Finding Time for Creative Play - A Study On Inner Parts

This blog post is more like a journal through the lens of IFS. Click here to learn more about Internal Family Systems.

This morning, as the sun rose and the coffee brewed, I pulled out my new pan pastels and colored pencils because I was feeling a jolt of inspiration. Over the weekend I went to my friend Emily Arrow's book event at Parnassus and was really struck by Genevieve Godbout's dreamy illustrations. It's not often that I'm hit with inspiration in this way, so when it arrives, I let it take over. 

I thought I would just play with some art supplies before my daughter woke up and we had to get ready for the day ahead, but I ended up spending the whole morning on this new illustration - playing and studying from other illustrators I admire. 

While I was having fun learning and creating, I could feel some other parts of me coming up, saying it was time to stop, that we had been playing for too long and we had other business to get to - It was a Monday morning after all.

As I tried to shift gears and 'get to work,' I sensed some inner tension. Some parts of me felt like I had abandoned work to play, which didn't feel productive enough. Some other parts felt defensive, like they want to make sure we have time for creative play. As an artist, it's hard to balance these competing inner parts. Especially when our culture is constantly pressuring us to churn out more and more art - for social media, for consumerism, for capitalism. 

Another part then realized that this creative, inspired part may have been taking over to distract me from some other life things that just feel too hard right now. This 'firefighter' part felt like now was its chance to swoop in and save me from feeling sad and thinking about the hard things I'm going through right now - i.e. my fertility journey. 

Once I realized this, it opened some space to feel compassion for all of these parts of myself, who are all just trying to help us be okay. It made me realize that my system needs more time for art, creativity, and play and if we don't make time for it, a fire fighter part may feel like it has to take over in order to get it. 

It's really interesting to pull on these threads and find what comes up. I could feel some bodily sensations pulling me in different directions, which is why I took the time to look further into what my inner parts wanted me to know.

 What I learned today is that...

1. My system needs us to make time for creative play
2. Bodily sensations are a great entry point to get to know our parts (I felt like the pit of my stomach was twisting around very uncomfortably!)
3. A lot of my parts are extra sensitive/anxious right now because of life circumstances

I hope this was an interesting look into what it's like to be an artist and what it's like to look at your self through the lens of IFS!