Creative Intention Setting for 2025 (and Beyond!)

Happy New Year! I am still catching my breath from a whirlwind year of workshop facilitation, clinical practice, and of course the most all-encompassing role of all, mothering. With the help of indulging in film and literature over the holiday break, I’ve been honing in on some personal intention setting for 2025. 

Claire Ochetsky’s powerful allegory “Chouette,” inspired me with its raw take on mothering authetically in spite of society’s impossible expectations. The protagonist reflects, “My life's work, as your mother, will be to teach you how to be yourself–and to honor however much of the wild world you have in you.” 

The movie adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s “Nightb*tch” shook me with its embrace of the beauty and preciousness of creating and sustaining new life, but also the primal, violent, and grotesque. The ability to hold these conflicting tensions is what makes us uniquely human, and art provides the platform to explore and make meaning from them. The new mother finally realizes, “art seems essential, as essential as mothering. In order to be a self, it is essential.”

Both of these pieces, written by artist-mothers, deeply resonated with me, with their emphasis on the universal need for freedom of expression and the importance of listening to one’s own voice in the chorus of daily distraction and societal expectation. 

May we all seek out opportunities to express and listen to our inner knowing and artist selves in 2025 (and beyond.) And if you’re local to NYC and seeking some creative inspiration, come check out the upcoming “Beneath the Surface” group gallery show I’m participating in at the Pictor Gallery, opening next Saturday, January 11, 2025. 

Post and Painting, "Inner Knowing," by Sharon Itkoff Nacache ATR-BC LCAT LPAT PMH-C