It was probably a year or more ago I authored a post on coping skills, titled, “Stop Coping,” (that post can be found here) urging you to look for areas you were settling in or becoming avoidant with overused coping skills. I suggested you discard what wasn’t functional anymore in your life, in order to push yourself forward. Today, in a very different world than the stage set for that advice, we are going to reexamine coping skills, look at their function, and help you help yourself to know when they are needed (and give yourself the permission to use them!)


Coping skills are to create emotional, psychological and even physical boundaries around something in order to survive it. In other words, a coping does not fix anything, it just allows us to survive that thing. By definition, coping skills are best applied to things that we cannot fix, or at least, not right now, or definitely not all at once. They are a tool to allow us to continue on until we can mindfully accept what we cannot change, and change what we can.


The key principle, erring on the side of giving you cliche advice, is knowing the difference between these two. What can you change? If you can change it, don’t forever cope with it (see article from 1 year or so ago). If you can’t change it, do what you can to cope with it- ultimately with the goal of not emotionally resisting your experience to it (because in the resistance lies the suffering).


In a globally gridlocked situation, such as a pandemic, we are falling into category 2 in many ways. Give yourself permission please, to cope. Release yourself from high expectations, perfectionism, overly goal oriented behavior, knowing you can return to that and that your ability and skills to achieve will be there waiting for you when you need them. Allow yourself to maintain what is important (read: self care, structure, routine, support system) and do what is otherwise healthy to cope.


Unsure what coping skills mean for you? I recommend to all my clients to have a written list of these prepared for themselves at all times. They can be wide and varied from distraction techniques, to self soothing, to personal development, to (of course) creative practices and more- this is something that time in counseling can be used to build- personalized for your use.


(C) 2020 Creatively, LLC

Hello, Creative! Welcome to March. There is a lot of anxiety in the world lately surrounding the increasing spread of the Coronavirus, or COVID-19.  Following the release last night of Governor Hogan's statement of the first 3 confirmed cases in the state of Maryland, anxiety is likely to increase for many.  I understand- there are still a lot of unknowns. So this month, while on social media we are enjoying "getting to know Creatively,"  this month's blog is focused on preparedness physically and mentally, as well as Creatively's own preparedness plan for COVID-19. 


First, the facts.  Yes, COVID-19 is in Maryland, and Maryland as of March 5 has been declared in a state of emergency by Governer Hogan- but- this does NOT mean you should panic. Up to date information on what you need to know can be found here: 

Maryland Health Department Website- Coronavirus

Following the medical and hygiene recommendations and any other preperatory steps of the health department as they evolve are your best pathway to staying safe.


Second, there is a preparedness plan in place at Creatively.  In the event of any type of quarentine, shelter in place, reduced activity, etc recommendation by local authorities to reduce the spread of COVID-19, I understand that losing your counseling support is not in your best interest.  But, I will also be following the recommendations of local authorities and closing the physical offices at Creatively.  Instead, I will be available to you as scheduled for your appointments via telehealth.  If this preparedness plan goes into action, you will receive text and email alerts from me that the physical office space has been closed and all appointments have been converted into telehealth.  All you need to do is reply via text or email to confirm your appointment.  At the time your appointment is scheduled to begin, I will text you a unique link to start your appointment.  Telehealth appointments are HIPAA compliant, encrypted, and covered by the insurance policies that I accept. Please feel free to contact me  if you have questions about this plan.  You may, of course, enact this plan for yourself by contacting me and changing your appointment to telehealth per your own judgement and safety planning.


Third, we need to talk about taking care of your emotional and mental wellbeing during times of national and global stress. This is so crucial because elevations in stress can in fact decrease the capacity of your immune system to function and protect you.  It is normal and natural to feel stress during stressful times- there is nothing wrong with this response. What we don't want to do is live in high stress levels and get caught in cognitive loops that elevate them further. Instead, I encourage you to take time to be aware of and nonjudgementally notice your experience of your stress levels.  Ask yourself, as you would ask a small child, what do you need in order to return to an emotional baseline and feel soothed? Not attending to and minimizing stressful emotions will likely make them worse. A blog article walking you through an exercise to help you self care your anxiety can be found here: 

 Listening to your Instincts


Self care pairs nicely with this article on self soothing exercises for high levels of anxiety- step-by-step instructions here: 

 Safe Place and Self Soothing

Finally, please don't hesitate to reach out- that is what I am here for! The world is full of chaos and the unexpected. Ultimately trusting ourselves, our resources and our support system, we will weather the storm.


Live well, Creative! (And wash and scrub those creative hands!)


Cindy


Live Life Creatively,
Cindy Cisneros, LCPC-S, LPC
(C) 2020 Creatively, LLC

It is in your soul as a creative person to make meaning in your life. You could go along with the normative milieu, status quo, and live a low maintenance life- but I’m going to bet that this is not you. Most creative people feel a deep drive to life authentically, meaningfully and purposefully. It is when they are living in this way they are truly happy and feel they are truly living. If you know this about yourself, Creative, this naturally begs the question, how will you make your meaning? What will be your purpose? What does your soul need this to be? Like the North Star of your creative soul, you need a purpose to be your creative direction, to guide the decisions you make in your life. One way to do this is to take the time to author your own creative life purpose statement.


A creativity coach whose philosophy I greatly admire, Eric Maisel, in his book “Coaching the Artist Within,” (a read I also highly recommend), describes a process for generating a life purpose statement, which he states generally has six main elements:


“- making use of your innate talents and abilities, your heart, mind and hands

• using your whole being every day, rather than intermittently or sporadically
• Serving truth telling and other important values
• Getting genuine satisfaction out of life
• Working hard on meaningful projects
• Entering into loving relationships”

In his book, Eric Maisel goes on to recommend creating a statement that incorporates these components into a single statement that will guide the decision making processes of your life. This is not easy and will take a lot of brain power to accomplish. You will need to write down your statement and likely revisit it often over a period of time to finalize it. When I wrote mine, I looked at it again a month after I had written my original statement, only to realize, the second component of what I thought was how I wanted to pilot the purpose in my life, was what I had defaulted to but not what to me was truly meaningful. This is in fact the reason you want to do this work.


Your statement may not include all six of these components but focus more deeply on a select few. Take the time to closely check in with your emotional needs and desires for your life as you think about your life purpose. What has brought you happiness? What has drained you of energy vs built you up? Are you feeling resistance towards any aspects of your desired life purpose (e.g. I “should” or “shouldn’t” include certain things?) This is all part of your process.


When you have finished your statement, you need to take the time to memorize it. To put it in a place of full recall, that you can spout off to anyone who asks you, at any time, anywhere. You want to be able to bring it to the front of your mind on demand when making any decision, big or small. After all, this is going to serve as your guiding light, keeping your life on course, pointed in the direction of your choosing. So go ahead, Creative, as I so often joke in the Creatively offices- stitch yours on a pillow.


With love and wishing you clarity in finding your North Star,


Cindy

Happy Mindful Days


The Holiday Season is quickly coming upon us and with its arrival we need to revamp our mindfulness. In this spirit, next week I will vacation from my blog, newsletter and website- so feel free to take the time to reread some past posts or take your own mindful break!


By now you have had some introduction to what mindfulness is and some ways to use it in your life. Mindfulness is beautifully simple and uncomplicated. When we are mindful, we are quieting the mind and focusing on our present experiences. Even those of us that feel seasoned and successful in mindfulness practices can get diverted from this state of being during the Holiday Season.


Part of the problem with the Holidays is we want them to “be” something. Therefore, we have expectations for them. We compare out and feel pressure to deliver certain things to those around us. Usually these are with the intention of giving the perfect Holiday Season to others. This year, I give you permission to be a little more selfish. Ask yourself what makes the Holidays memorable and special for you? Of the list of things you “have to do” for your Holiday Season- why do items make that list? Let’s make mindful choices this year for how and why we celebrate. Try this simple exercise (as always I advise not to do these exercises without the guidance of therapy sessions- so let’s schedule one of those, too!):


Make a list, drawing or representation of your choosing of what you plan to do for this Holiday Season. If that is already too overwhelming (hmm) then choose one holiday for the exercise. When you are finished, go through each thing you plan to do and “mini-meditate” on it. Consider it. Scan your emotions, scan your body. As you consider this thing, how does your body react? With tension? With warmth? What are your emotions associated with this thing? Stress, joy, something else? Ask yourself, why do you do this thing during the Holidays? For yourself, for others? Allow your mind to consider and hold this information as you think about this first thing. Your goal this year is a peaceful, mindful, happy Holiday Season. Does this thing fit into that picture? Continue the exercise as you go through all your plans. Amend them to take away or add what brings you closer to a more peaceful and enjoyable Holiday Season. Allow yourself to feel the anxiety of eliminating things you might be accustomed to doing from your list. Give yourself permission to do something different.


So often when there are big calendar events like during the Holiday Season, we become so focused on outcomes and making them “perfect,” we miss enjoying them for what they really can be: peace, happiness, family, love, fulfillment and more. This year your new Holiday Tradition is yourself: create a more mindful Holiday Season.


Talk to you again in two weeks (unless I see you in my therapy chair- go ahead- schedule something!)


Happy Mindful Days!

(c) 2019 Creatively, LLC

Hello, Creatives! This month on the Creatively blog I want to talk about dreams and dreaming. We have been exploring energetically this November the actualization of creative visions and goals into reality and our dreams can be an important part of this- so let’s talk more about what they can tell us:


There is a variety of dream theory out there to glean through but for our purposes today we are going to borrow from two major camps: biological dream theory and psychodynamic dream theory. We will label biological dream theory as what is happening neurologically to create dreaming, and we will call psychodynamic dream theory what the creative brain is doing to attribute meaning to these processes to string the events into the story while dreaming and again when recalling a dream while awake.


Loosely described, events that happen to us throughout the day are thrown into the “junk drawer” of our brains, aka, our short term memory. At the end of the day- oftentimes while we are sleeping- we need to clean out the junk drawer and file all the contents away into our long term memory. Biological dream theory generally says that dreams can be explained by the neurological activity that occurs during this filing process- that when we open different drawers in our long term memory, the contents from these filing cabinets may also be accessed to form our dreams. This can account generally for the content of our dreams.


Psychodynamic dream theory has many names and is what you may be familiar with as dream analysis. This is generally more of an art than a science but what is important here is we all have our own individualized thematic system of meaning making both while dreaming and when awake recalling a dream. This can impact how we recall dreams and even how we experience them as they happen to us. Rather than the idea that each part of our dream has a standardized meaning, I believe that the meaning is individualized to the dreamer.


Let’s take these concepts together. Imagine your junk drawer is full of stressful moments from a stressful day that are getting filed into long term memory as you sleep. Your dreams may offer you content like driving with impossible directions, riding in an elevator that is out of control, packing boxes that are never packed. They will have imagery from real life experiences but content from associations that are from your thematic system of meaning making: stress/anxiety. These ideas/concepts will come together to form your dreamscape. The dream will evolve into greater meaning when you remember it and try to make sense of it later while awake.


What does this have to offer your creativity? When you wake you remember packing endless boxes. You feel stressed thinking about the dream. Creative people often report to me recurring thematic dreams like this- “packing dreams” “elevator dreams” “driving dreams” etc. What are these dreams telling you? Cook it back to the biological explanation. It is telling you your system is under stress. Not a recurring dream? What emotional content can you identify? What overarching themes can you identify? What can you connect that generally to in your life? In this way, dreams thematically can connect us with relevant content on our overall state of well being that we might be missing when we are awake and distracted by the literal noise of the day.


We are always more creative when we are emotionally healthier and dreams can be another tool to help us understand and meet our individual needs. They are more pieces of information to help us get to know ourselves and care for ourselves, better. Creative people regularly dream, and dream vividly- so good, bad, or ugly- this is another gift of your creative soul- use it to create your best life!


Want to learn more or struggling with difficult dreams or sleep? I am here to help. Go to the “contact” page to get started!


(C) 2019 Creatively, LLC

Hello, Creatives!


I have been so inspired lately by reading the work of Eric Maisel and today I want to discuss one of the themes from his work about creating holistically. This idea has such a beautiful tie in to creating well, and wellness in your life. The overall fluidity of the concept is so simple and lovely.


Let’s start where we left off: with the idea of duality and embracing both sides of dualistic forces. If you remember from last month’s Creatively blog we explored common dualistic pairs: polarized thought traps artists can get stuck in (process vs product, idea vs expression, discipline vs flexibility, being vs doing and so many more!) We explored our tendencies to over-invest in one aspect of these pairs and by so doing neglecting the other. By recognizing that each of these pairs had an opposite, we were able to understand that both of them were equally valid and important parts of the creative process and that both may be called upon at any time.


Working holistically is the logical next step from here. To work holistically we are essentially shucking the concept of duality altogether. We are rejecting any type of nomenclature for our work- instead we are being open to the moment, exactly as it is, exactly as we are- asking ourselves simultaneously- “what does my art” and “what do I need in this moment?” To work holistically, we are requiring of ourselves to be present, open, and mindful in our work. Sound familiar?


It takes effort to arrive at a place where we can work holistically. It takes knowing and understanding what our knee-jerk processes might be when we create, including avoidance tendencies, preferences, and motivations. Do we choose the same subject matter or materials out of safety? Do we use the same inspiration out of fear of failure or changes? Working holistically requires us to say we have no preferences and come to our work fresh and able to give it and ourselves whatever is necessary and best.


There is important work to be done here. What fears do you have about your creativity? What excuses or avoidance are holding you back? What dualities do you default to? In a recent create well minute cast (#37 if you want to listen) I called you to an exercise- let’s expand upon it:


Get yourself a piece of paper and pen. We are going to make some lists:
1) If I were to tell you to go create in this very moment (right now!) why can’t you? Why won’t you? What is preventing you? List everything. Logistics. Money. Tools. Abilities. Everything you feel is in your way from doing something creative right now. Hold nothing back. When you are done, label this list “avoidance/excuses.” (#realtalk!)
2) If I were to tell you to go take your work public (to a show, open mic, gallery, publisher, friend, etc- keep going through opportunities until you find some resistance) why wouldn’t you do this? List all the reasons holding you back. Include internal reasons like feelings, self esteem, value statements about self and work. Take your time to be thorough. When you are done, label this list “fears.”
3) What absolutes and values can you identify about your creative process? For example- “I am process oriented,” or “my work is figurative,” or “I value technique highly,” or “my work is non-commercial,” etc and so on- make a list describing what absolutes and values define your work. This is a tough one so give yourself time to think it through. When you are done, label this list “dualities.”


You have just identified for yourself three major categories of obstacles between you and holistic creating. Good job! Once you know what your obstacles are, you can identify yourself gravitating towards these old patterns and choose a different path. It takes time and repetition to train your brain towards new behaviors, and starts with recognizing old behaviors so you can not choose those.


The power of working holistically is creating your best work and living your best life, because you are creating and living on life’s terms, not yours (and flexibility is a psychological and creative super power!) It is liberating because you are giving yourself endless options and freedoms. Unsurprisingly it starts with knowing that creative brain, your personal creative self, and a healthy dose of mindfulness.


(C) 2019 Creatively, LLC