Exhaustion or inspiration? Life beyond burnout is far more fun! So, let’s look at how claiming your creative play and power build a joyful, sustainable life.
Am I saying that creative arts help us thrive beyond burnout? Absolutely. But, I’m also referring to the innate creative ability within each of us, as individuals, to bring our dreams to life.
Burnout’s Gift
The overwhelm, deep fatigue, and even draining despair of burnout comes from constantly pushing beyond our work capacity. Like an overloaded donkey, we can barely navigate the narrow streets of our daily life.
We all agree; this is not a healthy lifestyle. Yet burnout’s gift is a loud call to action from our creative self. Burnout shouts, pay attention! It asks:
- Are you living in alignment with who and what you most value?
- Do you want to be crushed under the weight of life-as-you-know-it?
- Or do you want health, joy, and freedom to enliven your every step?
Our creativity—both play and power—establishes a strong foundation of well-being and wisdom.
Is Your Creative Play on a Shelf?
Creative play primes the pump for a flow of vitality that never burns out. Let’s invite this precious part of you to come out of storage.
I believe that creative flow once came so naturally to us that we didn’t require labels or permission. We simply immersed ourselves in activities that brought joy. As adults, it’s harder to keep that channel open.
Did you used to paint, sing, or play dress up? Maybe your creative self went bike riding, running in the hills with the dog, baked cupcakes, danced in the rain, read books, took pictures, or designed a new game.
Right now, though, are oils and acrylics gathering dust in your attic? Journals boxed in a closet? Has your guitar become relegated to wall art?
Time to pick up the paint palette, grab the guitar by the neck, and put on those dancing shoes. Pull out the half-finished book of recipes, pump up the tires on your bike, and head for the hills.
Embrace your sense of timeless play and watch your energy transform into joy. You’ll be activating the necessary vitality to thrive beyond burnout.
Reclaim Your Creative Power
Creativity is not only artistic expression.
It’s also the essence of our being—our powerful core.
Think coeur, the French word for heart.
Or shinbashira, the central pillar of a pagoda that ensures
its resilience against earthquakes.
As an innately creative individual, you have tremendous power. Power to bring something extraordinary out of nothing, to blend ingredients in novel ways, to explore horizons beyond your wildest imagination.
Creativity is enlivening, giving, and often seeks to be shared. It also keeps us balanced and sane.
While arts are a channel to express the beauty, pain, ever-changing love, and challenge of human living, activating our creative core enlivens the journey overall.
This is when the real fun begins—just one brush stroke at a time.
Listen to Your Dreams
Dreams are creative visions of what / where / who we’d love to be. They resonate with the harmonic vibrations that allow us to rise ever upwards. Without them, we stagnate and lack direction.
How do you treat your dreams? As ethereal, impractical hopes-to-be-dashed?
Or as a parallel universe waiting to be activated?
The grounded one, where you’ve already built your heart’s most generous desire.
I come from the latter perspective, which is why I’m a coach. I firmly believe that by choosing to claim our creative power, we cross a threshold. We embark on a transformative journey to bring to life dreams that already exist within us, fully formed and realized.
Activate Your Dreams
A doorway “magically” appears when you say, I invest in my creative ability. It’s one you didn’t notice when you walled yourself in, trying to meet demands and expectations of everything and everyone around you.
Now, you can begin to play with life. You begin to perceive the presence of gifts that have been patiently waiting for you to believe that your dreams are within reach.
Sound mystical? Maybe. Or maybe it’s the gift of creativity that makes visions real.
So, how do you activate the dream? You pause.
You choose to gradually, playfully, and practically mold your daily life into the embodiment of your dream.
The vision takes over your imagination while ‘pragmatic you’ takes action
through necessary micro-steps that ground you.
Daily life gently transforms into an architectural masterpiece—a real version of the dream you hold dear.
You’re a long way from the burnout shell you chose to leave behind.
And, as you build, you dance while you put away the dishes, doodle while you’re on a Zoom call, and sing in the shower. Just for joy.
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