Megan Miller, a landscape painter, discusses using daily creative routines, journaling and short sketches to find calm during big life transitions and how 30-day commitments and small steps build creative strength that supports broader change.
Megan Miller is a landscape painter. She talks about how to navigate and calm ourselves through big life changes. One thing she has found is committing to something for 30 days and giving yourself some grace. Giving yourself some creative strength can spill over to other aspects of your life.
So questions I have for you to think about and journal is, you know, finding a notebook or finding something that feels good to have with you today. And like where, where do I see myself in five years? Where do I Want to be in ten years? Building that relationship with yourself is so important.
I think we're connecting. Good afternoon. I am Megan Miller, and I'm just starting. I never, always know when we're connected. It's midday for a lot of people, so good afternoon. I always try to create a midday place of calm. And I think we all just. We know that calming is. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. We all know that we need to take time to breathe and have a little tea. But sometimes when we see other people doing it and inspires us. And Tootsie might be joining us, my cat, I am just popping on quick today.
I'm a landscape painter. Tootsie is saying hello. She likes to be on camera. And I'm just popping on to talk about life transitions and changes in all of it. And I was. I was lucky enough when I went through big life, career, relationship, marriage, divorce, that I had people around me, that I shared my story with, trusted people, and they shared their stories. And I learned so much. So I feel inspired to share bits and pieces of what I learned along the way. And if I can pass on some little nuggets of wisdom that help you, I want to do that.
And I'm a background in yoga teacher training and yoga calm. And we say we. We do the things that we need. And I definitely needed to find calm in my life. So a few creative ways that I have found that have been really helpful is setting up, actually spending time, quiet time putting away the distractions, finding a time where you can have an hour of quiet and grabbing a journal and starting the creative visual process. Like, I think that is where it all begins. Any life change that we want to make, whether it big or small, just taking time where you can relax your nervous system, where you can feel peace.
And maybe it's outside, maybe you have a place in your home, maybe it's your car that you can go. And if you're wanting to make some changes, really be clear on some of those things. And I think there's such power in writing things down. I love journaling, journaling. I love making little sketches. And that is how I have moved it. Moved to my studio, moved into my house. Like, I create started with little sketches. And it seemed impossible at certain times in my life to get there. But doing those things.
And I think. And then I love dating them. And then you look back and you realize slow little changes in your life can add up to big changes. And so if you want to get here, like, it's a lot of small steps to build that strength and courage. And there'll be dips when we're when we're changing jobs or changing relationships or moving somewhere, it's not always like a linear path. Sometimes it takes time. So what I did, I found peace in the landscape. So I went out over and over again and I painted little one hour paintings in a field that I felt calm and then I went out and I just set aside an hour a day to do that.
And then I started creating bigger things. And then giving yourself some creative strength can always that can spill over to other aspects of your life too. I think that creativity can open up other pathways and in movement is important. So finding ways to support your nervous system breathing. Some people are really into tapping. I know people who that they found calming their nervous system. So if you just joined, we're talking about how to, how to navigate and calm ourselves through big life changes and even a 30 day.
One thing I have found is committing to something for 30 days and giving yourself some grace. So I did a 30 day painting challenge and sometimes I gave myself 40 days. And it's not about painting, it's not about. But it's kind of about committing to something and slowly taking time out each day for yourself. I think that is so important because we can get bombarded and feel like we have so much to do in so many places. But taking and setting aside one hour a day can really help us feel calm with ourselves.
And once we start building the capacity for it, we can expand that calmness. So limiting distractions again. Finding places that you feel good and noticing your desire path. I think we all have this desire path. Places that we're naturally drawn to that we want to spend time in. Go to those places, spend time in those places and it doesn't have to make sense to anywhere anyone else. And you don't even have to share it with anyone else but just carving out time for yourself. And then again drawing and journaling and all of the things that I was drawing and journaling about 10 years ago I made the moves.
I got out of a relationship that no longer serving me. I got out of a marriage, I moved. I ended up buying my own home. But at that 10 years ago it seemed impossible. And like I said before, people shared their stories and helped me along the way. And slowly by doing some strengthening exercises like committing to something, knowing I could do something that can also help you. So questions I have for you to think about and journal is, you know, finding a notebook or finding something that feels good to have with you today.
And like where, where do I see myself in five years? Where do I Want to be in ten years. And it. And again, like, push it a little bit, make it seem, oh, that feels a little scary. You know, it feels out of my comfort zone. So ask yourself those questions, and if you can't answer them right now, maybe take time. And again, you don't need to share that with anyone, El. You can just put that in your journal and file it away and then keep it with you. And then you'll slowly find ways to get where you want to go.
And the other questions I was would ask, like, what is your spark? What things light you up? You know, if it's a job change, I did a huge career change, and I just noticed. I went towards what I was just naturally drawn to and noticing those sparks that are within you. And maybe it's not ways that you can necessarily implement that in a career change. Maybe it's ways that you can just, you know, if you are a writer, maybe you can carve out some time each day for an hour to write and finding ways to support those dreams and slowly build towards that.
So asking those hard questions and deciding who and if you want to share those with others, because sometimes people will share their. And if you tell them some big impossible dream or something that you want to do, sometimes their fears come to the surface and kind of stunt our growth. So keeping that. Building that relationship with yourself is so important. So those are a few things I wanted to share with you as I'm taking my little afternoon tea break. I have a candle on. I'm doing all the things I just talked about.
I'm journaling, writing down things that I want to complete in the next month. I'm writing things now for the next five years, for the 10 years. And it's. It's. Sometimes it feels impossible, but then you look back and you can create the life that you want. So I just wanted to send that out today. And I hope that you're doing well. And if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear what you're thinking about or daydreaming about out. I'm such a big believer in that and the power of the imagination.
So take care, everybody. Have a great day.
