147. Creative Rest in Turbulent Times

In this episode of The Modern Creative Woman Podcast, Dr. Amy Backos explores an important question: How do we care for ourselves when the world feels overwhelming? Drawing from positive psychology and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, she reminds listeners that acknowledging suffering in the world does not require abandoning our own joy, rest, or creativity. Sustainable advocacy and meaningful engagement depend on our ability to restore ourselves. True self-care isn’t selfish—it’s what allows us to keep showing up for our communities and the people we love.

Dr. Backos introduces the concept of creative rest, inspired by the work of physician and author Sandra Dalton-Smith. Creative rest goes beyond sleep or relaxation; it involves resting the brain by nourishing the part of ourselves that seeks beauty, inspiration, and wonder. One powerful way to experience this kind of restoration is by engaging with art—even if we’re not making it ourselves.

The episode highlights the therapeutic value of visiting museums and experiencing art as a viewer. Rather than worrying about art history or whether we “understand” a piece, Dr. Backos encourages listeners to approach art with curiosity and playfulness. A simple practice like playing “I-Spy” with artworks can transform a museum visit into an interactive, reflective experience that sparks creativity and emotional renewal.

Dr. Backos also shares examples of women artists who have created powerful work around themes of peace and resilience, including Yoko Ono and contemporary artists responding to conflict and social change. Their work reminds us that art has always been a way for humans to process difficult realities while still imagining something better.

Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to step away from constant productivity and news consumption and reconnect with the restorative power of creativity. Whether through visiting a museum, noticing street art, or simply allowing yourself moments of awe and reflection, creative rest can help restore energy, perspective, and hope.

Women Artists creating peace mentioned in this episode

Yoko Ono Imagine Peace Tower, 2007

Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton, Irene Perez  Maestrapeace Mural 1994

Käthe Kollwitz Never War Again!, 1924

Transcript

Artists mentioned in the podcast:

Yoko Ono Imagine Peace Tower, 2007

Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton, Irene Perez  Maestrapeace Mural 1994

Käthe Kollwitz Never War Again!, 1924

Hisako Hibi Peace, post-WWII

Shamsia Hassani Various Graffiti, 2010s–present

Lesia Khomenko large scale portraits of soldiers and civilians 

Are you doing what you need to do to take care of yourself? Some of the solutions for self-care may surprise you, and we're going to get into that in today's episode. I'm Dr. Amy Backos. Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. This is a space for the art and science of creativity, and I'm here to share ideas from the field of psychology and art therapy, and give you the opportunity to apply these strategies in your own life. Let's get into this. Let's get this started. 

Before we dive into today's episode, I'd like to acknowledge there are some truly terrible things happening in the world, and they've been going on for quite a long time. However, the work that I present here is based on the field of positive psychology and acceptance and commitment. And neither one of those strategies is about bypassing or overlooking or pretending that stuff doesn't exist. However, you can consume the news, but here I want to present options for you and the idea that you can take care of yourself and feel good. Even though things are happening that are dangerous and deadly. 

The space that I try and occupy is one of peace. And peace always begins on the inside. And that's true. It's a teaching from all kinds of philosophies and religion, and of course, the field of psychology, that how we feel is an inside job, the idea that there's something we need to deny ourselves when others are suffering, or that we should not have any space to rest, is simply untrue. In fact, the people who have longevity in advocacy and education and social change are people who know how to rest. To take a step back, to recognize that this is a relay race. We're all running, but we don't have to all run all the time. At the same time. There has to be space for us to rest because we will be of no use to ourselves or anyone else if we burn ourselves out, exhaust ourselves with overwork or overconsumption of the news. So if you're a woman who has been thinking she should not take care of herself, she should not do a trip or do something fun or just engage in pleasurable activities. This is your reminder that that's what we're fighting for. When we want peace, it's because we want to have joy and happy experiences with our families and friends in our communities. So to abandon all of these things, the pleasures that we have throughout the week to abandon those things is going in the opposite direction. It's essential that we keep taking care of ourselves, supporting the people that we know and love, and figure out ways to be active in our communities. I've had an uptick in invitations to go do some speaking engagements, and I think that people are starting to recognize that we must take care of ourselves and that workplace happiness is essential. Happiness in schools really matters, and being able to use the art and the creative process to feel good and feel engaged is so powerful. I would love to suggest that you could have this kind of conversation with a friend or loved ones in your family. The idea that we need to keep taking care of ourselves and engaging in joyful activities as well as true, authentic rest. And I'm not talking about just sleep. I'm talking about the kind of rest that really nourishes us. So I want to share one especially interesting way of getting some creative rest, and how you can use art without even having to lift up a paintbrush. You've likely heard me talk about Doctor Sandra Dalton Smith, and she's the author of a book called Sacred Rest to Recover your life, renew your energy, and Restore Your Sanity, and you can also find her TEDx talk online. It was in 2021, and she's written extensively about how we have, over time, merged the idea of rest into just sleeping. When in fact there are seven ways that we need to rest. Even if you think about doing some kind of focused work. You have to take a little break, go for a walk. Even if you look up and change your perspective for just a moment, you will have a certain kind of rest. Closing your eyes for 10s gives you a certain kind of rest. It is essential, however, that we do much more than that. Our experience as a human being is not simply to be productive and make money for ourselves or for someone else. There is a deep need for us to engage in the creative, joyful actions of self-expression. I will link a summary of the seven types of rest that Dalton Smith writes about, and I want to focus in particular on creative rest. And if you have a job that requires creativity or brainstorming or problem solving in any capacity, you absolutely need creative rest. I'll talk about inspiration in just a moment, but the idea of creative rest is so much more than just getting an occasional break from your demanding job. It's finding ways to engage in other types of creative hobbies, a different kind of work that is creative. However, not that same kind of work. Coco Chanel famously said that sometimes a break is just doing a different kind of work. And in fact, she was right. So for creative people, having some kind of different creative hobby like knitting, writing, baking, painting for fun, not for work can really help inspire a sense of awe and wonder. And I've talked about that before. Things like visiting an art museum or taking in a beautiful vista can also help restore your creativity. Museums have long been used as a tool in art therapy, and Marsha Russell has written extensively about this. The idea that we can get some kind of therapeutic value by experiencing art is incredible. It's profound. However, it's nothing new. It's been since the beginning of time that human beings have wanted to create art and look at art. This is a biological urge. It has an evolutionary advantage. There's so many reasons why we like to look at art. Now we see it all the time. Certainly in advertising, any kind of commercial or pop up is a graphic that was created in an artistic way to get your attention. We also see it on the streets. We might see mural art, which San Francisco is full of incredible murals, from street artists to really famous artists. There's graffiti art. There is so many ways that people can express themselves in a nonprofessional kind of way. That to be an artist in the city means that you can make art and look at art. There's no reason that it has to be in a museum or something that is deemed art with a capital A, this, like, special kind of official looking art. However, today I really want to challenge you to take a visit to an art museum, and I think art museums are often intimidating. I know for me, I have often felt like I simply don't know enough about the art to truly appreciate it. And I've studied art for decades and decades. However, I don't know all the things about all the artists and I walk in to a museum. I just simply don't know everything. And that used to bother me. I thought, oh, maybe I don't know enough to appreciate what I'm looking at. And one thing changed my experience of this, and it was having a child. He wasn't going to tolerate me reading all the tags next to the art, so I simply stopped reading the tags for a lot of years and just started looking at the art without any idea of who the artist was, what their intention was, what decade it was created in, what the materials necessarily were. And it was so much more fun playing I-Spy with my son as he got a little older, made the art even more engaging for me. And the idea that we have to know, like the verbal kind of historical knowledge of a piece of art is simply unnecessary. We are already fully equipped and primed. We're ready as human beings to look at art and have a reaction to it. And we can, quote unquote, appreciate art, perhaps in a different way than what it seems like when we walk into an art museum. Historically, art museums were these gatekeepers, determining whose art was valuable and what was considered good taste. And we don't have to agree at all. We usually just don't like to be looked down upon. And that was often the experience of museums. However, research shows the more you look at a piece of art, the more you will enjoy it. And sadly for many people, that required costly and frustrating trips to a museum, forced to go on school field trips. But enjoying the art is simply your biological, natural way of being. So I want to invite you to steal my art process of playing I-Spy in the art museum. So next time you see art anywhere in a office or a book, play a little game of I-Spy and see what you can find. What I really want you to do is take a trip to a museum. And it's a wonderful place to go. With a friend, you can look at the art. Have conversation. Have a cup of coffee. And the idea that you can play I-Spy with someone and have fun in this interactive way can totally change your mood, and also your experience of looking at the art. I always think of art as a process that the artist engages with the world, filters things down, puts it on paper or in sculpture, and then when it's done, there will be a viewer, and the viewer begins their role in the process. Their experience of looking at what the artist had created, that artist was inspired by so many different things that may or may not be familiar to us. However, the art is always something that can peak our curiosity or give us a little bit of insight into ourselves. We can show up in a museum asking ourselves a really good question, like, how can I be different in this relationship and wander around until you find a piece of art that gives you some inspiring answers? It's a way to allow your brain to wander, and there's zero expectation that you're supposed to know everything about a piece of art. In fact, it's maybe even better that you don't. Museums have been working hard the last couple of decades to shed that stuffy, old fashioned feeling and bring in more community art, more diverse artists, and create shows that allow us to explore and express and satisfy our curiosity in a completely different way. For the most part, the old stodgy you must know about this artist before you come here and look. Simply isn't necessary anymore for museums to capture the audience, and it is certainly not a very interesting way to learn about the experience of art. I did a Google search to see what artists have made art about piece, and the whole list was men. So I did the search again. Famous art about peace by women. And there's some incredible art. And I would really encourage you to seek out the women artists who are engaging in content that feels meaningful to you. 

So, of course, Yoko Ono, the Imagine Peace Tower. There's also Maestro Peace mural in San Francisco, which is amazing. There's Never War Again by Kathy Karlowitz. There's peace post-World War Two by Hisako Hibi that's a Japanese American artist who was using painting as a form of her own personal understanding after she was held in a internment camp during World War two. There is Afghanistan's first female graffiti artist, Shamsi Hassani, who her work is featuring women with closed eyes. So interesting. And finally, Lesia Cominco, who is a Ukrainian artist, and she's creating these amazing symbolic portraits there of soldiers and civilians during wartime. What I find most interesting is that she's offering a perspective on how we can hold on to peace in the middle of conflict. So now that you know all of this about art and peace and taking really good care of yourself in the midst of conflict and turmoil, what will you create? 

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