Living a Creative Life

What does it mean to live a creative life? For me, it has meant conquering fear primarily and pursuing what excites me. In my own experience and in those who share what holds them back, fear is always lurking. "Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance," says Steven Pressfield in "The War of Art." I believe we all want to create in some shape or form, it doesn't have to be painting or "artsy" stuff.

I've always been a "maker." I was making things from the time I was a young child, building and decorating a barbie house made of cardboard with rugs, wallpaper and curtains. Needlepoint and embroidery, knitting and crochet came along and then fiber arts, dying and spinning my own yarn and felting scarves. I also had a stint where I made colorful coats out of old cashmere sweaters. It wasn't until about 4 years ago that I became brave enough to try painting. For some reason that one really intimidated me, that's what "real artists" did and I wasn't one of those, I thought.

Living a creative life means experimenting, being playful, learning and thinking about what we really want to be doing in this life. "Our identity, our storyline, is created by what we repeat. It becomes what we believe," says the Headspace app. So I allowed myself to begin to dabble in painting (terrified and also thril