The Creative Contemplative Interviews
Do you have mindfulness practices that inspire your creative process? I want to interview you!
Much has been written about the myth of the tortured artist. As much as I value opportunities to explore the darkness of life in my writing as a way to understand and heal from trauma, I’ve never been interested in suffering for my art.
With two parents dead before I was thirty, my own chronic health issues as well (as those of my child), my responsibilities as a caretaker and teacher and professional, not to mention the never-ending global pandemic, pervasive structural inequities, widespread death and destruction, and more, the last thing I need is more suffering, thank you very much.
Plus there’s the simple fact that when I get exhausted, the last thing I want to do is create. If my brain is tired and my eyes are tired and my fingertips are tired, I feel no desire to write (which is my primary form of creation.) There’s just no forcing it. Maybe it works for some — the leaning into the pain — but it does not work for me.
However, I find that when I commit to my contemplative practices (for me, it’s most often walking, yoga, meditation, and gardening), I find that I am more inspired to create. By quieting my mind and breathing my body full, by…
