Joy as a creative practice

On fear, self-permission, and learning to live artfully

I’ve been thinking a lot about joy. The ways we allow ourselves to meet it, and the ways we hold ourselves back from experiencing it.

What I’m learning is that joy, much like creativity, asks for our participation. A willingness to lean in and a curiosity about where the sensation of aliveness might take us.

This led me to wonder what happens when we turn away from joy. When we avoid the very experiences that make us feel connected and alive. Why we sometimes choose the familiarity of what is safe over growth, even when growth might expand us into the life we say we want.

Sitting with this question, what arose was fear and the many versions of fear we experience. Fear of the unknown. Fear of showing up and being present. Fear of being seen. Fear of living in truth and congruence with who we are. Fear of doing the work that could open the door to the experiences we long to inhabit.

As I move through the final stages of editing and prepare to publish my book, I’ve been reflecting on how long this path has been. The moments along the way when I chose comfort over growth, when I saw the glass as half empty instead of half full. It took more than a decade to arrive here, and more than half my life to call myself a writer.

I share this because, as creatives, it’s easy to criticize ourselves. To censor what wants to move through us. And as humans, there can be a compulsion to delay joy, to push away the people and experiences that help us feel more connected. I can feel that impulse when I think about how long this has taken. Still, I choose gratitude for the journey that shaped the perspective I now carry.

Joy, for me, is not superficial or sentimental. It is a teacher. A measure of how willing I am to meet my life with openness and notice what is meaningful within it.

I often say creativity is a relationship, one we are asked to tend to with care and honesty. That relationship mirrors how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us. Joy lives inside that exchange. It is not a destination but a form of feedback.

So I want to offer a small invitation.

Stay close to your relationship with joy. Notice where you lean toward it and where you retreat. Get curious about the moments you censor it, and the moments you allow yourself to soften into it. Then sit with what you discover.

Sometimes the smallest permissions lead us back to ourselves, opening the parts essential for growth. More importantly, they reveal what it means to live a connected, honest, intentional life. That is what it means to live artfully.

If you need somewhere to begin, keep it simple:

• Take a beat, notice what feels alive, not what feels impressive.
• Make something without measuring its worth while you are inside the process.
• Follow curiosity instead of certainty.
• Offer yourself small permissions to rest, begin again, or change direction.
• Follow the threads. Stay in relationship with what moves you and return to it often.
• Share a fragment of yourself that is real, even if it is unfinished.

A question to carry:

Where am I being invited to choose aliveness over safety, even in a small way?

© Alana Foy 2026