Creating for and in Joy: This Month's Self-Coaching Exercise
- Jul 17
- 2 min read
Creating for and in Joy: This Month's Exercise
This year, I chose to live in gentleness, and I'm inviting you to explore, with me, a new way to make it real every month.
After inner peace (January), the words we speak to ourselves with love (February), a less cluttered life (March), reconnecting with my body (April), honoring my emotional truth (May), and setting even more boundaries (June), this July I'm inviting myself - and you too - into a lighter exercise, but just as powerful: creating for and in joy.
Not creating to sell. Not creating to prove anything. Just creating to create!
Why This Exercise Works
I've long believed that everyone has a talent. A real one. Often the one we don't dare look at anymore, for lack of time or nerve.
When that talent goes unexpressed for too long, a little frustration moves in. It grows, quietly, until it becomes a weight. And yes, a talent left on the shelf always finds a way back to us, as stress or irritability.
I remember one day when dark, tangled thoughts kept looping in my head. I was pacing my dining room, burning through what little energy I had left, for nothing. After a while, I stopped cold, hit by an overwhelming need to use only my hands.
There was a madras tablecloth lying around, with a lace hem that needed finishing. I pulled out my sewing box and didn't look up again until it was done, completely at peace.
Since then, I know: when my brain hits overload, it needs manual mode. Sewing, writing, cooking, doodling. The tool doesn't matter. What matters is keeping my hands busy so my mind can let go.
July's Journaling Exercise
This week, I'm giving you three simple steps.
First, name the talent or activity you've let sit dormant for a while. The one you keep pushing to later, for lack of time or permission.
Then, give it fifteen minutes, with no goal to hit. Not to be good at it. Just for the pleasure of busy hands.
Finally, open your journal and answer this question:
What do I create when no one's watching?
No need to answer in ten pages. Sometimes one line is enough to remember what feels good.
For this exercise, I recommend a dotted notebook rather than a lined one. Without realizing it, you're giving it more room: dots guide without boxing you in, so your creativity can show up freely, in lists, drawings, or doodles.
That's exactly what the Bullet Journal Great Ideas EstellyHappy, Bogolan offers, with its 200 dotted pages in Bogolan's vibrant colors. It's available in the shop.
I'll be back at the end of the month to tell you how this exercise, and this July, went for me.
To never miss an article, subscribe to the EstellyHappy newsletter. And to start your July exercise, the Bullet Journal Great Ideas Bogolan is waiting for you in the shop.
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