Say That!

Two weeks ago I couldn’t sleep. I needed to do something to occupy my mind without stressing me out. I got the idea that I should make my own inspirational quotes, much like the ones I admire from Insight Timer, which I referenced in A Few of My Favorite Things-2015 post. I ended up staying awake until 2AM creating my own drawing in Photoshop and adding a quote from one of my favorite yoga instructors, Casey Coda.

I shared it the next morning on social media and then in my typical fashion I started to critique my work. There’s a part of me that really enjoys thinking about design. I’m the type of person who will spend hours looking at package design on Pinterest or perusing different fonts on my favorite typography website, My Fonts. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that I enjoy creating something and then looking at how I can refine and perfect it. While I liked what I created, I had issues with my drawing and my typography choices. So, over the last couple of weeks I have established a style for the design of my quotes. This has been a process I have really enjoyed.

The other wonderful part about this late night idea is it provides a way to share my budding spiritual journey with others. Since so many people do inspirational quotes, I wanted to challenge myself to really find selections that resonate with me in a personal and profoundly deep way. Not only do the words have to be meaningful, but the images that I juxtapose them against need to be worthwhile as well. An interesting side note is it has been really hard to find people of color in stock photos! I set the intention on day one to put out a quote daily, so I didn’t want to stop creating quotes because I couldn’t always find the ideal image. However, I’m already thinking of how to find and/or create imagery that has people of color in it so that I can incorporate people who look like me into my design. This is a very important challenge I hope to find a solution to. Even with that particular difficulty, the process of reading lots of quotes and thinking about what images would enhance or bring a deeper meaning to the words has been so much fun. It has almost become a meditative practice when I sit down every few days and work on a handful of quotes at a time. In many ways it’s become a different take on “constructive rest” that serves me well.

Finally, I wanted to make sure that other people were even interested in seeing these quotes. I’ve shared them across my social media outlets and have gotten a positive response to them. However, moving forward I’m going to only share these quotes on this blog’s Facebook page and my Instagram feed as they seem to be the best platform for sharing something like this. For those of you who only read the blog and could use a daily dose of inspiration, I invite you to follow me on those two platforms.

Below are some of my favorites quotes from over the last two weeks. Enjoy!