152. Art Is Human: Why Creating Is Essential to Your Life

Art is not a luxury—it’s a defining feature of what it means to be human.

In this episode of The Modern Creative Woman, Dr. Amy Backos explores the deep psychological, biological, and cultural roots of creativity, starting with a powerful idea: humans have been making art for over 70,000 years—and we still underestimate its value.

This is a conversation about more than art-making. It’s about storytelling, identity, and how we shape our lived experience through creative expression. You’ll learn why waiting for the “right time” is quietly disconnecting you from your most essential self, and how small, daily creative acts can transform your relationship with your life.

Blending art therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and real-life stories, this episode invites you to stop consuming and start creating—because your life is the art.

• Why creativity is a biological imperative, not a hobby
• The psychological cost of waiting to enjoy your life
• How storytelling shapes your identity and daily experience
• The difference between consuming art vs. creating it
• Why comparison kills creativity—and what to do instead
• How to use tiny pockets of time to build a creative practice
• ACT-based strategies to diffuse from limiting thoughts
• How to make everyday life feel more meaningful, intentional, and alive

Practical Takeaways

• Spend 15–20 minutes a day on what matters (especially creativity)
• Wear the clothes, use the dishes, burn the candle—now
• Ask: What would I create if I didn’t need to be good at it?
• Notice and name thoughts that delay your life (“later, when…”)
• Replace passive consumption with active creation

Journal Prompts

• What am I waiting for before I allow myself to enjoy my life?
• Where am I choosing consumption over creation?
• If I treated today like something special, what would I do differently?
• What story am I telling about my creativity—and is it true?

Share your process and tag @DoctorAmyBackos on Instagram—I want to see how you’re embracing your humanness through art.

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Transcript

Art is the defining characteristic of what it means to be a human. The fact that humans have been engaging in this creative activity for so long testifies to its capacity to ground us and inspire us. This quote from Nina Amara starts us off today, and we're taking a deep dive into the unique human experience of what it means to make art, and how storytelling is an essential part of making art. I'm Doctor Amy Backos, and welcome in to the Modern Creative Woman podcast, where we are exploring the art and science of creativity. I'm a psychologist and an art therapist with over three decades of experience helping women elevate their creativity. Hone in on what's most important to them and engage in the art process. Welcome in. I'm so glad you're here today. 

A couple updates from the Modern Creative Woman headquarters. I'm wrapping things up with my next book, and you've heard me talk about it before. It's an art therapy toolkit, and it's written with you in mind. It's not just something for therapists to use with their clients. I'm writing it in a way that makes it accessible for anyone who wants to explore an art process, for creativity, to feel better, and to have a better strategy over their mind. So it'll go to my editor soon, and I've been working with her, I think, since 2008 or 2009, and then off it goes to my publisher, and that will happen in August. So the book realistically will be out and about maybe January of this next year. And my publisher is Jessica Kingsley. And the way I got involved with them is my editor. Ellen came to one of my presentations at the American Art Therapy Association, and I was speaking about trauma to this big audience. And she approached me afterwards and introduced herself and let me know that she wanted me to write a book for her. And I almost laughed, I thought, but I didn't laugh. And I took her card and she emailed me and said, we think you're the right person to write this PTSD book. We want it to be art therapy and post-traumatic stress disorder in the title, and you're the right person. And I said, no. I said, I'm way too busy. I'm doing some projects at the university. And she said, okay, no problem. And she wrote me again in six months and said, are you done with your projects? We still think you're the right person for this. And I said no again. She wrote me later that year and I said no a third time. And then I woke up. I thought, what am I doing? I will always have projects at the university. There will always be something to do that feels urgent. And I realized writing what I knew about trauma and creativity was important. It wasn't urgent, but it was very important and I so appreciate that she believed in me. And this will be my third book with this publishing company. And so I share that story, because if someone offers something important, we, I believe, need to make some kind of space for our lives to accommodate that. And I know women who will always say, well, when I'm done with this project, when the kids are older, when I change jobs, when later, later, later. And sometimes we can't do everything. And and it does make sense to say later. But I know women that always say later, later, later, and they do what's urgent in front of them without making time for what's deeply important. And. Being part of my family has always been deeply important. When my son was small, it was also urgent. I had to be there a lot, and finding time for what's important to us can be a huge challenge. And what I learned from this experience was it took me a while to think about it, but I thought, this is important to me. I really want to do this. And I had written co-authored another book before that, and it took a lot of time. And what I realized is that first book didn't take it took more time and effort than any of the following ones, and someone gave me advice to just spend a little bit of extra time, wherever you are each day, to do that thing that's important. And they suggested to write, I could stay at work an extra 15 minutes each day and do a little writing, that there's always a tiny bit of space in every day, and that has guided my writing. I try and do 20 minutes a day, and when I don't, I. I dislike that. However, I am flexible. Life happens. There are days that I don't write. I'll keep you posted on how things are progressing in publishing, but it's a long way off from when it'll actually be book in hand. Another thing I've been working on and I shared earlier. My son is graduating high school this year and has been applying to universities, and it's been a long process. As those of you who have gone before me know, the experience can be intimidating and I know that the comparison group, you know his peers is not what I should be thinking about. And it took me a little while to remember that, that this is the exact right place for my son to be is applying. There's no hurry. We'll see where he goes. And you know good news, he got accepted at a lot of really great places. He's narrowing it down. I think we have a winner floating to the top. That'll come at the end of the month. And in that process, what I realized was the comparison group has nothing to do with anything. And being able to tolerate ambiguity. Is a lifelong process, and I can tolerate ambiguity and liminal space in lots of different areas of my life, and then it shows up in a new way. The waiting for college application answers that waiting shows up in a new way and it gets difficult again. So what I always understand about our emotions from being a therapist is we circle back to similar emotions over and over again, and they pop up in unexpected ways. And our job is to be flexible and shift and adapt and be able to say, oh hello old friend. Dread, anticipation, worry. You're back. Okay. All of those things are allowed to be in my mind and in my presence. And I really did my best not to act on my anticipation. Today we're talking about art and humanity and storytelling. So let's get into this. Let's get this started. There is a discovery in 2018 where archaeologists have discovered even older drawings. These are new to our scientific community and awareness. And they were in the Colombo's cave in South Africa. And this is so incredible I can hardly wrap my mind around it. They're dating these drawings as 73,000 years old, 73,000 years old. It's hard to even picture that number in years. Art has been with us all of this time. All of humanity has participated in the arts, made art in some way or way, shape or form. We've observed art and we've participated in community related to art, going to dances, listening to music at a concert, visiting a museum, looking at art while you're waiting for something in a doctor's office, watching graffiti go by on a train, propaganda, advertising, architecture, poetry. We made art in school, at least up until age 12 or 13, and hopefully longer. We've all been part of this human experience. It's everywhere. It's in everything. The design of the furniture you're sitting on. All of this, and yet somehow we struggle to find value in it that it's the starving artist narrative takes over. People fear using art in a more deeply profound way for their lives. People worry their children will become starving artists if they like art at all. Art exists in the clothes you're wearing. Someone thought of them, made them. Someone displayed them, advertised them. You selected them, put them on your body. You chose your outfit that you're wearing. Creativity and self-expression is everywhere. It's a biological imperative. In fact, all human beings possess the capacity for creativity, and one of the functions of art is to make every day special. You can do that through architecture, through the clothes you wear, through decorations, at a birthday party, through journaling, making art in your art journal. Making events special really is basic to human evolution. It's fundamental in our day to day experience. You have undoubtedly heard the advice to live now, to use your special dishes, to wear your fine clothes, to not save things for one day when or set aside the good stuff for only when company comes. My mother used to say, the queen is not coming. We don't need to save that. And it always made me laugh as a kid, but it really stuck in my head. She's right. There's no one special that's coming besides the people that are here. And it's us and we are special. And I've been really moved by what the astronauts are saying on this latest space mission, and they are so full of wonder and awe, and they're writing about the specialness of humanity and how cool it is to think about it from that perspective. Making the most of our day to day experience through art is really how we create that life that we love and appreciate. And so many of the women that I work with are waiting to enjoy their life. Waiting for a big life event, or waiting until they feel a little better. Waiting until they're in a situation that seems like a more hospitable environment for creativity. And these beliefs all come from thought and an acceptance and commitment therapy. The goal is to diffuse from thought. We can observe it with curiosity. We can wonder, why am I saving those nice pants when I could wear them today? Why am I not using the beautiful dishes that I selected? Why am I not burning the candle that I bought? I think a lot of this just comes from social conditioning that we have to save things for good. We have clothes for our religious days or our holidays that we don't wear on every day when we're kids. And it makes sense. You know, kids are hard on their clothes, and it makes sense if there's a special holiday coming up and there's a special outfit for it, that we save it until the holiday, it makes sense for kids. But the lesson turns into us holding on to that idea. Other examples are each a meal before you have dessert, and we learn through that to withhold pleasure from ourselves. My husband was traveling two weeks ago, and my son and I had ice cream for dinner, because why not? Something my mother would do. Take us to the ice cream shop for dinner so you can tell a better story. You can explore possibilities through art, and it's a really wonderful way to explore alternative ways of thinking and experiencing the world. So can you tell a better story to make your day special? Can you create an intentional context? Think about your favorite movie. You can imagine the characters, what they're wearing, where they're going. Someone thought of all of those characters. They invented that person. And then set designers invented the scenery. The costume designers created the clothes, and we can use that same philosophy ourself. Now, the brain doesn't necessarily want to develop mentally. We want to have convenience and ease, and our brain doesn't want to work too hard. But if you woke up tomorrow and said, well, what could I do? If I could do anything, what would I wear out of my closet? If I could wear anything in here? What might you put together? If you go to your art table and pull out your art supplies and ask yourself, what might I create that's completely new and different from me? That's full of emotion, not technical skill, but shows my emotion. What would you create as an artist? You might have an idea in mind of what you want to create, or more likely, you just have the idea that you want to create to move the Cray POS or the markers across the paper to shape the clay into something, or move your paint, brush it across the canvas. It's unnecessary to have clear intention before you begin. As a reminder, it's unnecessary to have any skill set before you begin, and in fact, maybe it's even better. There is no need to be a great artist to start making art. I know some really phenomenal speakers and they get on stage and I am rapt with attention and I love to hear them speak. It does not make me stop speaking because I think they're so good at it. They're outstanding, but we all still talk, even if we're not outstanding orators up on a stage. We all still talk or sign or paint or sing. It's human to express ourselves in this way. The same is true for painting. I have some beautiful paintings on my wall, and some of them I painted, and some of them I had inherited from my family, and the one that sits across from me at my desk. It's incredible. It does not stop me from making my own art. Just because it's great doesn't mean I shouldn't. Of course, there will be always people better at everything. There'll be people worse. But as I mentioned before, when talking about my son and applying to colleges, the peer group does not matter if we're comparing. We are stifling ourselves. If you want to know more about that, go back to episode 151. Imagine 73,000 years ago, a human being picked up some okra and started drawing it on a wall on a rock wall. Someone had this clever idea and it really now we understand to be a biological urge to create. So what I'm hoping you'll do this week is embrace your humanness, not striving towards perfection or a perfect painting, or being great at something. But. But imagining what it's like to just be yourself, your full, authentic self as a human being, and honoring all of those things. Consumption of other people's information. Okay, but it's not the same thing as creating. And when we're not creating, we are denying this fundamental aspect of our humanness. Let me know. You can message me in the show notes. You can find me on Instagram at Doctor Amy Bakos. And I would love to hear how you're embracing your humanness this week, how you are creating, and how you're recognizing your own creation. Consumption will always happen. You don't even have to really try very hard to consume art. To make art requires just a few moments a day to allow that part of yourself to be expressed and to flourish, and it supports all of the rest of the other areas of your life. So now that you know, what will you create? I'm excited to say the modern creative woman is now heard in 84 different countries and territories in over a thousand different cities. It blows me away. I'm so proud of all of the women who are showing up for themselves for a few minutes every week to focus on their creativity. It's amazing. This is episode 152, and you may have noticed there are zero ads. And I listen to a lot of podcasts and I dislike listening to ads, so that's why I made it possible. For those of you who could afford to help sponsor the show to do that, and for people who can't. It's still available in a more smooth, seamless listening experience. So in the show notes, you can sponsor the show $3 $5 a month, and it helps offset my costs, and the opportunity to share the show with some of your friends also is a huge contribution and it's free. Leaving a review on any of the podcast platforms is so helpful. Also free. So if you would share with a friend or leave a review, it's a really great way for others to discover the podcast. And I'm so grateful for you for listening, for showing up, just taking a few minutes of your time. You get kind of this intellectual experience about art, and hopefully you're getting some encouragement from me to create art in all aspects of your life. Creative thinking is what we were born to do. We were made this way to create art and to create our lives. And I'm so grateful that you're here. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I look forward to speaking with you in the next episode.