Creating a Mind-Body Connection

The women in my family have always been makers.

In the seventies, my mother sewed gauzy caftans at the kitchen table, pins in her mouth, soft music on the radio. My little sister and I played at her feet, fashioning troll clothes from the scraps, our tiny hands stitching purses and pillows with mismatched thread. We strung seed beads into necklaces, our chatter weaving through the hum of the sewing machine.

Those summer days are stitched into me.

Even now, all these years later, I feel closest to myself — and to them — when I’m in the studio, surrounded by scraps and stories, letting my hands lead the way.
When I go too long without creating, something inside me feels... untethered. Like a thread has slipped from the needle. Life, as it does, fills up fast — work deadlines, grocery lists, the joyful chaos of a 15-month-old black pup with more energy than should be legal.

But if I have one small project within reach — a half-knit row, a journal page waiting for collage — something shifts. Even a few moments of making bring me back to center. I feel grounded. Whole. Held.

There’s something deeply physical about it — a quiet language between body and soul.

I read recently that making has a “haptic quality.” You might recognize the word from your phone — those little vibrations when you touch and hold a button, as if the device is responding, yes, I’m here.

Creating feels like that for me.
A subtle affirmation.
A tactile response from the universe.

It’s rarely about the end result — the pillow, the page, the piece — and more about the way my mind and hands work in tandem, the flow state that hushes the noise and stretches time. I forget to check the clock. I forget to eat. I have to set reminders to let the dog out.

In those moments, I feel stitched together — body, mind, spirit — by the simple act of making.

And you?

What holds you together?

What are your connecting threads?

I’d love to know. Leave me a note in the comments — or whisper it into your next page.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.