Do you remember the times back in your childhood where you would play pretend on the playground? You stand there and visualize the entire playground turning into a pirate ship and you change your voice to sound like the captain. You shout, “watch out there are krakens in the water!” You would hop onto the pirate ship and tell your crew members to not touch the ground; it’s full of krakens! 

Did you know this type of play is creativity?

It doesn’t have to be painting or drawing, it could be acting. The importance of creativity in our childhood is essential to self-development and release from negative things around us. But I believe it needs to be present in our adult lives as well. Adults get so caught up with responsibilities, drama and stress they neglect their inner artist and child. Therefore living you feeling empty, detached and not confident in one’s abilities and we put this limited mindset on ourselves when we hold this type of mindset.

I want to share how we all are creative people, especially art therapists, counselors, and healers. Each of us holds creativity, we just need to be open about our creativity. This way of being opened, receptive, and nurturing our creative side will help us step over what’s been holding you back. 

I am currently reading a book called “The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron.

She emphasizes an activity called the morning pages and it’s a way to brain dump all your thoughts and worries onto paper. Check out her book here. It’s a way to declutter the mind to see the mental patterns that are showing up in your life. That way you can catch them and try to find a solution through the use of morning pages. It’s even a concept of exploring the subconscious mind to find deep threads of thought that could be attached to self-doubt and imposter syndrome. These types of mental patterns are things that stop you from creating. It event taps into you seeing what types of beliefs you hold and how you can shift that. It’s literally a mental discussion with yourself. So far in my journey of doing the morning pages it’s been a game-changer in finding what’s been bothering me and finding patterns that I can catch and try to change. I also noticed when I did the morning pages I was less stressed going about my day because I had a clear mind, and in my pages I was setting an intention for the day. That motivated me to keep going, and I wrote affirmations inside the pages to quiet down the inner critic and have a moment of empowerment in the pages. 

I understand that not many art therapists like journaling, but no worries I have an alternative idea for you that you can add to your daily routine. I think the overall theme of the morning pages is to have a morning routine with yourself before getting thrown into your tasks for the day. We will explore this further in today’s reading. 

Understanding the Artist Mindset

The first thing I wanted to elaborate on is the artist’s mindset. Let’s briefly define it. An artist’s mindset holds the energies of experimentation, exploration, and curiosity. There’s a need to express themselves through the use of other mediums to communicate a message or share their world and feelings. They want to feel heard and seen, plus feel connected to community and other people. The artist’s mind wants to move people, tell stories and close gaps on misunderstandings and to feel truly understood by others. 

Embracing your creative identity 

Now that we have a definition of the artist’s mindset, it’s essential that you as an art therapist not feel personally locked up. When you do this you are closing yourself off from connecting and being relatable. You also disconnect with your own self when you suppress your creative identity and your inner world. Embracing this creative identity helps to communicate what you are all about, and your story. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed about sharing your creativity but be open to receiving. This will help you release what’s been inside you and live more authentically in your body and mind. 

Overcoming creative blocks

Being a creator does come with creative blocks especially when you are running your own private practice and constantly creating content. As this is part of creativity, and there is a sense of pressure when you approach this. I suggest when you feel creative blocks come into your view, to acknowledge them and to start small. Make small things that way you are still playing and creating but it doesn’t feel forced nor hold any expectations. We’re not striving for perfection, we’re only focusing on the movements and feelings it brings. Even if the work is ugly we can happily say I created it today. It’s only the motions we focus on because anytime we are creating we are releasing and quieting the mind. So for example if you are journaling and you have nothing to say or no ideas, just write the same line over and over again. The idea is about the action in the end where you are about to be placed in a state of peace to a certain extent. Or if you like dancing, just move your body and not be caught up in creating choreography. This constant continuation of small steps to creating them gradually grows and grows to ideation and flow but sometimes we need these moments of block to recover because, we can’t be constantly in ideation mode it will drain us! Our creativity is like the weather. Some days it can be sunny and some days cloudy, then you get those really ugly stormy days. We just need to be gentle with our creativity and still go through the motions. When we continue this way we let go of pressure, expectations and perfectionism which surprisingly in the end we create better work from a place of love and not force.

The Power of Morning Routines

Usually on a day to day basis we have humans in the mornings get up, get dressed, have breakfast, get your kids to school and rush to work because we accidentally slept in. I am sure you are familiar with this. The power of morning routines brings a sense of peace to your mornings and yourself, but it doesn’t require motivation on your side. This means you might have to wake up an hour earlier in the morning before everyone else wakes up to have 1 hour to yourself in silence. 

Benefits of morning routines for art therapists 

I believe the benefits of having morning routines, especially for art therapists, is one separating your thoughts from others. You constantly are working with people who are sharing their struggles and it deattaches you from yourself. The benefits are about starting your day with you and you only. It gives you space to check in with yourself and see how you are feeling currently, and what is coming up for you in your world. That way you still feel connected with yourself and not feel like you are distant. This taps into reconnecting with your inner world and seeing how you should adjust your days so you aren’t packed with back to back sessions or if you need to cancel any to control your energy. The morning routine can show you that. Two I think the next benefit is creating, this is where you can make space to just release any tension in the body and re-energize yourself. Your client sessions can take away a lot of energy so starting your day with making a collage, dancing, singing, writing something creative can reboot your internal system and lift your spirits. Three, I think the last benefit would be about solving problems through the act of internal dialog troubleshooting. You are making time to solve other people’s problems but not your own personal problems that get in your way of enjoying life or are hindering your business life. Getting these out of the way changes the way you flow through the way and it quiets the mind of thoughts that show up about a certain ongoing problem when you address it in your morning routine. You have more mental capacity to take on other things. 

Implementing a morning routine in your daily routine. 

It’s hard to get started with developing a new habit but try to batch it with something you do in the morning. 

Getting started setting up a morning routine ritual 

1. Start by picking what your morning routine will be and what time in the morning you will wake up to do this. It can be collageing, painting, drawing, singing, colouring, writing, dancing, sewing, crocheting but something reflective and creative.  
2. Once you have your morning routine picked out. Start with setting your sketchbook, or easel or whatever will trigger a reminder to do that routine by your bedside or on your night table. So when you get up in the morning you’re reminded to do your collages or morning drawing and painting sessions.
3. You can set up a habit tracker and notification system to keep track of your process and how many days you were doing it. If this is not something you like to do you can always look to an accountability partner to do those check-ins on a weekly basis. 

Approach your morning routine: Techniques and Tips

1. Come in with an open mind with no expectations.  
2. Start every morning with these questions on your mind. How am I feeling today? What’s bothering me today? How do I want to feel? What is my intention for the day?
3. Be gentle and forgiving with yourself, sometimes we lose consistency.
4. Be honest in your sessions with thoughts that come up.
5. Don’t hold back anything this is only shared with yourself.
6. Accept anything that comes up.
7. Don’t be afraid to dive deeper into the patterns.
8. Stay curious in the routine and keep asking yourself why or what else?
9. Do this in a quiet room with no people around. 
10. Remove all digital devices out of the room for you to focus and listen to yourself.
11. Be present in the moment during your morning session with self.

Transforming the mindset through morning routine

These morning sessions with yourself is a space for you to reprogram yourself and find gaps in your mental state that need addressing. This is why I encourage creation in this session. That way you can look at the pieces or a series of videos of you dancing. This begins to build a collection of work that can be observed at the end of each month, for clues in what needs work and what insights you found. Right now, what is encouraged is to just create, feel good, be with yourself and not to review what you created just yet. 

Cultivate a positive creative mindset

These morning sessions help you to come into your art therapy business with a positive mindset, giving you space to nurture yourself. Now as you go back and review all things you did in those morning sessions you can start to make the necessary changes to build a positive creative mindset towards your daily tasks. Leading to having fun in creating web graphics for your website or creating Instagram posts etc, all because you made space to heal your inner creative child and stopped the inner critic. Thats was the morning session are for to shut off the inner critic and embody your true creative abilities and come back to reality and apply them with no restrains. 

Nurturing the creative journey

This is not a one and done activity, you are encouraged to make a commitment to yourself to continue with the morning routine to build that muscle memory. That’s really what this is for. Conditioning the mind and your thought patterns, with practice you begin to rewire your neural pathways that is the way to heal. Self-doubt and imposter syndrome will always be present but it’s up to you in how you will manage them. Through these practices you can quiet the mind in these areas and become stronger in that sense. 

Building your therapist brand through artistic expression

Branding is all about telling a story that connects with your ideal client. 

Leveraging your creative identity in branding

This requires creativity in developing your brand identity, you blend your practice with authenticity and depth. Your artistic expression becomes a powerful tool for connection with clients on an emotional level, to build trust and stand out in a crowded marketplace.    

Integrating Artistic Practices into your therapeutic work.

Through the morning routines you may come across artistic practices that you can bring to your therapeutic work to build better client experiences. It can be incorporating visual arts, music, movement, or writing into sessions. These creative modalities can create interesting offers for your ideal audience that can bring curiosity to your art therapy brand. These of course can bypass verbal barriers and access deeper insight. This can lead to clients’ workflow to be more efficient and receive accurate results through process complex feelings, build self awareness, resilience, and find inner wisdom. 

In Conclusion,

Embracing a morning routine for yourself is not only beneficial but essential in today’s fast-paced world. It allows us to slow down, reconnect with our inner world, inner critic, innate creativity, heal from within, and build a healthy relationship with the self. By nurturing your creative selves and integrating your artistic abilities into your art therapy business and branding materials, you begin to open your mind to trying to create graphics and take photos without the inner critic attacking you. You begin to be resilient towards those negative thoughts that show up and create an brand image from a place of curiosity. Accepting the transformative journeys of self-discovery and growth.