july: embracing imperfection

a monthly curation on messy creativity

Somehow, the second half of 2025 is upon us! If you read my Substack regularly, you might know that I am in the midst of settling into a new home. This means that I’m in an active practice of tolerating (and maybe even trying to celebrate? 😓) the undone, the messy, the imperfect. This is difficult for me, as someone who has been conditioned to prize order and beauty. That had me thinking: I’d love to offer you (and me!) a list of permission-giving practices. These are activities and ideas that ensure you that you don't have to be skilled to enjoy them, inspire messy creativity, cheerlead for anti-perfectionism, and are play-based art approaches to indulge in! Let’s play with this together in July!

These round-up prism emails come out on the first day of every month, and they include my curations of music, art, fashion, beauty, and/or other areas of expression. The full content of the monthly posts (including an awesome monthly Spotify playlist!) is accessible only to paid subscribers, but everyone gets a generous peek below and can also unlock this post in a free trial to get the full experience.

Summer is for fun experimentation, openness, play, and the mess of sticky popsicle juice running down your arm! Below are some spirited suggestions and wise resources for letting go of rules that may be keeping you (and me!) stressed, inflexible, restricted, uninspired, and/or stagnant.

1. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron as the OG permission slip to create spontaneously with morning pages that teach you to write without editing or judging. (It’s an amazing practice, if you’ve not yet checked it out. I did this in my twenties and loved it!) This month, my new foray into a daily writing practice will be through

   Suleika Jaouad
   ’s new book, The Book of Alchemy, which invites 100 days of writing prompts that I’m psyched to dive into. (And maybe my boxes don’t all need to be unpacked for me to begin this book? Just maybe?)

2. I love Aimee McNee’s instagram feed so much. It’s called @inspiredtowrite, and she’s usually holding up a handwritten sign with a bit of permissive wisdom around creativity. She even published a book recently titled The World Needs Your Art. Check her out!

   

   a recent post from Aimee’s Instagram

3. If you want to loosen up in creating, try out a non-dominant hand exercise. Drawing, writing, or painting with your non-dominant hand to bypass perfectionist tendencies and tons of other benefits. Some of them include: breaking through creative blocks, improving cognitive flexibility (because it fosters neuroplasticity and the development of new neural pathways, which improves coordination and concentration), enhancing creativity, reducing stress and anxiety by getting you out of your dominant side, and simply feeling freeing and fun! A few of my favorite non-dominant hand practices include scribble drawing (⬅️ click for description) and conversations with your inner child or a part of yourself (wherein you write a question with your dominant hand and write an answer from that part with your non-dominant hand, beginning a conversation of parts).

   

   one of my scribble drawings from the early aughts