Sometimes we’re unhappy, angry, irritable and don’t know why. We feel the strong calling within our soul to create and yet for reasons beyond understanding we’ve failed to give ourselves permission to designate a space to create in. There is space for our families to sleep, eat, dine and to be entertained in, but where is there room for our creative processes? Without a designated space for our creative expression our imaginations becomes stifled and emptiness and lacking starts to seep into our lives. Little changes can be made to endorse the artist in you.

If you have no room at all to spare for creativity, set a certain time of the day to utilize the dining room table. Make a promise to yourself to grab your journals, book your working on or crafts and let that table represent your studio for the time you’re in it. For that hour or two it’s your creative space. Buy a simply folding table and create a little corner in an extra bedroom or office just for your art projects. My first art table was the underside of an army trunk set up in a basement. Dancers, do you really need that coffee table in the middle of the living room? Simply clearing the middle of the floor creates instant dance space. Even an apartment walk-in closet off a bathroom can be converted into a photography darkroom. It’s already super dark as it doesn’t have windows and comes complete with a nearby sink to dispose of chemical baths. “Limited space” is no excuse for saying you cannot be creative.

For those of you who have even more space, like an extra guest bedroom in your house, ask yourself if you really need that room for that once in a blue moon guest. Wouldn’t it make a perfect dance studio complete with mirrored walls, art room, music room or craft room? It’s important that we set up our home in a manner that will serve the majority of people that live in it now. Sleeping on the couch once or twice a year in order to have an awesome creative space the remaining 363 days a year is a small price to pay.

Perhaps you have a favorite easy chair or your bed is where you’d like to sit and dream up your creative writing, write songs, or select music to dance to. To peak your creativity you can enhance your surroundings by adding scent sticks, meaningful spiritual statues, crystals, candles, a waterfall or a wave sound machine. All of these can tickle the senses and shift your mood into creative gear. Set up your reference books, art supplies, music CDs all within arms reach of your work area so that when your mind is fully engaged in the creative process, you won’t have to stop to search for your tools.

Once you have your space for creativity set up and you start creating in it, the results are similar to that of meditating. Habitual visits to your space will leave you calmer, happier, less irritable, more imaginative, and feeling more at peace. There’s nothing holding you back from setting up space for creative activity other than imagination and desire. The inspiration will be so much stronger once your space is designated for the creative process. Nurture your space and give it life – creative life.