Up: [[Emotions]] Course: Eight Days with Jenafer Joy, Inspired Inquiries Created: 2024-09-21 Updated: 2026-01-20 We each tend to default to more of a sympathetic (activated/fast) or parasympathetic (relaxed/slow) approach to creativity with forays, of course, into the other. Activated taken too far becomes anxiety/overstimulation/too much. Relaxation taken too far becomes depression/checked out/gone. Going too far in either direction freaks out your nervous system so it doesn't feel safe. In the middle, however, there's a band that one expert refers to as the zone of confidence. In an online course with artist Jenafer Joy, she asked us to draw that band and to map the creative actions that fit there for us. Below the band, list the actions that take us to the negative end of depression/checked out/gone. Above the band, the ones that are anxiety and overstimulation and too much. I did the activity then realized that, for me, most art activities could be in any of the three categories, depending on my mood at the time. So art making, at least right now, is not being used by me as a mood regulator. I also learned that things that take me into too activated — community involvement, any focus on product, trying to follow a class and do exactly what the instructor does, and a blank page where I have no ideas — doesn't keep me in the overly activated end because I shut it down right away and go to checked out/gone/depression. #Insight