by kristin noelle

Making art and working with my hands have been lifelong loves and ones I’ve delighted in sharing with my kids (now 3 and 5). Peak in my windows almost any day and you’ll find one or more of us drawing, painting, building, taping, clipping, ripping, shaking, mixing, or baking.

The less obvious expressions of my creativity, however, have often been my lifelines in the challenges I face as a contemplative woman (read: person who thrives on quiet time alone), mothering two young, and appropriately active kids.

Here are four of my most treasured creative practices:

1. Nurturing wonder:

Like gratitude, wonder shifts my awareness away from the challenges that have accompanied life with young kids for me: fatigue, autopilot syndrome (the necessary repetitiveness of tasks sometimes turns this on in me), self pity.

I nurture wonder by trying to pay attention to both smaller and bigger details than I might otherwise see: the tenacity of the ants who search for food in our home; the way light streams through windows differently depending on the season and time of day; the colorations of flowers and leaves; the full orchestra of workers required to plan and build the house down our street.

When I look closely at any such thing, and consider the beauty or miracle inherent to it, I feel grateful and glad. I feel energized to create a life for myself and my kids where wonder is part of the air we all breathe. Is the ground by which we find ourselves supported.

2. Playing with answers:

Kids ask a lot of questions. And it’s a natural instinct to either give them an answer, to say, “I don’t know,” or to offer some version of, “Mommy needs a break from questions now, kay?”

I’ve discovered, however, that a little creativity in the midst of question-asking transforms my question fatigue into something more like wonder.

When my kids ask me a question, whether I have an answer or not, I often ask them if they have ideas about it. If they don’t, I prime the pump a little bit – either with a plausible answer, or with something that’s beyond the range of plausibility. “Do you have another idea?” I then say. We often launch into full-on brainstorm mode, where all three of us are coming up with numerous hypotheses for why there’s a dent in the car next to us, or a hole in the road, or a worker doing something with power lines overhead.

I leave sessions like this awe-struck by the human mind, and by the ways kids and adults can think creatively when pushed even gently to do so.

3. Tangibly valuing my work and self care

Young kids are appropriately needy, and I quickly and whole-heartedly…and at times with great overwhelm…accepted this reality.

Trial and error proved that complete neglect of MY needs, however, was bad for everyone involved. So I’ve made a practice of tangibly valuing my work and self care even in the midst of this intensely self-giving season.

For me, this has meant negotiating 20-30 minutes of solo meditation time in the morning while my husband watches the kids; a half hour of “room time” each afternoon for all of us, even when my kids were done needing to nap; two afternoons of babysitting so that I can write and make art not only when I’m tired in the evenings; saying “no” sometimes when an otherwise healthy, requested activity would take more from me than I feel I can freely or joyfully give.

These are all things that have taken creative thought to fit in and make habitual, and all things I consider integral to the health and happiness of me AND my kids.

4. Maintaining tension with my ego.

Sibling spats are one of my biggest triggers of anger. Recognizing my anger as an ego flare (i.e. I’m personally offended that you don’t have adult-level impulse control, kids! or Why are you making life so hard for me? or I feel so out of control of the situation when you fight like this – how dare you make me feel this way!) has led me to apply my creativity *often* to holding tension with my ego. Almost every day I’m trying to give nods of recognition to my ego in the face of sibling spats while simultaneously taking deep breaths, choosing a calm voice over the instinctual one of indignation, working to pull away from the situation in my mind and view it from the outside, at a much more cool distance.

My average of success at such things has room to improve (!), but I’m finding so much satisfaction in the efforts I expend to think creatively about how to avoid ego-traps, and how to get myself out of them once I’ve fallen in.

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I hope that in all the art we create together, all the art I sell and make a living from, my children learn alongside of me that creating a mindful, wonder-rich life, where respect of self and others are part of the very same whole, is one of the greatest beauties we could ever hope to know.

Kristin Noelle is a writer and illustrator. Her blog, Trust Tending, uses music, words, and art to nourish Life beyond fear. She lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband, young kids, and five chickens.

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