Creativity Check-In: 🌟 "The Wheel of Emotions"
How's Everyone Doing? Share Your Creative Project and Special Moment
Welcome
Hello! I’m Emily Lupita. I’m a travel writer & artist from rural Iowa currently living between Iowa City and Ankara, the capital of Turkiye. I’m also a book series founder & editor.
Creativity Check-Ins are where we come together to share how our creative projects are going, what we’re working on, and stories from our daily lives as creative people. I’ll also share an activity for some self-care & to get our creative energy flowing.
This is a new feature on - Emily Lupita Explores - a creativity journal where I share explorations from my writing desk & art projects, plus illustrated stories of travel adventures with my two Autistic sons.
🌟 Check in by sharing your answers in the comments:
How’s it going?
What are you working on?
Share a special moment with us.
🦋 I’ll go first…
How’s It Going?
I took some time off from all social media and also paused this newsletter recently. I ended up missing the process of working on my art projects and also I missed connecting with my community here. So I started back with this newsletter again much sooner than I imagined. That made me happy and was a much-needed boost to my creative spirit. I’m on the right path and should lean in rather than fall back.
What Are You Working On?
I’m working on Chapter 4 of The Poet’s Daughter and the next Lupita self-portrait.
Share A Special Moment With Us
My special moment this week was when it started to snow here in Ankara. Oh, my sons were so excited to see the snow. We went out to the playground and gardens around our place…Archie and I threw snowballs at each other while Charlie flapped and jumped watching us. We tried to have a snowball fight with Charlie but he ran away. I wasn’t sure if Charlie liked it or not. A few hours later, back in our cozy living room, Charlie suddenly jumped up and said with a huge smile as he pretended to throw a snowball, “Playing in the snow!”
An absolute delight.
🌟 Activity for Self-Care
The Wheel of Emotions
Today’s creative self-care activity is to make our own “Wheel of Emotions.”
Making our own wheel is important because it will help us understand that by learning to name our emotions, we can become more aware of how we’re really feeling. And this will help us to take the self-care steps we need.
It’s perfectly okay to be feeling emotions in all areas of the color wheel. We can feel upset and optimistic. We can feel tired and excited. That’s why it’s a wheel and not a straight line.
This first wheel (above) is the original Wheel of Emotions first developed by author Dr. Gloria Willcox, and modified many times to fit different uses. This graphic is from The Junto Institute.
Let’s use this black & white outline version of the wheel (above). Print it out then grab a few colored pencils, your watercolors, some markers, highlighters…whatever you have within easy reach. Or use your phone / tablet and digitally color.
Color in the wheel however feels best
Notice the words as you color over them
Now go back and mark the words that most resonate with you - circle, underline, or color those words more intensely
🎨 Here’s my wheel as an example.
🌟 How was the activity? Share your thoughts in the comments. 🌟
👩🏻💻 Links & 💌 Sharing
I’m back on LinkedIn here. But taking a break from all other social media.
Vote for your favorite & read more about my current projects in progress here.
New! Read about my project plan for this newsletter’s third year (2024-25).
Check out my books on Amazon by searching my author name - here.
Please help me reach out by sharing this newsletter with someone you think may be interested. (Click on “Refer a friend” below.)
❤️🔥
It’s wonderful to see you again! The last three weeks have brought quite a mix of experiences, especially on the right side of the first Juno wheel. It's been a scary rollercoaster ride from political happenings to personal challenges. I took a little time away from social media to process everything I felt. Taking deep breaths, meditating, and slowing things down while focusing on reading and writing helped me shift over to the left side of the wheel.
What am I working on, you ask? I'm currently in the querying stage for my third YA novel. My goal is to connect with a larger publishing house or a literary agent to bring this book to more people (via marketing) since smaller presses published my first two.
A special moment I want to share: the skinny stray cat I started feeding in my backyard turned out to be pregnant. She had two adorable kittens; I’m happy to say we found them a good home! The waiting list for spaying was long—about two and a half months—but luckily, there was a cancellation, and I got her spayed.
🦋 I’ll go first…
How’s It Going?
I took some time off from all social media and also paused this newsletter recently. I ended up missing the process of working on my art projects and also I missed connecting with my community here. So I started back with this newsletter again much sooner than I imagined. That made me happy and was a much-needed boost to my creative spirit. I’m on the right path and should lean in rather than fall back.
What Are You Working On?
I’m working on Chapter 4 of The Poet’s Daughter and the next Lupita self-portrait.
Share A Special Moment With Us
My special moment this week was when it started to snow here in Ankara. Oh, my sons were so excited to see the snow. We went out to the playground and gardens around our place…Archie and I threw snowballs at each other while Charlie flapped and jumped watching us. We tried to have a snowball fight with Charlie but he ran away. I wasn’t sure if Charlie liked it or not. A few hours later, back in our cozy living room, Charlie suddenly jumped up and said with a huge smile as he pretended to throw a snowball, “Playing in the snow!”
An absolute delight.