When everyone was prompting ChatGPT last year to ‘Show a picture of my life based on what you know about me’, I felt conflicted! One part jealous, because I couldn’t participate in the trendy fun thing. Another part panicked because I felt left behind in two ways… Aand then I see memes like this (I mean, a newspaper clip gone digi-meme-viral, so that still happens!), and everything seems right with the world again.

Meet the three gunas; a philosophy about our natural energetic states. There’s a Sanskrit philosophy called the three gunas; sattwa, rajas and tamas. “Guna’ translates as strand or quality and essentially represents the energy forces of the universe and our psychological, emotional and energetic states. We are always weaving between our sattwa, rajas, tamas energies.

Create for your critics? Who does that? What a silly thing to say! Well, have you ever actually stopped to think about it and consider if you do? When you write or create, are you unconsciously steering your word choice, or what you share or choose to express around the responses of your critics?

I’ll never forget getting a call from a Creative Director I worked with while freelancing at an agency. “Yo, there’s some vodka on your desk, can I have a bottle? I need to get loose, I need to write some lines.” What the actual? Firstly, it was gin — a gift from a client that I hadn’t yet taken home. Secondly, what the actual?

A rippling reminder of what making art, of any kind, is all about. I woke up feeling irritable and anxious — not ideal for a Monday, but the universe delivered and dropped a timely reminder from Kurt Vonnegut into my line of sight. It gave my soul a flutter of much-need lightness that carried me through the day. The following quote is his call to create for creation sake, for the enriching experience of having made something and released it into a world of one.

Forget downtime - make room for creative uptime! As creative solopreneurs we need to prioritise creative uptime. It’s how we recharge our batteries and invest in our creative growth journey. It's quality time to spark ours imaginations and feel creative connection that is both progressive and meaningful. If you’ve been feeling empty and uninspired and you’re not sure why - ask yourself if you’re getting enough creative uptime?

Answer: One intentional, proactive and well-planned bite at a time. Anything worth doing well is worth doing slowly and intentionally, but this is especially important if you're taking on a big creative project and you need to figure out how to successfully eat your elephant. Here's a fun framework to get you stomping in the right direction.

Did you know our brain is at a creative peak just before we sleep? You already know this if you turn off the lights and find your mind ricocheting ideas that have you reaching for your phone in the dark — lest you forget them while gallivanting in your dreams, which is likely. But have you considered the creative power of the nap?

Our lived experience is becoming more digitised by the minute, but books aren’t going anywhere. Books are one of the earliest forms of technology. A Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra was the first book produced in Ancient China, 868 CE. Ironically, books are one of the most undervalued forms of technology today.

(spoiler: you don’t have to be an artist to get these creative kicks!) What is creative expression? It’s an outward expression of inner values, feelings, thoughts and ideas. It’s bringing something that wasn’t there before to life. It’s a combination of body action and mind potential fusing into something else - an imprint of yourself, perhaps? But what if we don’t have to take it all so seriously?

An incredible thing happens when we realise the only thing standing in our way is ourselves. We can decide to stop taking detours, ignoring our calling or waiting for others to approve of our ambitions. We can step into our power, purpose and flow. We can thrive.

If you didn't know; Andy Warhol was more than the pioneer of Pop Art; he was also the master of the personal brand. Over the course of his career, Andy became his art. He discovered the creative power of his fame and toyed with his persona as if he were a living exhibit.

Following on from my previous post, Less is so much more - reflections for the year ahead, I'm setting some intentions for how I'd like to steer my year creatively to connect with myself more deeply and inspire my inner artistry. This is what I'm bringing to my creative playground in 2023.

Patti Smith is one of my favourites writers. Her writing is a whole mood; both melancholic and atmospheric and just simply, Patti. My journey with her writing began with her autobiographical, Just Kids. I was mesmerised by her life story and the poetic nuance in which she shared it.

Hemingway may have put that in his pipe and smoked it, but for a lot of us it seems there's so much more to writing than just doing the damn thing. But is he right? Is most of it just about getting out of our own way?Well, there's only one way to find out - so here's to opening a vein and bleeding for the next 30 days.