In my work as a creativity coach I talk with many, many people who want to be more creative, either as a way to deepen their spiritual practice of self nurturing or who have a specific dream that they long to manifest, like writing a book or spending more time in their painting studio or starting a business.

But too often something gets in the way. And the major culprit, as they see it, is that they are too busy and there's JUST NOT ENOUGH time.

When these folks tell me that they don't have time for creativity, they trot out the unassailable list of essentials that obviously need to come first as the reason that they can't have the creative expression that they so achingly desire.

They point to things like the need to feed themselves and their families, to exercise, to pay their bills, to care for their children, or to go to work. But these honorable and necessary tasks are rarely the culprit in stealing the energy needed to fuel a passionate and creative life.

Who do we think we're kidding?

What gets in the way for the vast majority of people is usually not the time it takes to do the things that really need to be done. The real bad guys that suck the juice right out of our creativity are most likely to fall under the heading of "wasting time" or what author Jennifer Louden calls shadow comforts.

We have all frittered away enormous chunks of our life watching bad television, mindlessly surfing the internet and sport shopping.Which everyone agrees are all things that are not exactly the BEST use of our already too short time on this planet.

Engaging with your creative process ALWAYS wakes you up and even though our souls really do want that much genuine aliveness, it is also scary, so we will use our endless creative genius to find a million and one ways of putting ourselves into a numbed out, brain dead stupor.

I'm SURE that someone needs me somewhere more than my creative process does!

There is a second category of time stealer's which comes under the heading of putting others needs ahead of our own. There are, of course, circumstances when that is necessary. But it is particularly insidious when we allow  our valuable and limited time to be swallowed up based on a false sense of duty or responsibility that exists only in our overactive imagination.

For example, I offer creativity retreats at some of the most beautiful places in the world, and I needed help for one that I was facilitating in New Mexico. I asked a friend of mine, another expressive arts therapist, to be my assistant, which meant she would pay the minimal expenses and help me set up and take down the studio. Other than that she would be free to participate fully in the rest of the workshop.

She said that she would really like to take me up on my offer but a cousin who she had no relationship with and didn't even really like all that much was MAYBE going to be in town that week and MAYBE would like to go out to lunch with her.

I just looked at her completely flabbergasted and said "In my career as a creativity coach I have heard some sorry ass excuses about why people won't let themselves have creativity in their lives, but you have just come up with the LAMEST excuse I think I have ever heard!"

Luckily she was not only a good friend but also pretty self aware so we both cracked up laughing and she DID come on that retreat and had a fabulous time.

The only person stopping you is, unfortunately, you.

When you are thinking about how you might spend your precious life energy, try asking yourself this question, "What really, REALLY matters to me at the end of the day or at the end of my life?"

One of my favorite ways of answering that question is the deathbed test, which goes something like this. When you envision yourself in the last days, or hours or minutes of your life, are your final thoughts going to be something along the lines of  "Gee, I'm sure glad  that I reorganized my sock drawer for the 10th time, or that I played internet solitaire until I got carpal tunnel syndrome, or I will always fondly remember the time when I took that last load of clothes that I never wear anymore to the dry cleaners."

Or are you going to have a glowing memory of the risk you took in setting aside some time for yourself to paint or write or make music ? Will you be savoring the recollection of the exquisite excitement of putting color on paper, of watching your own words turning into an original story,the sweet pleasure of sitting at your piano or with your guitar, strumming away, playing well or badly and singing your fool head off, consumed with the joy of allowing your voice to be  heard out in the world ?

Art Every Day Month

One of the things that's really hard about maintaining a creative practice is feeling alone with the whole thing. It really helps to have creative compadres who are doing it with you, holding you accountable and celebrating each creative step.

And I know a FABULOUS way that you can get a great big dose of that creative support.

Leah Piken Kolidas is an amazing artist and a blogger who I completely adore! And she has created this really cool online thing called Art Every Day that she has offered in November for the last seven years. It's kind of like NoNoWriMo for artists.

A bunch of people sign up, commit to doing something creative EVERY SINGLE DAY and then connect with each other to cheer each other on. I'm doing it. And I can't wait.

She has a whole group of people who have already joined her. And it's not just about making visual art. Anything goes. It doesn't really matter WHAT you do as long as you are making the space and time in your life to nurture your creativity.

Leah has even created an optional Survival Guide for Art Every Day Month where you can get daily emails and encouragement to keep you on track.

If you are getting all tingly and excited by this idea you can sign up RIGHT NOW by leaving a comment on Leah’s Art Every Day Month blog page. And be sure to let me know you are doing it so we can be part of this grand creative experiment with each other!

AND...... If you are looking for a way to jumpstart your creativity in 2010 come and join me at my Wild Heart Expressive Arts Intuitive Painting Weeklong Creativity Extravaganza Retreat in Northern CA in January! More details HERE!

It took me 15 years  to discover that I had no talent for writing but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
-Robert C. Benchley

Who says you have to be any good in order to be creative?

The very first (and last) painting class I ever took (which was about 22 years ago) was a process painting class. I had no interest in taking a traditional art class that taught technique because I didn't want anybody telling me what to do. And I certainly didn't want anybody telling me I was doing it wrong. I didn't care about all that. I just wanted to paint.

And who the heck is it that can tell you your creativity is "wrong" anyway? That has always seemed like the most insane thing imaginable. It's like grading someone on how they breathe.

Unfortunately, that is not the prevailing attitude in this culture. What we do hear over and over again is that there are definite standards we have to live up to in order to be creative.

Keep your eyes peeled for the art supplies police

One of my students has a young son and she was asked by her boys teacher if she could fill in to cover for a session of the childrens art class. The teacher had created a pre-made art project for the kids to do. I think it was around Thanksgiving and they were all supposed trace an identical turkey on construction paper, cut it out and then decorate it. My student was just supposed to give the kids the instructions and then supervise the assignment.

But my student had been hanging out in my studio for too long and decided, "Hey what the heck. Give the kids a little free rein." So she just set the art supplies out and told the class to have at it and make whatever they wanted to make.

And of course they came out with all kinds of wonderfully wild and charmingly goofy things. I think one or two of them might have even cut out the turkey. But the point was, they had fun. And they were actually given the opportunity to be creative.

When the teacher returned and saw what had happened she was HORRIFIED. She was actually pretty close to apoplectic and started sputtering to my student about how allowing the children to create freely without sticking to the plan and doing what was expected of them was AN ABUSE OF ART SUPPLIES!

She actually used those words.

I had no idea that it was even POSSIBLE to abuse art supplies, but then what do I know?

It's no wonder that we have so many unhelpful ideas about what it means to be a creative person. If we are worried that we might be in danger of traumatizing our oil pastels if we don't stay inside the lines we are going to be more than a little hesitant to create with any kind of freedom or abandon.

We also learn that there's only one correct way to be creative and if we don't follow the rules someone is going to blow a fuse.

We are all perfectly crazy.

It reminds me of the time I was doing some work with a woman client around her relationship issues and she was going on and on about how perfect and amazing and wonderfully healed she had to be before she could ever find herself paired up.

And I said to her "Ah, excuse me, but have you ever looked around and actually noticed the kinds of people who are already IN relationships? Most people who are intimately hooked up are not anywhere near being totally realized ascended masters. Or even particularly well adjusted."

People who are married or part of a committed partnership are by and large not exactly perfect. In fact, they are usually pretty gosh darned far from being perfect. They are tall and fat or short and bony and cranky and bossy and self centered. They have bad habits and worse breath. Being human, they are always some form of wacky. But love finds them anyway.

Your creativity is a lot less demanding than you are.

It's the same with your muse. She doesn't care how good you are at something. She just wants you to express yourself. However you can. The act of BEING creative is all she really cares about.

We don't have to be perfect in order to make art. We don't have to cut that turkey out in just the right way. Skill and creativity are two radically different things. Technique and creativity are not even on the same street much less in the same house. You can be a creative person without having developed any expertise at all. You don't need to follow any rules or even know what you are doing in order to make art or to create. You really don't.

Please don't make me say it again.

Sometimes I feel like a broken record in that I keep harping on this same topic over and over again. But the reason I keep yammering on about it is because it's one of the biggest stumbling blocks that I see in my students around letting themselves live fully creative lives.

This whole issue of not being good enough to make art or to be creative is huge. The tyranny of technique is crippling for most people. Many of us have experienced some version of having been terrorized by well meaning but misguided art teachers more concerned with the preciousness of art supplies than they are with the precious contents of our creative souls.

So how about abusing some art supplies today? Get out your paints or your pastels, your glue sticks and your collage materials, and produce some art that would make your grade school teachers eyes bug out. Put on some music and risk being completely foolish by getting out of your chair and merrily moving that awkward old body of yours. Sit down at your computer or with a pen and paper and just start writing the worst, most trite and boring stuff imaginable.

The only pre-requisite is to let yourself have as much fun as possible. It's important to be a gleeful abuser. Make those crayons squeal. Flail. Write very, very badly.

See how good that feels? The more you do this the harder it's going to be to let yourself be shackled by the "doesn't play well with others" perfection demon. And I GUARANTEE that no one will call the art police on you!

If you are looking for a great place to get total permission to abuse your art supplies to your hearts content I have a Painting From The Wild Heart weekend workshop coming up on November 13-15 in my wildly creative Oakland studio. For more info on that retreat click here.

About 11 years ago I attended a class at the Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Northern New Mexico for the first time and fell head over heels in love. With the landscape, the culture, the history, the big sky, the silent open spaces. It felt like a homecoming of major proportions and I couldn't wait to return. It was also a fabulous place to hold an expressive arts intuitive painting workshop  so I set about to create my first week long Painting From The Wild Heart retreat in the year 2000. I just returned from facilitating my 10th workshop in that aptly named land of enchantment and am amazed, as always, by the power of the experience.

I can't get enough of being at Ghost Ranch for so many reasons not least of which is that it is home to some of the most amazingly beautiful, red rock, high desert on the planet. And it is also one of those places where the land itself is very much alive. As soon as you step on the ground there you feel the energy zinging through you. And I don't think that it's just the altitude.

Who needs the Holiday Inn when you can have coyotes?

But the thing I love almost more than anything is something that at first glance looks like a major drawback. The accommodations at Ghost Ranch are rustic. And I mean extremely rustic. Where we stay as a group is in little adobe cabins that GR calls casitas ( and as one of my students so aptly put it, it makes them sound much more romantic than they really are). The casitas are incredibly spare- like monk's cells- and although they do have electricity so you can read by lamplight before you go to sleep at night- there are no phones in the rooms, no cell phone reception and the bathrooms are communal camp affairs that are 100 yards away from the casitas themselves.

But when you step outside in the middle of the night the sky is vast and filled with stars and the coyotes are often howling. And the first thing you see when you stumble out of bed in the morning is the flat topped Pedernal Mountain ( that Georgia O'Keefe painted so often she thought God should give it to her) to your right, and a gorgeous red rock mesa facing you and filling the vista directly in front of you.

Deep down we are pretty simple critters.

Everything is stripped down to what is essential. We eat, we sleep, we paint, we commune with the land, we open to each other. And then we do it again the next day. We meet every morning to move and breathe and dance and to convene in a sacred circle where we get to witness each others process with compassion and no commentary. A space is created where we just get to be seen and heard without judgment. No matter what it is, all is held as holy in the circle.

One person will be joyfully describing the beauty she encountered on her early morning hike and then the next person will be sobbing in grief over a painful childhood memory that has shown up in her painting. Or whining loudly about trouble sleeping or the sometimes less than stellar GR menu choices. Or getting in touch with some powerful aspect of who she is that she is now courageous enough to share with the group. Or just being her sweet and simple goofball self.

There's a reason why mystics and spiritual questers have often gone to the desert to regain their connection with their source. Because it is so wild and elemental it is a place where we have no choice but to tell the truth. It takes us directly to the core of our experience. And because we are so stripped down it allows the light of our essential self to shine through.

Over the years so many of my students have told me that when they first encountered the rusticness they wanted to turn around and leave. In fact I had two women who attended last year and who made a pact with each other that they would never return. But of course, the call of the desert, the call of the circle of honest and powerful women, and the call of their deep creative self was just too strong and they found themselves signing up again for a second time.

Who is that mysterious wise woman and why is she talking in my voice?

As I sit in the circle each morning and we take turns speaking of what's most real for us in that moment I am literally stunned by the beauty and wisdom that comes out of each person's mouth. Each woman is a gift. Each woman is exquisitely attuned to her muse, to the way that the divine is choosing to come through her. They don't hold back. They are able to trust what is being given with humility and grace. And in turn they offer each other their stories and experiences in a spirit of generosity and compassion for themselves and for their shared humanness.

We become a sisterhood of truth tellers and seekers of authenticity. It's not a time for hiding out or second guessing our natural and spontaneous feelings, wishes, needs and desires. It's an opportunity to practice faith that whatever is being expressed through each person at that moment is supported and needed by the great communal heart.

These are the joys of being on retreat. It is designed to give you the time and space for relationship with yourself and your divine inner rumblings. You are supported by the retreat environment to place your attention and focus on what is most vital and fundamental to your true well-being front and center for a while. It's a way for you to remember who you really are and why you are here.

Being on retreat in the desert without all my material stuff reminds me of how little I really need to make me happy. It is delicious. It fills me with myself. I feel cleansed and connected to what is most important. Being Real. Love. Creativity. Community. Compassion. Coyotes.

Yes my life is busy, but breathing is actually pretty darn important.

But the question I am faced with when I return is how can I have that same sense of deep connection with my essential nature in the MIDDLE of my busy life.

Our lives are by necessity filled with distractions. Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the dentist, today the car needs brakes, I have client calls to return and need to find a time to celebrate my mother in laws birthday. And I am on my own with feeding myself, because as mysterious and questionable as camp fare can be at times at least I don't have to plan a menu, cook.... or clean up.

One of the  things we did at the workshop was to start each day with simply sensing where we were in that moment. We would close our eyes and breathe with each other, practicing being present to whatever was showing up. And then we would bring that sense of presence to our painting and our contact with each other throughout the day.

When I'm in the desert and held in the container of soulful, creative women that connection to source goes deeper in and is easier to make somehow. But this time, since I've been home, I find that now I have a groove for it. I have a strong sense memory of what it feels like to simply be. It's something that I can draw on. The remembrance is strong, the circle is in my heart, the voices of my wild heart sisters still resonating and resounding in my body and my soul.

The retreat is alive in me. And continues to remind me that I am more than my distractions. I am more, much more, than my lists and my anxieties, my aching teeth and my hopes and plans for the future. I am able to remember that my essence is always available for me to tap into, no matter what is happening around me.

I gratefully acknowledge that this time I have somehow managed to bring the magic of the desert and the felt sense of creative community home with me. I just hope that it's a permanent installation.

I don't have any more desert extravaganzas planned for the rest of this year but I do have a Painting From The Wild Heart weekend retreat scheduled at my fun and funky art studio in Oakland on November 13-15 that can give you that same feeling of coming home to yourself through your creative process and the joy of being witnessed and supported by a strong creative community. You can find out more info about that workshop by clicking here.