Over at Bliss Your Heart, we've been celebrating 10 days of Thanksgiving: for 10 days, I’m sharing journaling prompts for reflections in gratitude. These prompts can be used to add thoughts to your journal, or get out and use your camera (or camera phone) to capture, or sketch or draw, or even simply spend some quiet time with a cuppa just meditating. My hope is that by the end of this time, we’ll all have created a body of work which reflects the bounty that we’ve discovered we have in our lives.
Unfortunately, the Babble site is going through some difficult upgrades, and they've prohibited contributors from adding any new posts. So at the request of some of the participants, for the next couple of days, I'll share the prompts here. Once the Babble site is back up and available for new content, I'll go back over there.
Are you still with me? Awesome. Let’s go.
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A few years ago, my father was cleaning out his file cabinet, and he gave me all of my childhood documents that he no longer needed. In the pile of papers was my 1st grade report card. My teacher, Mr. Sumpter, had handwritten a notation that read something like:
Karen does excellent work in math and English, but shows no artistic aptitude whatsoever.
OUCH.
It's sort of funny to read this now, seeing as I make my living being creative, but the truth is that that notation likely affected how my family saw me, and how I saw myself, thus setting the course of the rest of my academic life. I know for a fact that I was steered away from artistic pursuits (hence the engineering and law degrees), and I can recall several times in my life where I have declared quite firmly that "I'm not artistic." To be clear, I have absolutely no regrets with the subjects I pursued in college, but it still begs the question: what does "artistic" mean, exactly? Does "artistic" just mean "an ability to draw" (which, if it does, I can still firmly declare that I'm not a particularly artistic person!).
I don't think so.
I've come to believe that "being artistic" and "being creative" are one in the same -- and I believe that everyone is artistic -- they may have just not figured out or named their art yet. For some people, being artistic or creative might mean a facility with canvas and acrylics, yes; but for others it might mean a way with words. Or textiles. Or the ability to build simple machines. Or bake. Or dance. Or sing. Or photography.
Or, yes, even do mathematics. Or engineering. Or law.
Something to think about, yes?
Day 5 prompt:
Today, I encourage you to spend some time thinking and listing the ways you're artistic or creative. Your list might include the usual fine arts, of course; but think big: if you're creative in culinary arts, or mathematics, or if you're an avid DIY-er, or you're really amazing in math and sciences, they count too. Think about how you use your creativity to help others -- your family members, or maybe even your community.
And for extra points? Practice your art today -- especially if it's something that makes you feel awesome.
(And of course, if you're in the mood to share how you're creative, please do so in the comments, below!)
If you haven't been playing along, and would like to catch up, here are the previous days prompts:
Day 1: HOME
Day 2: GIFTS & SUPERPOWERS
Day 3: COOLER WEATHER
Day 4: UNEXPECTED KINDNESSES
