Creativity as Healing: Returning to the Joy of Making

I did not realize how much I had missed creativity until today.

Funny thing is - the cake I made was not just for fun. It was a commission, and yes, it technically had a deadline. But even with that, I didn’t feel stress. Not the kind that tightens the chest or rushes the mind. Instead, it felt like slipping into a familiar rhythm, a soft place inside myself that I’ve returned to for years.

I’ve been making 3D cakes for a long time and is a reminder of the healing journey I have been on, from winning cookery competitions to not being able to come ordinate a knife to cut a cucumber... And back to creating again... somewhere along the way it certainly became part of my healing.

There’s something about shaping and sculpting fondant, and watching an idea take form beneath my hands that brings me back to myself. It’s a kind of creativity that anchors me... a process that gently pulls me into the present moment of now... Peace... Healing...

As I worked on the cake today, I realized how deeply I had missed that feeling. Not the act of creating for an audience or a client, but the quiet meditation that happens inside the process.

So many think meditation means sitting still and emptying your mind, but that has never been my truth. For me, meditation is being so absorbed in the now that time loosens its grip, Theta slides in and peace returns to the soul.

Today I am reminded creativity is meditation.

And maybe you’ve felt that, too... that tug toward something creative that keeps getting pushed aside. We often tell ourselves we don’t have time, or we’re not “artistic enough,” or there are more important things to do. But creativity isn’t about skill or productivity; it’s about giving yourself space to breathe. Even five minutes of drawing, kneading dough, stitching, humming a melody, or shaping something with your hands can pull you gently back into the present. You deserve that softness, that moment where your mind exhales and your heart remembers what joy feels like.

It’s not about “doing nothing.”

It’s about doing something with presence.

Making this cake - deadline and all - brought me into that state. I wasn’t rushing. I wasn’t overthinking. I wasn’t anywhere except right there with the textures, the colours, the motions.

Creativity has always been one of my physical ways of reaching that peaceful, tetra-like state where my body relaxes and my mind opens just enough to breathe.

Today reminded me that I need this.

Not because it’s work.

Not because someone is waiting for the finished product.

But because the process itself heals parts of me I often forget to tend to.

A simple cake, a commission, a deadline and yet it gave me back something I didn’t know I’d misplaced: the calm, grounded joy of creating.

What do you do to bring meditation into your life via creativity?

One I made earlier... As I cannot share today's, yet 🤷🏻