy dandy form to help you examine these, as well as other factors, like self-sabotage (aka "the inner punker").
• Look at how it all connects. What do your views say about you and your objectives? What does your worldview say about how you approach your goals?
• Think about what you can do to harness your ambition. Break it down to today, next week, or next month.
• Now plan. Keep it simple. I find that if I start writing down what I’m going to do hour-by-hour, I end up rebelling against the whole thing, do nothing (or something else unnecessary), and then hate myself for it later. If you're like me, instead of writing it all out minute-by-minute, plan 4 things you’d like to get done at some point during the week or 1 thing you’d like to do each day or even 1 thing you'd like to do each week. This allows you the freedom to schedule yourself fluidly and still say, “I got that shit done!”
• When the stubborn rebel shows up saying “You can’t tell me what to do!”, remind him that this is YOUR plan, not anyone else’s. Partying will feel so much better once your work for the day is done. In fact, put that party time on your schedule so you have something to look forward to!

The fact is, goal-setting and planning are essential to getting the big stuff done. Want to put on a show, write a novel, start a business, or finish your album? You've got to plan.

Feel like your planning deficient? Share your struggles below. Are you an expert at planning your own life and work? Please share your insight.

Crazy or just creative? How mental health can be a matter of perception.

Ever stay up all night working on a creative project? So excited, it's all you think about, you obsess over it and have trouble focusing on anything but. You can barely sleep - IT'S JUST SO AWESOME! Ever feel terrible when your play, show, or art opening was over? You sink down, and often think "I should be happy, but I feel awful. I'm SO sad." You can't do anything and you just want to sleep.

Sadly, when some doctors and parents see this in children, they diagnose them with bipolar disorder or ADHD. And it seems to fit the bill: states of prolonged mania or hyperactivity, sometimes followed by states of depression. It all seems unmanageable and to an unwitting parent, it is probably very frightening. So kids end up on drugs like Ritalin or Lithium and often abandon their creative activities. Meanwhile the "disease" is still not gone, just "managed"... for the time being.

Creative adults usually understand the inevitable ups and downs of creative work. Sometimes they're hard for us to handle and we HATE those times when we can't think and create. But gifted children and their parents, teachers, and doctors don't see this roller coaster as "normal" (whatever that means). So they end up on really serious drugs for perhaps no good reason, other than to make those around them more comfortable.

In 2008, a study came out on these types of children. Mahnaz Sadre and Linda Brock, fueled by other studies that link mental illness and creativity, presented five different case studies in which creatively gifted children and adolescents were previously diagnosed as having bipolar disorder or ADHD and given medication for their conditions. For the study, the authors provided the kids and their families with therapy that focused on their creative talents and educated parents about the creative process. In each case, the children improved significantly and eventually stopped taking most, if not all, of their psych meds.

This is a prime example of what I want to impart to people: mental health "problems" are often a matter of social dynamics. If we're told we are bad, wrong, crazy, stupid... we eventually believe we are and our brains physically change in accordance with that. However, we can change our brains and learn to think differently, behave differently, and interact differently. If we shift our perspectives, even just a little bit, we can drastically change our place in the world.

I'll give you some examples of how to do this in my next post! Meanwhile, I'd love to hear how perspective affects how you view yourself and the world.

No one made you creative, you just are

I recently read Thomas Frank’s opinion piece on Salon.com entitled “TED talks are lying to you” and it got me thinking. In a nutshell, Frank comments on the rise of information, mainly books, about how to be creative or how creativity helps in any job, written by individuals who are essentially upper-class conformists. He notes how the same stories about product innovations are regurgitated throughout these books, while true creatives trying to make it in the world are suffering. He also mentions over and over again that he came to this revelation while in the bathtub.

The title is misleading, as he says little about TED talks, and seems to be lumping all talks into one category: “white billionaires” telling you how to harness creativity. If you’ve watched a lot of TED talks, you’ll know there is much more to it than that. Some of my favorite talks are by therapists, neuroscientists, musicians, comedians, and even gamers. The majority of these talks are less about marketing products or telling people to “be creative” and more about sharing ideas. But I digress because again, Frank’s article actually has little to do with TED talks and more to do with a trend in book sales and marketing.

Here’s the part of the piece that struck me hardest:

A final clue came from “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention” (1996), in which Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi acknowledges that, far from being an act of individual inspiration, what we call creativity is simply an expression of professional consensus. Using Vincent van Gogh as an example, the author declares that the artist’s “creativity came into being when a sufficient number of art experts felt that his paintings had something important to contribute to the domain of art.” Innovation, that is, exists only when the correctly credentialed hivemind agrees that it does. And “without such a response,” the author continues, “van Gogh would have remained what he was, a disturbed man who painted strange canvases.” What determines “creativity,” in other words, is the very faction it’s supposedly rebelling against: established expertise.

I saw several comments below the article noting this portion as one of the most insightful. I disagree and here’s why: the fact that someone came along and decided Van Gogh’s paintings had artistic value did not define him as creative, it defined him as a significant part of the impressionistic art movement (a movement Frank disparages in his article). No one denied Van Gogh’s creativity before this; he spent his life as an artist, studying and befriending other greats such as Monet and Gauguin. No one had to tell these artists they were creative, they just were.

If you’re a creative person, you understand that it's both a blessing and a curse. We're constantly trying to survive in the world while enduring a nagging inner pull to put the pieces together and make sense of it. Many of us don’t feel complete without expressing ourselves through some form of art, but we struggle to figure out how to fit it into our lives that might not allow hours of time to paint, practice an instrument, write a novel, or perform in a play. We don’t need someone to tell us we’re creative, we just are.

I get the frustration Frank is expressing: “Only rich white billionaires have the convenience of being creative in business and telling us we all should be.” Perhaps as a full-time writer, Frank sees this trend permeating his world much more than I see it in my own. From my perspective, especially in this city full of artists, I see true creative talent as an equalizer: you can't buy it, you just have it. Now of course, the ways you get to express that creativity rely on resources like time and money, but that nagging sensation to make meaning of the world, that’s free. When I talk about coaching creative people or “creativity coaching”, I’m not saying I want to teach you how to be creative: you already know how to do that. Rather, I want to help you figure out how to get that stuff out of you and onto the page, canvas, stage, etc. I want to help you fit it all into your life and your relationships with your friends, partner, or family. Why am I the person for that? Not only because I’ve got all this training as a therapist, but because I've struggled with expressing my creativity in my own life and continue to do so. I understand that being an artist is an ongoing journey and whether you’re a famous rock star or you sketch when the kids go to bed, that journey never ends.

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

So, like I said, I'm a musician... and you know how we artists can be... Sometimes, the "play-the-piano" bug grabs me a little harder than the "writing-my-blog" bug. This was one of those times. I decided that I'd rather play than force a half-hearted blog out, when I know I've got a lot to say on the subject of getting your money's worth from your therapist. It's a good idea to listen to yourself when your gut tells you "I need to do something else," especially when that 'something' is a form of self-care. My art, particularly my music, is like therapy for me. I'm all about authenticity, and this is me, being authentically me.

I like to create improvisational piano songs. Instead of recording audio (or just not recording at all), I decided to make a video this time. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy this little interlude. We'll get back to business next week, I promise.