Creativity and Gratitude

Amy Oestreicher

Description

Traditional and digital media: Print and online features, reviews, author op-eds and Q&As, and blog tour. Strong outreach planned for wellness, art, and women’s interest media, print and online. Proven interest in wellness/workbooks to draw appeal in addition to holiday gift and books for the new year roundups. Sample spreads are available for media usage, and author has also been published widely, including in major national media, so personal author connections will be included. Targeted media to include the likes of Elle, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, and Marie Claire, and digital to include sites like Mindbodygreen, The Chalkboard, Well + Good, SheKnows, and more.

National and local TV: Author’s story has proven to attract a wealth of media attention and author maintains relationship with producers at The Today Show, among other outlets. Author is also an established speaker and presenter with multiple Ted Talks and other recorded events under her belt. She is comfortable in front of a camera and has a video reel to show.

Live online appearances designed around creativity workshops with book teasers and Q&As via Instagram Live, Facebook Live, YouTube, Zoom, and independent bookstore websites.

Targeted digital advertising with SEO keywords on sites like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Instagram with a focus toward creativity, art, art prompts, art therapy, healing, stress relief, and more.

Signings and readings tied to creativity workshops. Author is an established leader of creativity workshops and will hold additional ones in sync with book signings and readings at bookstores, libraries, arts and craft venues, and gallery events.

Trade media outreach: Pitch for coverage by Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, ALA Booklist, and Shelf Awareness.

Club push: Book will be pitched to creative activity groups meeting regularly in-person or online.

Embrace your journey. Share your story. Unlock the power of creativity with a year’s worth of artistic prompts.

Sometimes life takes a detour. No matter how much we plan, we encounter bumps in the road that can be frustrating, confusing, and unpredictable. Whether it’s our health, stress at work or home, or current events, we all contend with challenging moments and the occasional curveball. When Amy Oestreicher faced her own detours—including twenty-seven surgeries over ten years and PTSD—she harnessed the power of art to make sense of her shifting roadmap and learned that even when we face the unexpected, we can create something more beautiful than ever imagined. In this hands-on activity book, flush with examples of Amy’s original artwork, encouraging tips, and fifty-two prompts—one for every week of the year—she gives you the tools you need to release your creative energy, and unleash the artist within.

Through sections on hope, gratitude, creativity, and storytelling, you will:

• Embrace creativity as a mindset and learn to look at the world through a creative lens


• Challenge old ways of thinking and redirect negativity into creative growth


• Draw, sing, write, collage, paint, and dance your feelings


• Hone the life-changing art of gratitude lists


• Find magic in everyday objects


• Encounter your surroundings with a renewed sense of wonder


• Learn the four keys to resilience

Whether you are a seasoned artist or novice doodler, working to overcome tragedies or reshape the way you manage everyday stress, this workbook will inspire you to engage a creative mindset that allows you to embrace your journey, share your story, and harness the power of positivity.

Introduction

• Can Anyone Be an Artist?


• What to Expect


• Tools to Get Started

Creativity

• Weeks 1–13

Hope

• Weeks 14–27

Storytelling

• Weeks 28–40

Gratitude

• Weeks 41–52

Afterword

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Bien-être émotionnel
• Bien-être émotionnel
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• ART
• Scrapbooking
• Self-help
• Journaling
• Body (disambiguation)
• drawing
• Self-Management
• Stress Management
• Mixed Media

Informations

• Publié par: Apollo Publishers
• Date de parution: 06 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9781948062695
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

creativity


and
gratitude






creativity


and
gratitude


AMY OESTREICHER


exercises and inspiration for a year of art, hope, and healing




Creativity and Gratitude: Exercises and Inspiration for a Year of Art, Hope, and Healing
Copyright © 2021 by Amy Oestreicher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be sent by email to Apollo Publishers at [e-mail] . Apollo Publishers books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Special editions may be made available upon request. For details, contact Apollo Publishers at [e-mail].
Visit our website at www.apollopublishers.com.
Interior and cover art by Amy Oestreicher.
Interior and cover design by Rain Saukas.
Published in compliance with California’s Proposition 65.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935819
Print ISBN: 978-1-948062-68-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-948062-69-5
Printed in the United States of America.




Introduction 7
Getting to Know Your Sketchbook 19
Creativity 27
Hope 103
Storytelling 167
Gratitude 245
Afterword 305
Acknowledgments 311
About the author 315



Contents






Introduction

Sometimes, the best way to find yourself is to just get lost.
W hen you don’t know where you’re going, the world can be a scary place. That’s what drives our to-do lists, our calendars, our goals, and our life plans. I know this all too well, as someone who had a minute-to-minute agenda, planning and plotting every major mile- stone in my life from birth to bachelor’s degree to a big theatrical debut.
But occasionally, life takes a detour. Something that a yearly plan- ner can’t always account for. What’s a detour? Merriam-Webster has an answer for that:
noun
1. a deviation from the d irect course or the usual procedure




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A detour, according to its French origins, literally means a change of direction. I, however, have my own definition of a detour: A detour is a curve in the road of life, a bump in a path, a big sign in the middle of your trip that says, “Sorry, you have to go that way.” Nobody expects a detour to happen in life. But it’s when we think we have things planned and all figured out that we’re thrown a curveball.
A detour is many things—unexpected, a nuisance, difficult, hard to grapple with, and frustrating—but it can be beautiful. Sometimes, we can’t appreciate how beautiful our detour was until we’ve made multiple twists, turns, and deviations in our set-out path. Sometimes, we can’t realize the beauty of our detour until we spend a bit of time traveling it. We need to give our detour enough time to form a story of its own.
After all, every good story comes from a detour. What would be so funny about the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum if nothing happened on the way to the forum? By sharing our stories, we make sense of our detours. We reframe our derailments as the intricate pathways that make up who we are today. When we tell others about our detours, we become travel partners on these journeys with no straight path. When we know we’re not traveling alone, that road becomes an adventure.
Detours force us to explore new opportunities. When we can’t go in the direction we anticipated, we’ve got to switch gears and adapt. We


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have to resource inner strengths that we never knew we were capable of accessing. When we achieve the unthinkable, we discover who we really are. That’s what makes a Detourist. A Detourist embraces those unexpected routes as opportunities for growth, change, and self- fulfillment. I’m living proof that a detour can lead to unexpected blessings.
Hi. I’m Amy—and I’m a Detourist, too. I didn’t always call myself that. I was the “musical theater ham,” “audacious Amy,” or “the girl obsessed with the animatronics at Disneyworld.” Then, my life took a turn.
The April of my high school senior year, a blood clot caused my stomach to rupture. I woke up from a coma months later to be told I



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may not be able to eat or drink ever again. It turned into nearly seven years and twenty-eight surgeries. Then, the unexpected jolt of the first bite of food awakened memories of being sexually abused by a trusted mentor. For a while, this didn’t seem like a journey, detour, or any kind of road to follow at all. I felt stuck—facing obstacle after pitfall, after challenge, with only a barren wasteland ahead. But I kept going—or rather, stayed on a path— any path I could find —until things got better. That wasn’t easy. It took time to find the beauty in the twists, turns, and detours that I continue to travel. But whose life goes exactly how they plan, anyway? Straight paths are boring.
Because of my fifteen-year trauma marathon of ups and downs, I’ve written a one-woman musical about my life, discovered the world of mixed-media art, published plays, recorded albums, and given three TEDx Talks—all about transforming adversity into creative growth—and through my writing, speaking, and workshops, I’ve inspired others to navigate their own detours by turning obstacles into opportunities. What I’ve experienced is, the more stories we hear about turning an obstacle into an opportunity, the more empowered we are to transform our own lives and have confidence that when life does surprise us, we’re capable of getting through anything.
Even as I continue to deal with wounds, scars, and some medical issues that haven’t been resolved, I look for the upside of obstacles. I welcome the unexpected change in my “thought-out” life and see


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what opportunities may arise. If I took away all of the setbacks, hur- dles, frustrations, and detours, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wrote this book to share the actionable steps that helped me through all of my experiences—so that you too can love your own detours.
How can you start loving your detours? Here are six little tips on getting started:
1. Savor the element of surprise. Straight paths are boring.
2. Find one beautiful flower along the path and name it after the detour that led you to it.
3. Keep traveling to see where it leads.
4. Find a new friend along the path.
5. Use it as a chance to locate your internal compass.
6. Put the pedal to the metal and take the best road trip of your life!






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Can Anyone Be an Artist?
Everyone is an artist! There’s a classic Picasso quote, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
You’ll tackle that problem here. You don’t need to know how to use a paintbrush, play the piano, or do a pirouette across a dance floor to be an artist. Creativity is a mindset—a way of seeing the world—and it’s your best guide when it comes to problem-solving, traveling uncer- tain territory, or finding simple happiness, presence, and life.
Gandhi was right when he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” You have the power to create the change you want to see in the world and in yourself. You don’t need to be a poet, writer, or big talker to express your thoughts. This book will help you express yourself in a more honest, authentic, and satisfying way.
Creativity is not just arts and crafts. Creativity is energy! So what- ever energy you may be feeling—emotions like anger, joy, sadness, or frustration—by doing the activities in this book, you’ll learn how to easily convert your emotions into creative energy. And you’ll feel so much better once you do. It doesn’t matter what you write, or how well you paint. We all need creative outlets to get those restless colors, thoughts, and feelings out of us. I can’t wait to share some tips on doing this—secrets that, frankly, saved my life.
As a survivor of severe medical trauma, creativity was my road map where there was none, my anchor when times felt uncertain, my


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lifeline back to myself, and an empowering tool to feel as though I was cocreating my circumstances along with the universe.
What to Expect
For fifty-two weeks, you will be prompted to take part in a creative exercise that will teach you about the four skills for resilience: Creativity, Hope, Storytelling, and Gratitude.
The Four Skills for Resilience
1. Creativity: You don’t need to be an “artist” to be creative. It’s a mindset! Through creativity, we are able to broach experiences and emotions that may be too painful, frightening, or overwhelming for words, as well as ones that have yet to be acknowledged.
2. Hope: Hope doesn’t just appear in a magical beam of light. Hope has to be created. But don’t worry—we’ll do a lot of creating in this book!
3. Storytelling: Why are stories so great? They give you a framework to make sense of your own uncharted territory. I’ll share secrets from a kaleidoscopic range of





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