According to interfaith minister and author Rev. Maggie Oman Shannon, when we immerse ourselves in creative acts, we can quiet the noises around us from our “wild and wired world,” and truly calm ourselves. With these creative acts, we also can cultivate a spiritual practice.

In her book Crafting Calm: Projects and Practices for Creativity and Contemplation, Oman Shannon quotes the 20th-century Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, who said, “Through the spiritual life we gradually move from the house of fear to the house of love.”

Oman Shannon believes the same can be said about the creative life. Through creating, she writes, “we can enter the stillness that characterizes prayer and the ‘house of love.’ We can open ourselves and experience spaciousness.”

Sex, drugs & rock n’ roll. Ever wondered why those three things go together in this famous expression?

Neuroaesthetics is the relatively recent study of questions such as “Why do we like the things we like?” and “Why do some people find one thing pleasing while others find it appalling?” It has focused on issues such as creativity, visual and motor processing in visual artists and the varying factors involved in creative domains.

Many of these studies have examined music and the neural activity that occurs when we listen to and evaluate what we hear.

Salimpoor and Zatorre (2013) reviewed a number of research studies examining the effects of music on brain activity; in particular activity that relates to the feeling of pleasure. The evidence was clear: not only does music boost our sense of pleasure but there is also a dopamine activity in anticipation to the music that “touches us.”

What are you going to do for yourself in this season of spring?

Begin to think about some new channels of growth for yourself, as the time of year for sprouts and buds and new green shoots has begun here in the northern hemisphere.

Seedlings and fresh growth are just busting out now, reaching for the sun’s light and warmth. The approach we take to our challenges, to what has been negatively buried or merely incubating, should be the same. Especially in this time of tremendous new growth, it is good to reflect on our own striving for warmth, insight, nourishment and potential to expand.

So what kinds of questions could you ask yourself to help nurture this growth?

Take the toughest challenges you have to tackle at work, at home or with extended family and friends:

– Bosses who seem clueless to your job requirements; colleagues who can’t relate to you (or vice versa); the stress of deadlines and dissatisfaction of being in a job you are not even sure you belong in.

- Family members who throw plans into disarray, disregard you and have you questioning your commitment (as well as your sanity). Perhaps adult siblings who ask for money or come to you for advice, only for you to soon find yourself involved in maddening family triangles, or aunts and uncles who pull you into long-entrenched but silly feuds.

- Then of course there are friends who you would like to shake to knock some sense or self-reflection into.

Get the picture?

How do you cope with the trials and tribulations of being human and having to live and work among others? Laugh it off? (That’s a good element, actually.)

One of the toughest challenges when you have kids is time, or lack thereof. It’s easy for many things, including creativity, to get brushed aside. For years.

But having less “discretionary time” as a parent can become just another excuse stopping you from creating, said Miranda Hersey, a creativity coach, host of the blog Studio Mothers and author of The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Practices for the Early Years.

Hersey knows a lot about having little time. She has five kids, ages 5 to 22.

Yet, creativity has always been part of her life. For Hersey, “a creative life is full of passion, self-expression, intuition, observation, discovery, asking questions, learning, and making connections, with other people and the world around us.”

The profession of occupational therapy (OT) has many of its roots in the Arts and Crafts Movement, a response to the industrialized production at the end of the nineteenth century which promoted a return to handcrafting (Hussey, Sabonis-Chafee, & O’Brien, 2007). Its origins also were strongly influenced by the earlier Moral Treatment Movement, which sought to improve the treatment of the institutionalized mentally ill population (Hussey et al., 2007).

Therefore, the use of art and crafts in psychiatric settings has played a significant role in OT from the beginning. Furthermore, a core idea in the development of OT is that “occupation, or doing with the hands, can be seen as an integral part of experiencing a meaningful life” (Harris, 2008, p. 133).

Crafts have many potential therapeutic applications: motor control, sensory and perceptual stimulation, cognitive challenges, and enhanced self-esteem and sense of efficacy (Drake, 1999; Harris, 2008).

Creativity has a kind of ethereal, ephemeral quality. It’s the muse that comes and goes as she pleases. It’s the breakthrough you can’t explain. It’s the aha! moment you worry won’t happen again.

But creativity, while magical in many ways, is concrete practice. It’s a garden that needs nourishing, planting and plucking. It’s the muse that sits at her desk at 9 a.m.

So how do we cultivate creativity? What does it really look like? We asked several creativity coaches and artists to share what they’ve learned about creativity throughout the years.

Our monthly series gives readers a glimpse into the creativity processes of coaches, artists, authors and photographers, among others. They share everything from how they cultivate creativity to what inspires them to how they overcome potentially crushing hurdles.

This month I’m pleased to present my interview with Mara Glatzel, MSW, a life coach and the creator of the powerful Body Loving Homework E-Course. I’ve been a huge fan of Glatzel’s work for several years now. (We’ve even collaborated on this project.)

She has an empowering message and a beautiful way with words. (Just check out her blog.) Glatzel works with women to help them cultivate healthy, respectful relationships with themselves and lead meaningful, more fulfilling lives.

When it comes to creativity, distractions “are a mixed blessing,” according to Christina Rosalie, a writer, mixed-media artist and author of A Field Guide to Now: Notes on Mindfulness and Life in Present Tense.

“Sometimes they lead to innovation. Sometimes they lead to hours of time dwindled away without purpose.”

In other words, distractions are not created equal. But more often than not the same distractions deplete us and steer us away from creating.

Whether creativity is your livelihood or an integral part of your self-care, here are 15 ways to deal with distractions.

At the recommendation of a friend, I read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need. She told me that while she wasn’t writing a screenplay, the book was extremely helpful for writing any kind of story.

She’s right, it’s a fascinating look at storytelling, and it also includes some terrific exercises to foster creativity. This kind of playful thinking is fun. It’s fun to mess around with ideas, to have new thoughts, to come up with a great idea. It might even inspire you to write a screenplay or start a novel.

Creativity can seem like an elusive thing. And it triggers many can’ts — as in I can’t be creative. I can’t draw. I can’t write. I can’t make anything.

But the kicker is that you can. You can express your creativity in oh-so-many ways. That’s why I love interviewing a variety of individuals, everyone from photographers to coaches to artists to authors, on their creative process and inspiration. Everyone has their own approaches, routines, muses and creations.

This month I’m pleased to present my interview with Jess Greene, the founder of Seek Your Course, a website that features creative courses and workshops. It’s essentially one big hub for creativity. Workshops and classes are a wonderful way to discover your inner creative, spark your imagination and play. (And we know play for adults is powerful.)

I love Greene’s site and her emphasis on empowering everyone to engage their creativity and craft inspired lives. At Seek Your Course, she also pens a super helpful blog on creativity. (Check out one of my favorite posts on 100 ways to nurture yourself.)

“The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt,” wrote Sylvia Plath in her journal. And she couldn’t have been more accurate.

Self-doubt can persuade us to stop creating or keep us from sending our work out into the world. It can be so influential that it colors how we see ourselves, ensuring we don’t pick up a pen, paintbrush, camera or other tool for decades.

“Self-doubt paralyzed me for 25 years,” said Meghan Davidson, Ph.D, a psychologist, professor and researcher at the University of Nebraska. When Davidson was eight years old, her art teacher wrote in her report card that she had “no artistic ability whatsoever.”

This destroyed Davidson. Her teacher’s words became a running joke in her family, who had no idea of their crushing effect.

It was only after a personal health crisis reminded her of the brevity of life that Davidson decided to pursue her creativity. She picked up a camera. Today, she’s an accomplished photographer whose work has been featured in gallery shows and publications such as UPPERCASE and Artful Blogging.