Introducing Stephanie LaTorre – Creative Habitat’s First Official Guest Post Contributer!
For those of you who watch Grey’s Anatomy, you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the joy. Anything you do, you should always find the joy in it. Whether it’s saving someone’s life, or in my case, sketching. Hey, they both have joy!
A few months ago, I scheduled a coaching session with Rebecca to discover my creative habit. It was something I can’t even believe I ever stopped doing. My creative habit was drawing in my sketch pad – just for a few hours a week. Even though I was taking care of myself, she shared carving out creative time and space in daily living was a specific form of self-care – an opportunity to express my creative gifts freely.
Thinking of “creative time” seemed to spark something in me – a memory of when I used to sketch regularly.
Where I lost it…
When I was younger, I used to love drawing. I did it every day. It was my chill out activity. I especially loved sketching cartoons. Disney cartoons are some of my favorite but Looney Toons are fun too, and of course, who can forget the Smurfs. I don’t mean the new Smurfs…I’m talking original 1980’s Smurfs! I don’t know when it happened exactly, but for some reason I went to college and just kind of stopped doing it. My notebooks gathered dust. They were replaced by study sessions and college festivities. Then I joined the work force and that certainly didn’t help things. I was by no means unhappy in life. But somehow this simple activity just seemed to disappear from me. Every now and again I would draw something for the kids to color. But not like before. Besides, I was doing it for them not for myself.
Fast forward to today. Here is what reestablishing my creative habit of sketching has done for me!
Now, at 33 (I’m not old), I have started to feel like a little kid again! After our coaching session, Rebecca recommended I take one morning or evening a week to draw during a meal since this was the time I had more flexibility than other parts of my busy day. Well, once I recommitted to my creative habit of sketching, it basically turned into a nightly practice. And every day I find myself seeing a cartoon or remembering something and going OOOOHHH! I’m gonna draw that tonight!
After a couple weeks, I finally started showing my husband my drawings. At first he didn’t even believe that I had done them. This simple creative habit has not only helped me find a little bit of joy but I’ve even started to remember what it felt like to be 18 and drawing doodles of Marvin the Martian! It reminds me of what it was like back when everything seemed fresh and new.
Committing to my creative habit of sketching also helped shift my mindset…
I work in web design and have an appreciation for art and design, but the idea that my little doodles could put me in the same category as an art form seemed foreign to me – but that even got me thinking. Why am I not an artist? I draw, I write, I design, I make things pretty, I cook. Is that not an artist? Tapping into my creative gift of sketching not only helped me rediscover joy, but also helped me see myself as the creative woman I am!
Stephanie LaTorre
EG Management Consultant
http://www.egmanagementconsultant.us
Here are a few more of Stephanie’s sketches. Enjoy!
She certainly did!
