Inspiring familiarity in the unknown with creative time
Possibilities are endless when we feel creative.
When our sense of vitality is overshadowed by challenges, transitions, and obstacles, adding this colour throughout everyday life gets tricky.
Predictable
Morning, noon, and night are times of the day that bring about natural reminders. We create routines around them, within them, and because of them. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner provide three opportunities for the same activity, at the same time, each day. Time of day brings our lives structure and predictability when everyday life might not. There’s a sense of security in routines, they ground us in the moment and heighten our orientation to time and space. I’m here, doing this, as I do each morning, noon and night. It’s scheduled. We stick to it.
This is predictability we can plan within the unpredictable lifestyle of living through challenges, transitions, and obstacles. Unsurprising activities can even strengthen our connections to close and caring relationships, we’re prepared for what’s going to happen so we can feel more like cooperating, and we don’t need to make so many decisions.
Surprisingly, with all these perks to singing the same song, it separates ourselves further from how we experience unexpected moments. This limits our ability to adapt to the sudden changes and choices found with unfamiliar, inflexible, and inconsistent lifestyles. Together that leaves us in a jam, only bringing consistency to regularity when life feels anything but.
Unpredictable
When we practice care with ourselves and with another, the future can be filled with more of the unknown than we care for. Using the time of day to build routines creates comfort. We feel better and we keep doing it. Sure, many of us will use mealtimes to eat, drink and take medication: Three reminders because of the time of day. The dilemma here is boredom. Doing the same thing, day in and day out, everyday our whole lives, can delight us and it can dull us. Habitually following habits limits new ideas, our potential to create new possibilities when, what may feel like impossible, situations arise.
When we or someone we care for are experiencing a life characterized more by a challenge, transition, or obstacle than vitality, we may struggle, stress, or snooze throughout our days. This means our experience with time is not in balance with our personal momentum which can lead us into a fearful place, not yet knowing what might be next; where or when. Like boredom, fear leaves us in a disruptive state of mine, challenging our everyday activities even further. Routines become chores, adding disorder to order. Consistency, when mixed with creativity, brings together the best of both worlds. It’s using our time of day wisely, to anticipate joyful happenings.
Expect the Unexpected
Anticipation brings the notion of timing, something happening, into something exciting happening. We look forward. Mealtimes are consistent moments to practice enjoyably expecting the unexpected. This releases dopamine, provides natural focus and energy, and can create possible pathways for vitality during experiences of low motivation, apathy, moodiness and forgetfulness; common results of chronic boredom. Adding music and touch with meals triples the boost of brain power dopamine will bring. This opens up our ability for creativity, allowing more possibilities for vitality to naturally emerge throughout our days and in our lives.
Another way to get this benefit is through acts of kindness and accomplishing tasks; as simple as getting a meal together and enjoying it. What’s more, mealtimes bring us the anticipation of completing a task, another boost of vitality. This purposeful possibility can even create an activity for another time, reminiscing about past joys and successes. There’s a lot of purpose in creating spaces for positive anticipation within the familiar feeling of mealtimes.
Creative Time
Timing is all about looking forward to something happening. Making a choice through the art of wisdom, thinking and acting from lived experience, eases into time of day because we’re used to choosing something and looking forward to something happening. The twist with wisdom is that it can lead us to discover what we haven’t experienced; bringing together creativity and timing.
Creative time is all about using usual moments in unusual ways. When we are able to embrace the tradition of expecting the unexpected, we shape our response to a surprise. Enhancing our reactions creates the strength, energy, and experience we need as we move through unexpected changes and choices in the future. Turning the familiar into the joyful with small surprises brings us to practice positive behavours, uplifts our mood, and creates new memories to reminisce about.
“Being creative is expressing yourself creatively through any form of art…is being more optimistic in trying new methods until you succeed with the right results you were looking for.”
– Laura Annabelle, living well with mental illness
Good Mornings to Good Nights is a set of activities to inspire a flow of memorable moments using creative time. Uplifting our sense of vitality enhances our natural, creative ability to think and act from lived experience. This releases our potential for creating new possibilities and pathways throughout the sudden changes and choices an unfamiliar, inflexible and inconsistent life may bring.
Click here for activity inspiration to bring creative time into regular routines.
