The Joy of Creativity: A Conversation with Creativity Coach Christine Hennebury

Back when I was a kid, I really enjoyed doing crafts, making things with paper plates, obsolete catalogues, wallpaper scraps, and whatever else I could get my hands on. And, at one point, I actually felt confident enough in my own artistic abilities to enter (and win!) a fire safety poster contest at my school. (That was back when I was in Grade 3 and I still have that poster tucked away in one of the many “miscellaneous sentimental papers” boxes stacked in a corner of my office.)

One of the many pieces of digital art I’ve been creating over the course of the pandemic.

But here’s the thing: at some point along the way, I lost confidence in my ability to draw or make other kinds of art. I somehow internalized a message that said that my art wasn’t good enough and that I should focus my energies in areas where I actually excelled, like writing. (This also explains why I stopped doing anything even remotely athletic, but I’ll save that story for another day.)

Anyway, fast forward a couple of decades and I found myself at midlife, living through a pandemic. At a time when there were fewer and fewer options for finding joy in the everyday, I found myself drawn to creative projects, like making digital art. I’m happy that I listened to that voice in my head that kept telling me, “You need to do something creative.” Because the moments I spent making art—either on my own or during a group Zoom call with friends—were some of the most relaxing and joyous experiences in an otherwise really stressful and difficult time.

This experience got me thinking about how common it is for adults to put creative pursuits on the back burner for years, if not decades; and how grateful I am to be stretching my creative muscles once again.

I decided to reach out to my long-time friend, creativity coach and writer Christine Hennebury, to have a conversation about this very thing.

What follows are the highlights of that conversation: my questions and Christine’s answers.

Not all adults are actively engaged in creative activities, including arts and crafts. What causes us to abandon the creative activities, like drawing, that gave us so much joy when we were kids? How do we find our way back to that joy?

There are all kinds of developmental and social reasons why many of us move away from creative activities. We seem to develop the idea that we have to be good at something for it to be worth our time. We become more likely to compare our creative efforts to reality (“This doesn’t look like a horse!”) or to a more experienced artist’s work (“I can’t draw like she does!”) and that frustrates us. Eventually we start thinking of ourselves as someone who can’t draw (or write or dance or whatever.)

Writer and creativity coach Christine Hennebury.

But the joy of creativity isn’t about producing masterpieces. In fact, it is not about producing at all.

Sure, there’s a certain pleasure in completing a piece of art but the lasting satisfaction and joy comes from the experience of creating.

We need to focus on the activity of creating rather than on the results.

Try things like:

• drawing circles and colouring them in

• drawing a few scattered stars and then making lines all over the paper that stop on one side of each star and continue in the other

• writing a description of your cup or your dog or your morning

• tearing up bits of paper and arranging them in a pattern

• taking photos of each of the next four squares (or circles or flowers or shoes) that you see

• choosing family theme songs for the next few days

• creating a little dance to the theme song of your favourite show.

Don’t try to create something good, just stick with the process. If you make a mistake, decide that it is part of the project.

It will feel a bit weird at first because we are used to working toward an end product, but try not to talk yourself out of the process. Good feelings will come from letting go of the expectation to be good and from dismissing the idea of having an end product.

What would you say to an adult who insists, “But I’m not creative/artistic at all!”

Creativity is not just about being an artist.

Creativity belongs to everyone and we all express it differently.

You may not spend time doing specific artistic activities, but I’ll bet you use your creativity all the time.

Perhaps you’re a problem-solver, coming up with solutions by combining old ideas with new ones.

Maybe you rearrange things in your living room so they’ll be more pleasing to the eye.

You might be the person who creates the song parody for a family party.

You could be someone who doodles on your work notes, or who plays with filters on Instagram, or who adds a bit of flair to gift wrapping, or picks the perfect songs for the party.

We all have creative instincts one way or another and we can all choose to develop them in a variety of ways for our own enjoyment.

Creativity for its own sake helps us to weave extra relaxation and satisfaction into our lives. We don’t have to be good at our chosen activities, and we don’t have to have a finished product.

Doing something because we like it and because we like how it makes us feel is always worthwhile.

Start small. Choose something that only takes a few minutes of your time, and no special equipment, and practice it regularly. Notice how it makes you feel. Remember that fun is always the goal.

And if people aren’t sure how to get started?

Search for prompts or challenges on Pinterest or Instagram. Buy or borrow a book of creative prompts. Download a prompts app, or participate in one of these challenges.

To learn more about Christine Hennebury and her latest creative endeavours, please visit her website.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. These days, she is hard at work on a book for and about women at midlife.

Book Pairing #4: If You Loved Happy Parents, Happy Kids, You’ll Love Lean Out

I’m back with another book pairing—a recommendation of a book that you’re likely to enjoy if you enjoyed my most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids.

This time, I want to shine a spotlight on Lean Out: A Meditation on the Madness of Modern Life by Tara Henley, a book that’s one part memoir and one part call to action to fix the many things that are badly broken right now.

What the two books have in common is a fierce belief in the power of community: of the importance of embracing our interconnectedness as humans and working together to mend our badly fraying social fabric.

As Tara Henley concludes in her powerful call to action in the final pages of the book, “We are all in this together. And if we want to save our society, we’re going to have to start acting like it.”

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Tara Henley about her book. What follows are the highlights of that conversation: my questions and Tara’s answers.

Q: The world of work has expanded to take up so much space in our lives, and, over the course of the pandemic, the blurring of lines between work and life have pretty much been erased for many people. In what way has that contributed to “the madness of modern life” over the course of the past year?

Tara Henley: I think we're now living the end game of everything that I wrote about in the book. Really, all of the destructive trends have intensified. The tendency for us to connect to our screens as opposed to in person has intensified. Our work hours have intensified. And all of the things that used to buffer us from the stress of work are gone. We don't have face-to-face connection. We don't have a life out in the world. We don't even have hugs right now.

And the incentives to not work around the clock are also gone. Many people that I've talked to tell me that they feel guilty when they're not working, because there's no plausible excuse for not working. And people are also working out of boredom. There's nothing else to do. At least work stimulates the brain.

So, all of the stuff I wrote about in the book is intensified. And it's not sustainable from any perspective. That’s why I think it is a good idea, right now, to really notice how unsatisfying this life is, so we can hopefully make changes when we come out of the pandemic.

Q: Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve found myself really craving the kinds of deep conversations that are possible when you are able to get together face-to-face with other people in the community. I’m wondering if we’ll value community even more when we come out the other side of this pandemic, as opposed to the more limited kinds of conversations that are possible via social media or even Zoom! Any thoughts about that?

Tara Henley: I feel really optimistic about that. I think we will embrace it so much when we're allowed to get together again. That said, I think the technology is always going to be a massive temptation for us. It's so addictive…and we've also seen, this past year, how incredibly destructive it can be.

I think that those are bigger questions for our society. And I don't think those questions should be left to the individual. I think that we need a concerted government effort to look at regulation and consider the role that technology should play in our lives.

Q: The pandemic has also highlighted the fact that systemic problems require systemic solutions. I get frustrated by how often the conversation veers toward individual solutions. It’s pretty clear that we’re not going to be able to self-help our way out of climate change or the other wickedly complicated problems we are facing in our world right now. Is that something you think about?

Tara Henley: So, over the course of writing my book, I went from really being steeped in self-help culture -- because I grew up on the West Coast and that is the air that you breathe out there -- to thinking that it was helpful, in some ways, but not so helpful in others; to thinking it's actually destructive.

I believe that it is destructive because it is the wrong tool for our time. The problems that we're facing as a society are massive. They are structural. They cannot be solved at the level of the individual. Climate change is the perfect example. It's not going to be solved by one person taking cloth bags to Whole Foods. That's just not going to work.

Tara Henley, author, Lean Out

Of course, none of that is to say that individual efforts don't matter. I think a lot about the force of kindness: how in times of disaster you see people doing extraordinary things for one another. And we did see some of that in the first months of the pandemic. The thing that is so difficult about this pandemic is that we're so isolated. I know that people in my neighbourhood are struggling. I just don't know who they are. I can't see them. I'm in my house alone.

So, I think the self-help conversation is a tricky one because I do think our individual attitudes matter. On the other hand, I think it really matters that we start thinking in terms of the greater good and the collective and being driven by altruism and kindness and care for our neighbours. That really, really matters.

But the self-help idea that, "I need to be focused on myself and my own problems; my own inner healing and my own self-actualization and my own self care" -- I just don't believe in that at all anymore. And when you translate that to the big issues of our time, I think it's a distraction. Not only do I think it doesn't work: I think it's a distraction. And I don't think we can afford distractions right now.

How to Feel Less Guilty as a Parent

Over the course of the pandemic, I’ve spoken at dozens of community events and workplace town halls for parents. Time and time again, parents have told me: “It doesn’t matter what, I’m doing. I always feel like I’m letting someone in my life down. Sometimes it’s my kids or other family members. Sometimes it’s my coworkers or my employer. I simply can’t be there for everyone in the way I want to be or that they need me to be. There isn’t enough of me to go around.”

Parents have been feeling guilty — really, really guilty — because they have been asked to shoulder an impossible load: to juggle the often competing demands of work, family, and school.

It’s a massive and unsustainable load and parents have been carrying it for a very long time.

So what can you do to sidestep some of those feelings of guilt? Here are a few strategies.

Know that you are not alone. Everyone is scrambling and stumbling and feeling stretched in all directions and worrying about letting their kids and their co-workers down. It’s not just you. It’s pretty much every other parent I know.

Give yourself permission to be a gloriously imperfect parent and your child permission to be a gloriously imperfect kid. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to say and do things you regret because everyone’s under a lot of stress. The good news is that you can recognize when this is happening and then pivot to repairing the relationship. Parents don’t have to be perfect and neither do kids. We can learn and grown together.

Practice self-compassion. Tell yourself, “I’m doing the best I can in a really difficult situation.” If you’re finding it hard to do this, think about what you would say to a friend who was struggling with feelings of guilt about their parenting. Odds are you’d offer words of support and encourage to that friend. Shouldn’t you be at least as kind to yourself?

Recognize that you’re not the one who should be feeling guilty: it’s policymakers who should be feeling guilty for letting parents and kids down in so many far-reaching ways. You have been put in an impossible situation — and you haven’t been given the supports needed to manage all these competing demands at the same time. It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong. It’s that the cracks in the system have finally broken wide open, and in a way that has caused disproportionate harm to certain families. And that’s not okay. As we start to think about the kind of world we want for ourselves and our kids moving forward, it’s pretty clear we need to get serious about addressing systemic inequities as opposed to allowing ourselves to be mired in the muck of individual guilt. Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Our families and our kids deserve nothing less.

Ann Douglas is the author of Happy Parents, Happy Kids — a book that offers strategies for feeling less anxious, less guilty, and less overwhelmed as a parent; and getting to a happier, healthier place alongside your kids.

Related resources

How to feel less guilty as a parent (video)

The secret of good parenting: lose the guilt (interview with the CBC Radio show Tapestry)

Can we talk about summer parenting guilt? (blog post)

Q & A with Kate Hilton, Author of BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

Feel like you’re ready to take a mental vacation from the world of 2020? Hey, that’s how I’ve been feeling lately, too! And while I’m not about to stop reading books about the social change that so urgently needs to happen, I’m also not about to pass up the opportunity to lose myself in a wildly entertaining and escapist novel. Because it’s possible to do both, right?

Maybe you’re feeling much the same way. Maybe you’d welcome the opportunity to step into an alternative reality—a world where multigenerational family get-togethers are still possible, hugs and all. Kate Hilton’s latest book delivers all that and more. It’s a lot of fun and it delivers the mental vacation are craving right now. Bottom line? It’s pretty much the perfect book to enjoy over the holidays.

After devouring the book last weekend, I reached out to Kate to see if she might be willing to do a quick Q&A about her book. (What can I say? When I finish reading a novel, I always have questions.) And Kate was only too happy to answer those questions. Here’s what I asked her and what she had to say.

ANN DOUGLAS: Your novel is home to a large cast of characters. Did they all show up in your imagination at the same time? Or did some make their presence known to you sooner than others? I’d love it if you could talk a bit about how you (mentally) assembled your cast of characters. (BTW: I thought it was a great idea to include a list of the key characters at the start of the book. I referred to this list repeatedly as I tried to keep track of all the various family relationships. It was complicated. I guess that’s why I’m amazed and impressed that you could keep track of all these characters and storylines.)

Author Kate Hilton

KATE HILTON: I love books with big, intergenerational casts of characters, and the process of writing one was a real education for me. How did the individual members of the Goldstein-Hennessey family unite as one sprawling, fractious, somewhat happy unit? I started with Zoe Hennessey and Will Shannon, who had been secondary characters in my first novel, The Hole in the Middle (Zoe was the protagonist’s best friend, and Will was her first love). Their story arcs didn’t feel complete to me, and I wanted to check in on them and see what they’d been up to. When I started writing Better Luck Next Time, I thought it would be a straightforward love story with Zoe and Will at the centre. However, like the Goldstein-Hennessey clan itself, the novel had strong opinions and was quite unruly. In fairly short order, I’d added Zoe's cousins, Mariana, Beata, and Nina, and her brother, Zack. By that point in the writing, I’d realized that the story was about reinvention more broadly, and how different people deal with life's unexpected plot twists. Then, in the second draft, I filled in the multi-generational aspects of the story, by giving more space to Oscar and to Lydia. Lydia’s status as a feminist icon and her complicated relationship to motherhood are key aspects of the family identity, but those were layers that came later in the writing.

ANN DOUGLAS: Your novel takes place over the course of a year. The majority of the action takes place in 2020 (as Zack tells us on page 54) and yet there’s no mention of the pandemic. Is this because the book was written a year or two ago, before you knew how 2020 was actually going to play out? Or did you make a conscious decision to give your readers the chance to take a mental vacation from the many painful realities of 2020?

KATE HILTON: I wrote the book in 2019 and was projecting ahead so that the dates would feel current when the book came out. Little did I know! But I wouldn’t change it. So many people who’ve read Better Luck Next Time have said that it’s a welcome relief from the grim realities of 2020, and I’m pleased to provide an entertaining alternate universe where the pressing issues are the pitfalls of online dating and the absurdities of the wellness industrial complex.

ANN DOUGLAS: My very favourite page in the book is the page with the wedding vows. I don’t want to spoil the book for would-be readers by saying much more than that, but could you talk about the process of writing these vows? They seem so perfect for this particular set of characters—and yet I’d love to see the language in these vows show up in real-world marriage vows!

KATE HILTON: Oh, I love that you reacted this way! The vows are based on the ones my husband and I wrote we got married in 2018. I changed them somewhat for the couple in Better Luck Next Time, but many of the sentiments are the same. One of the privileges of marrying in your forties is that you know what commitments matter most to each of you, and you have a realistic understanding of what it will take to keep those commitments. My husband and I spent a lot of time reflecting on the kind of marriage we wanted to have, and how we wanted to show up for each other over time. And in writing this particular love story in Better Luck Next Time, I thought the characters would have undergone a similar exercise. They have been through a lot over the course of the novel, and it made sense to me that they would have thought deeply about the promises they were making to each other.

Better Luck Next Time was written by Kate Hilton and published by HarperCollins in November 2020. You can find out more about the book by visiting Kate’s website.

TAKE BACK THE FIGHT: ORGANIZING FEMINISM FOR THE DIGITAL AGE — Book Review + Author Interview

Book Review

When did feminism become a brand, a hashtag, or a campaign slogan?

When did feminism become “something that we can buy or sell, a self-identity or a lifestyle rather than a political orientation through which to organize against the status quo?”

These are the kinds of hard-hitting questions journalist and activist Nora Loreto tackles in her latest book, Take Back the Fight—a book that dares to imagine what a truly liberatory feminist movement might look like and that isn’t afraid to point out where mainstream feminism falls short.

“I was driven to write Take Back the Fight by the desire to understand how feminism ended up here: a word that can be used by politicians and corporations alike who feel little shame about contorting or obscuring feminism to be something that either scores political points or attracts buyers,” Loreto explains in the introduction to her book.

She then goes on to explain the limits of mainstream feminism—the fact that it hasn’t merely fallen short: it has actually caused harm to the women whose life experiences it erases.

“Mainstream feminism in Canada and the United States is white feminism,” she writes. “It’s feminism that seeks to break the glass ceiling but then quickly patches up the hole for the next person to have to break (while leaving the shards on the ground for everyone else).” It’s the kind of feminism “that supports more maternity leave but doesn’t insist that it’s paid.”

In other words, mainstream feminism is feminism for a very select few. “[Mainstream feminism] imagines that the average women is middle aged, white, and middle class, and then sets out to fight for a better world for that woman in particular. When it ignores the diversity and range of womanhood, it also ignores the complex and various ways in which patriarchy, colonialism and racism cause harm to women and will continue to cause harm to women until we force things to change.”

This is a book that will make some women really uncomfortable—and that’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay. That kind of discomfort is long overdue and it’s a critical first step to actually making things better: to ditching faux feminism in favour of the real deal—the kind of feminism that actually has a hope of challenging the status quo.

“Only a confrontational, radical, and intersectional feminism will have the strength necessary to force the powerful to heed feminist demands,” Loreto explains.

And if feminism isn’t committed to an actual shift in power—well, frankly, what’s the point?

I say, “Bring it on.”

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. I’m looking forward to sharing Take Back The Fight with pretty much every woman I know. If you decide to read it (and I hope you will), I’d love to get together (virtually) to compare notes. Let me know if you’d like to do that. I’m planning to host a virtual discussion about the book in the New Year.

Author Interview

What follows is the text of a conversation that I had with Nora Loreto via email this past week.

ANN DOUGLAS: I’m always fascinated by what makes an author want to write a book on a particular topic at a particular moment. Could you talk about the thinking and/or events that made you want to write this book right now? Also: I was impressed by how much you were able to take into account the impact of the pandemic and other noteworthy events in 2020, including the mass murders in Nova Scotia in April. I’m assuming you made a lot of changes during the editing process. You must have been adding new content until the very last minute, when the book headed off to press! How much last-minute rewriting and rethinking was required?

NORA LORETO: The book was sparked by a Twitter thread! I was reading about the news of the First Annual Canadian Women’s March in January 2018 and I was so annoyed that feminists had decided to mark the anniversary of an American rally rather than commemorate something more local. At the time, we were one week away from the one-year anniversary of the shooting at the Centre culturel islamique de Québec and I was so sad to see that there was more focus on Donald Trump than there was on the gendered impact of far right hatred and gun violence in Canada.

After having written my rant about all this, an editor asked if I would be interested in turning the thread into a book. I had no intention to write so in-depthly about feminism but I had been trying to figure out how to break into mainstream publishing for more than a year, so I said yes, absolutely. That relationship ultimately didn’t work, and after some false starts with two publishers, I landed with Fernwood, and I’m very happy that I did!

The editing process was wild. My first draft, which I thought was pretty good, was torn apart. Two reviewers expressed concerns with how I had written parts, and so I had to go back and really think through how I, as a white woman, could write about an issue that is so plagued by white saviourism in a way that would not reinforce white feminism. I re-wrote big sections and made important changes to structure, right up until February 2020. The book that is out looks pretty similar to that final, February draft. And then, the pandemic hit! I wasn’t satisfied with being silent on the pandemic — I knew that it would transform the world and therefore struggle — so I added what I could: updates about the racialized and gendered impact of COVID-19 in healthcare, how people had experienced isolation and loneliness as a result of lockdown, etc. I also thought it was critical to add the voices of feminists in Nova Scotia who were screaming from the rooftops for police and journalists to understand the NS gunman’s rampage through a gendered lens. I wanted the book to have a long shelf life and it felt important to capture that horrifying moment.

There were also an incredible number of typos! When you’re trying to get the politics as right as possible, and when your final days editing are done with two six-year-olds at home full time, you miss a lot of typos, and even add some. I did manage to root out “asexual assault” in time though.

ANN DOUGLAS: Your book has moved me to want to do what I can to help support the birth of an unapologetically radical and intersectional feminist movement here in Canada. I’m thinking of taking a two-pronged approach: (1) supporting the work of groups that are already actively engaged in advocating for the most oppressed women in Canada; and (2) getting women I know excited about supporting this work, too—which might mean hosting a “teach in” where my friends and I could work through some of the ideas in your book and identify local opportunities for action. Do you have any words of wisdom to offer—either words of encouragement or cautionary words? (My goal is to make things better, not worse.)

NORA LORETO: I think that as white women, we need to see our role as supportive - doing a lot of the grunt work to help organize and also ensuring that we create opportunities for education among other white feminists. There is an incredible appetite for this right now and teach-ins, book clubs, private DM groups, group chats -- they’re all very important to give feminists a space to learn and grow. Everyone who has the energy and resources to coordinate something like this absolutely should!

We have to actively resist white supremacy in these spaces. This isn’t easy, as white supremacy is everywhere -- and especially will be present if a group is majority white, talking about feminism. Using texts and analyses rooted in Black or Indigenous feminisms to form our understanding of struggle is critical, as is understanding that leftwing activism in North America is radical and effective literally because of centuries of organizing by Black and Indigenous activists, especially feminists.

When it comes to whatever the spark is to organize something, white women need to provide support and encouragement, and avoid taking leadership roles, especially if in the early stages there are no accountability measures to determine how a leader is chosen. And, to never assume that you’re the first person to think of something. But as you say -- there are organizations that are already doing wonderful work. So be in touch with them and ask: how can I help? What can I do? If your skill is writing, are there factsheets that they need updated? If your skill is graphic design, offer to do some design! If you aren’t sure if you have skills they need, ask! There are organizations who are always in search of help.

ANN DOUGLAS: Do you have any thoughts about where a reinvigorated feminist social movement could find its funding? Obviously, there are perils to being too reliant on government (the fickleness of the funding cycle; the very real possibility of having your agenda watered down by people in power). Do you think it might be possible to create a coalition of socially progressive organizations with the resources and commitment to support feminist movement building? Or is this a movement that needs to be funded through the donations of individual women? Or do you think we need some sort of hybrid model?

NORA LORETO: I think that the only way forward for a radical feminist *thing* (network, coalition, roundtable, organization etc.) is for it to be independent of government funding. I do think it would be possible to undertake something that was funded through a combination of union and personal donations, especially if anchored by a group that had more or less stable funding. Funding is one of those issues that may be more obvious once an initial meeting were to be called and once you see who is around the (proverbial) table with what resources.

ANN DOUGLAS: So, looking forward, would you say that you’re hopeful and optimistic about the possibilities for making change (because so many people are rethinking so many things right now) or are your expectations a little more muted (because so many people in power are also spending a lot of time thinking about what they can do to maintain a grip on the status quo or even accelerate the neoliberal agenda)? Or does it vary from moment to moment (depending on what has shown up in the news cycle on a particular day)?

NORA LORETO: Overall, I'm very hopeful. The last thirty years of neoliberalism society has stretched and stretched and stretched and I think that the pandemic will finally cause it to snap back. Organizing during the Harper years was so difficult -- it seemed like nothing we did could change his mind. Then, we got Justin Trudeau, who became PM in a very different time than Harper's first year (2006 versus 2015), and still, all the Real Change we were offered never materialized. The pandemic has been so hard, and it will get even harder for the next four months, but we can see the way out of it, and that gives me a lot of hope.

But beyond hope, what makes me optimistic is that there is an incredible mass awakening among people to radical politics. The pandemic is a time of massive change. When we emerge from this, people will have energy to put these politics to use, I'm sure of it. That excites me, but is also a reminder that we need to develop clear, radical demands now to do what we can to fight against what is perhaps more likely (but not inevitable) which will be a brutal right-wing backlash to pandemic spending. People will be eager for action so those of us with organizing experience will have to help new activists on the path of organizing and building to make sure that everyone's energy is put to effective use!