He didn’t get what I was going on about and he told me as much. At that moment, I realized I was on a unique journey. I needed something more. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was ready to start living a more sustainable creative life through my spiritual journey.

Forty-two hundred miles of driving for three weeks took my family and me from Kansas to the Adirondack mountains. It was a crazy amount of driving for any summer vacation, but all that beauty and time away did two things: they enlarged my creative focus while also narrowing it.

The phrase “staying on the hurt line” is from a classmate's mom in a class I took at the beginning of summer: Art in a Time of Crisis. What does it mean to remain on the hurt line? Is it somewhere between joy and pain? Is it a bittersweet truth that life is both hard and beautiful? Yes, yes, and so much more.

Here are 10 things that kept me from caving to creative burnout in 2021. Instead, I found sanity, and quite miraculously, ways to thrive, even in the midst of a pandemic and starting grad school.

You were made for this. To take whatever is in your hands and make something. Also, I’m ANNOUNCING my new podcast!

Creative bursts come, and I believe they can for you too. Many activities labelled self-care double as artistic practice. Check out these five creativity restoring activities and fill up your tank again.