Week One: Make Space
Creative Practices for the Winter Doldrums
Welcome to week one of our creative practices—you made it!
(Here’s the introduction to the series if you missed it.)
This week will focus on making space. One of the perils of our modern world is the ability to fill our lives to the brim and be constantly plugged in to some kind of noise. It’s easy to think:
“I don’t have time or energy to be creative. I get to the end of the day and I’m so worn out, all I can do is collapse on the couch and stare blankly at the TV before I drag myself to bed.”
I hear you. And trust me, sometimes it’s all we can do to stare blankly at something entertaining. But if I do it too many nights in a row, I feel the doldrums coming for me. This week, we’ll look at a few questions and practices about making space.
Questions
Take some time to reflect on:
What got too noisy or took up too much room in your life last year?
What would you like to make space for?
A note on the questions: Find a way of reflection that works for you—writing in a journal will do the trick, or you can take a walk or sit for a minute. If busying your hands helps, then chop some veggies, sketch some thoughts, or take a drive while you have a little think.
If you pick a non-writing path, I would encourage you to take a few notes at the end so you can look back on this as we go.
Practices
Pick a practice for this week:
Clean It Out: Make some literal space in your life.
It can be related to a creative practice: organize art supplies, restring a guitar, making a cozy writing nook for yourself.
Or it can be sorting out a closet, pantry, or fridge that has been bugging you.
It might sound strange, but I’ve found that the simple act of sorting or cleaning becomes positive momentum for creating. The “out with the old, in with the new” energy clears the way to get us in the flow.
If you have already done your post-holiday purge/scrub-a-thon, try this:
Turn Down the Noise:
Spend 15 to 30 minutes with the quiet. Set a timer. Turn your phone on silent.
Light a candle if you like, then sit, breathe, and listen.
Notice: What comes up in the quiet? What thoughts, dreams, anxieties, or resistance emerge? Did anything surprise you?
Note: Treat these practices as a fun experiment—the whole point is to play, so don’t take any of it too seriously. Give them a go and see what comes.
A Story about Making Space:
Over the holidays, my mom and I cleaned out my childhood closet so it can become a bathroom. This is no ordinary closet. It’s a small room, my teenage haven where my friends and I were allowed to doodle on the walls. It turned into an unintentional time capsule from 1999: cheerleading posters, 4-H ribbons, and a pep talk from Uncle George still plastered on every inch.
As Mama Kay and I hauled out crates and bins, we laughed at the hilarious phases of Jackie: a thousand scrapbooks, copious amounts of puffy painted paraphernalia, and the Queen herself.
It was a true menagerie of curiosities, culminating in the discovery of this treasure…
…an old ponytail wrapped in a Disney Store bag.
Upon unearthing, Mama Kay yelped in horror. You should know that my mother is not a keeper of things, least of all human hair. It is only out of great love for me that she has allowed me to keep this much crap for this long, but never would she ever endorse the preservation of an entire ponytail. One curl for the baby book? Maybe. An entire ponytail? No ma’am. Neither of us could remember the haircut, let alone the series of events that occured to make it possible for me to sneak it out afterwards and squirrel it away for decades.
Why did I want to keep my own hair? What was the plan here, Jack?
This incident now stands as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the farm. However, the hair-hoarding pales in comparison to the mysteries of this corner:
OH ME OH MY.
The creepy clown painting. The miscellaneous Mardi Gras mask.
The God Loves Singles bumper sticker.
The dozen lipstick kisses next to the God Loves Singles bumper sticker.
The cringe factor is so high, I don’t even know where to start with the questions for myself. Let’s hide her under the drywall, yes! Let’s shut the door and pretend that never happened. No one needs to see that embarrassment, no, no they do not.
Just when I’m feeling relieved to bid farewell to that mess of a girl, creativity has the nerve to shove this gorgeous poem across my path:
I Have Been a Thousand Different Women by Emory Hall
And then, without knowing I was working on this piece, two cousins sent old family photos my way.
I sit and look at young Jackie’s sweet face. What else can I do but bless that wall-kissing, hair-hoarding girl and make space for her too?
Drop a Note! Send me stories about making space in the comments or tag me on Instagram: @jackieknapp_ I’d love to hear the good, bad, and ugly of this process.
Coaching: I have a few coaching spots open at the moment. If you are looking for help with a creative project or the project of life itself, I’d love to chat. Find more info here or email me jackie@jackieknapp.com so we can set up a free discovery call.
Love that girl, in all of her iterations and varying passions!!
Adorable story- you crack me up. Thanks for sharing the pix and adventures of little Jack!