The Sacred Studio

There’s a meme that my kids and I laugh about a lot.

Here it is, for your enjoyment:

I don’t know why, but that unsuspecting raccoon and his little hands just get me. The longer version is here if you want to giggle even more. You’re welcome. Of the 2.4 million views that video got on IG, my kids and I account for at least 2K.

Confession: Lately, I’m feeling a lot like the neighborhood raccoon, caught red-handed on her way somewhere she should not be going.

In the judgmental light of these days, less than three months until my new book comes out, I find myself (yet again) stuck in a familiar cycle— something I’ve been working for more than a decade to leave behind once and for all. It isn’t digging in the garbage. For me, it’s the striving. The non-stop, try-hard energy. The insatiable desire to achieve. To keep things moving up and to the right, at all costs.

For me, this looks like:

• frantic/near-constant email checking

• mood swings based on the latest news or metrics— preorder numbers, reviews, social media clicks, etc.

• fatigue— ignored and chased by just one more pitch email, tour stop follow-up, research rabbit hole, until it is suddenly 11:30 PM and I have yet to eat dinner.

• avoiding things I know that help— like drinking water instead of coffee, walking, listening to music or a novel instead of a non-fiction book or podcast.

When I am staring at spreadsheets more than I am writing new words or even morning pages: Stop right there. PUT YOUR HANDS UP. We’ve got ourselves a problem.

If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry, right?

If you’ve read my first book, The Artist’s Joy, you know how long I’ve been attempting to reprogram this part of myself.

As an Ivy-leaguer, a Juilliard grad, an Enneagram 4 who spent most of her life leaning hard into her 3 wing, I am prone to confusing my creative practice with achievement, with PRODUCTivity—it is hidden in plain sight, for goodness sakes—and in my experience, creating from a place of striving always leads to exhaustion, eventual apathy, and complete and total burnout.

When I get to a certain point in the creative process, when the ideation phase is over, when the proverbial rubber starts hitting the proverbial road, I reach for perfectionism and accolades as desperately as a raccoon reaches for garbage. If I had to psychologically analyze myself, it’s the fear and anxiety, the shame, that slips my wheels back into those old familiar ruts. When I feel most vulnerable, I reach for control. I overfunction. I don’t rest. I skip all the things that make me feel like my best self—grounded, centered, free from the outcome— in pursuit of some “atta girl” that will make me feel “good enough.”

You too?

I hope it makes you feel a little less alone to know that even someone who quite literally lives and breathes creative recovery, who preaches artists dates and self-care and process over product and maker verses manager and devotion over discipline— struggles, too. That even after all the work I have done to find a joyful, sustainable practice, it can be hard to stay the course. Lately, I’m finding the higher the stakes, the more tempting those old patterns become. Martha Beck calls it a “change back attack.” I call it: “the devil I know.”

My former writing coach (now friend!) Ann Kroeker told me once that when you create something with a message, for better or for worse, you get a chance (often over and over again) to live into that message yourself, to put your theories to the test.

Try this exercise: go back to the song you wrote about freedom, the poem with the deep truth about love, the novel with the powerful moral, and look at the ways your life lately is inviting you deep into that art’s meaning again.

I know it is true for me. I’ve written about how the tools in The Artist’s Joy helped me get through launching and sharing The Artist’s Joy. I remember a visceral moment in the throes of that book tour when I again felt majorly disregulated and stressed. I found myself in front of my computer, leading a cohort around self-forgiveness at the Exact. Perfect. Moment. I’ve heard many writers say about their own books, “I wrote the book that I needed.” And I would add to that truth, “God wrote the book I needed and my hands happened to have typed it.”

This week, if I am honest, I’ve been more focused on pitching the book than practicing its message. That’s hard to admit.

As I reflected on my wayward, raccoon, striver heart—reaching for the “garbage” of metrics instead of the actual gift of creating—I realized I was trying to outrun the very grace I’ve been called to share. In centering prayer, as I watched my thoughts loudly ping pong against the recesses of my consciousness, it finally hit me: Art is how God loves us.

Not our productivity, and certainly not our success. God’s creative power is God’s love. When we create or simply delight in beauty, we encounter the same love that spoke the world into being—a love that can stop even the most frantic raccoon heart from seeking validation elsewhere.

And all at once, grace feels like that friend who loves you enough to say the hard thing out loud, speaking truth over the noise.

I’m learning that it is nearly impossible to hear that friend when you are running full-tilt toward the next deadline. I realized that if I’m going to survive this launch without becoming that raccoon again, I can’t do it alone. I need a sanctuary, a place to practice what I’m preaching, and I suspect some of you might need one, too.

Writing Art Is How God Loves Us helped me experience art as a spiritual gateway; this week, I realized I need to walk through that gate again myself. And I don’t want to do that alone.

I know some of the weight you carry—the heavy backpacks of perfectionism, the “black trash bag energy1” we use as we try to overhaul our lives, and the simple, bone-deep weariness of a world that doesn’t notice the light in our eyes get dimmer from loss of hope and energy to care. I know from my coaching clients and from meeting readers that I’m not alone in my struggle to stay connected to the Source of creative joy.

So… how about a book group —a creative recovery cluster of sorts —that reminds us that God is already speaking through the “sacred beauty of created things”—through the rustle of van Gogh’s olive trees, the lilt of a cello, or even the chaos of a messy kitchen?

Because here’s the thing: I don’t want to just sell you a book. I want to sit in the thin places with you, to let art be the thread that leads us back to the Creator who is already delighting in us, to use the book and, more importantly, the art that inspired it, to call us home to our truest selves.

So here is your invitation to: The Sacred Studio.2 A launch team, but less selling and more soul.

We will meet on Tuesdays in June (June 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30) from 12:00-1:30 PM EST to trade trying hard for sacred wonder.

• Chapters: 1 & 2

• Focus: Shifting our “God concept.” Seeing the “Jackson Pollock-ness” of our messy lives not as a problem, but as the medium God is using.

• Art: Van Gogh’s Olive Trees or Jan Vormann’s Dispatchwork.

• Chapters: 3 & 4

• Focus: Trading manic striving for the act of paying attention. Learning to “hang on to the thread” of our calling when the middle feels messy.

• Art: Brahms’s Symphony No. 1.

• Chapters: 5, 6, & 7

• Focus: Identifying “shadow careers” and the “simple gifts” we overlook. Seeing art as a Burning Bush that calls us out of hiding and into the malleable clay of transformation.

• Art: Joseph Brackett Jr.’s “Simple Gifts” or Faith Ringgold’s “Picasso’s Studio.”

• Chapters: 8 & 9

• Focus: The long let-go: moving from the “particular” (our specific griefs or art) to the “universal” (how God meets us there).

• Art: Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel or Christi Belcourt’s Wisdom of the Universe.

• Chapters: 10, 11, & 12 + Coda

• Focus: Moving from performance to collaboration. Seeing our entire life as a “Portfolio Life” designed by the “Creator Who Sets Free.” Finalizing our Creative Creeds together.

• Art: J.S. Bach’s “Mache dich, mein Herze rein” and Billy Collin’s “Introduction to Poetry.”

My hope is that this won’t be another thing to add to your to-do list, but an invitation to feel connected and seen. We’ll do select exercises from the book together, look at art as a spiritual gateway, and listen for what is next. The meetings will be recorded, so even if you can’t come live, you’ll be able to get the replays and rewatch them on your own time.

If you’re wondering whether or not you’d belong in a group like this, if you’re curious about what I believe and the kinds of communities we build at Artists for Joy, read more here. You can also read an excerpt from Art Is How God Loves Us (my Creative Creed) here.

Like The Artist’s Way and Artist’s Joy creative clusters, I welcome interfaith dialogue and seek to meet you wherever you are, regardless of your specific faith tradition or lack thereof.

You’ll receive a free advanced reader PDF of the book when you sign up, as well as regular behind-the-scenes updates and other pre-order bonuses via a private Substack group.

This is a free offering, in hopes of gathering an inner circle of friends who want to go deeper with the book before it is officially out in the world.

When the book launches on July 7th, I’ll invite you to write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads and share the book via word-of-mouth if you enjoyed it.

If this sounds good to you, I invite you to put your email into this form, and I’ll add you to the private Substack when it’s ready in the next week or so. I’ll be doing that manually, so hang tight if you don’t receive a welcome message right away.

I know that the “atta girl” I’ve been chasing in my spreadsheets isn’t actually what my soul is hungry for. I’m hungry for the reminder that I am already loved, regardless of how many emails I answer or how many books I sell. If you’ve been reaching for the “garbage” of striving lately, too, maybe this is our chance to put down the heavy load. Let’s stop running, put our hands up, and let the beauty of art lead us back to the very heart of God.

I can’t wait to see you there.

You in? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!