EP 7: Do Take It Easy Welcome to Mind Your Practice. In this episode, I will make a case for resting, which will only help your creative work.
EP 7: Do Take It Easy
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will make a case for resting, which will only help your creative work.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, live QnA's, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
EP 7: Do Take It Easy
Welcome to Mind Your Practice. I’m Beth Pickens and in this episode, I will make a case for resting, which will only help your creative work.
*****
Hello artists. Resting is hard for you. There are many reasons why this is true. Artists want to spend a lot of time making their work. And most of you work one or more jobs in order to do your creative work. This is, of course, on top of all of your other roles and responsibilities. Resting is hard for a person who wants and needs to do so much in limited time.
This labor issue is central. Artists as workers are unusual because you are the only class of workers - to my knowledge - who work all these jobs in order to do your real or preferred work. This makes you distinct from other workers and, therefore, often illegible. With all this work, rest becomes a low priority or even an impossibility.
Rest and restorative time. This is what I want to introduce and impress upon you. You, my beloved artist, need rest and you need restorative time. These are distinct but parallel needs.
Let’s start with rest. Yes, you need rest and time off of working, including your art practice. No, being sick doesn’t count. You’ll rest when you’re dead you say? My darling, I don’t want you to get there faster.
You need a break from continuous work. When work is on a cycle, we have better perspective, life is more manageable, and our priorities get sorted. We remember that we work in order to have a life, not the reverse.
I ask my clients to pick one premeditated day each week on which they will do no work for money and no productive creative work. That’s right, no art making on this day. I instruct them that they can do anything and everything else on this day. There is so much in one’s life: a body, a home, errands, cooking and cleaning, life admin, caregiving, relationships, fun and adventure, animals and nature. Art.
My clients fight me on this. Their eyes widen when I describe this weekly day of work reprieve. But I know it will bring about its effective magic. It always does. If I must, I can use our tragic work addiction to my benefit.Taking a day away from work, at the very least, will make the work days more productive and efficient and purposeful. Take a day off and you’ll work better.
The parallel request is for artists to have more restorative activity, things that help you refuel and recover that which gets eroded or emptied through the week. This is specific to the individual because everyone is different but some examples might be: lazing about, reading in bed, deep nature, seeing art, cooking, anything that puts you in your body, spiritual practices, or actual fun with people who make you laugh. Restorative activity is distinct from numbing activities, things that are placeholders between your busy hard day and when you will collapse into bed. Examples might be: getting stoned, tv, anything on your phone. Numbing activity has its place and purpose but it’s different from restorative activity. And I wish for you to have more restoration, less numbness.
I know these sound like simple things: rest and restore yourself. But you and I both know how difficult it is to prioritize them regularly. To build them into your life like a habit. And I argue they are crucial to your creative practice and your ability to get into the depths necessary for conjuring your work. How can you expect to pull water from a dry well? You cannot, my dear artist!
So your rest and restoration homework goes like this:
Choose a day each week, a 24-hour period during which you will not work for money nor will you be creatively productive. Protect it, jealously guard it from yourself and the world. Try this for a month minimum. Just one day off per week from the world of earning money and being a productive artist. You can do literally anything and everything else that day. Pack it full of activity, keep it sparse - whatever you want. Just have a boundary with the world of work.
Next, I want you to parse out what you do that may be numbing and what you could do that is restoring and replenishing. There is no judging the numbing approaches; again, they serve a purpose. But I want you to also construct a list of what you know or what you suspect would refuel you rather than simply numb you. You can pull from the restorative list on your day off each week.
Finally, let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
*****
Thanks for listening to Mind Your Practice and be sure to subscribe so you get all the bonus episodes coming your way. Want more homework and support for your creative practice? Join Homework Club where you’ll get monthly homework, workshops, and an accountability pod, hand chosen by me. Go to bethpickens.com to learn more. You can find me on Instagram at @bethpickensconsulting. Thanks for listening and keep making art.
Mind Your Practice is created by Beth Pickens and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.