Tap that Creative Switch and Ease Your Mind

HEY, THERE!

We’re here.

Twelve days in and 2025 has already “gotten beside itself,” as my grandmother would say, and shown its . . . 

(Insert your own words here because mine will make you cover your eyes.)   

To counter the wonky feelings, I’ve been sewing the pile of bears collecting dust on my sewing machine. 

Just so I can breathe.

We all need an escape hatch to protect our mental health.

Making bears is mine. Join me.

Next up in this issue:

• World Star: Bear showed up big in 2024

• Make your anxiety antidote 

• Malicious compliance in 1907  

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LINKS
TEDDY BEARS AROUND THE GLOBE

Tuck in to this snapshot of how teddy bears showed up around the world last year as symbols, artistic social commentary and AI-powered antidotes to technology taking over childhood.

🐻 ANTIQUE BEARS 

A teddy bear collection sold at auction for £$290,000. That’s more than $350,000 U.S. dollars. Included in the collection: the bear featured in Brideshead Revisited, a classic British TV series (IYKYK). (BBC)

👠 FASHION 

A 22-year-old Virginian is dubbed a “plush, candy-colored wrecking ball” in the fashion industry thanks to his $650 teddy bear jeans. DK Metcalf, a wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks, rocked a pair on a game day. (The New York Times)

Ralph Lauren’s signature Polo Bear took the Big Apple’s holiday window display scene by storm in its tuxedo-clad, 5-foot, 3D, interactive form. (New York Post)

🎨 ART 

Echo of Lost Innocence, a Qatar-based art installation, featured 15,000 teddy bears in tribute to children killed in Gaza. (The Art Newspaper)

Tuscany’s Poor Teddy in Repose, a 15-foot, bronze sculpture of a teddy bear with a knife in its chest, spoke to the impact of technology on childhood and playtime. (Forbes)

🤖 AI 

Bern, a start-up founded by two Duke University students, aims to manufacture AI teddy bears to combat the epidemic of iPad kids. (GrepBeat) Get on the waitlist. 

DEEP DIVE
MAKING LEAPS AND BEAR-Y CREATIVE BOUNDS 

Boo Boop. 

(Yes, that’s what it sounds like in my head.) 

Meow Meow is up on the shelf, nose to the ground and exploring. 

FEARLESS.

THIS is the year to be more like Meow Meow, especially with the world feeling like a cluttered ledge of chaos.  

Spy your target, dear reader.

Plan your approach.

And . . .

JUMP.

Making a bear puts that extra spring in your step so you can take the leap calmly -  and with confidence. 

In short, building a bear is the ultimate anxiety antidote. 

Oprah’s life coach says so. 

In her new book, Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose (Penguin Random House), Martha Beck explores the inverse relationship of creativity and anxiety. 

Turn one on, she said, and the other shuts off. 

It’s a brain thing. 

On the right side is creativity, compassion and peace. On the left, is all that analytical, linear, time-tracking rigamorole. 

Having to DO, BE and PRODUCE on a timetable - ‘cuz numbers and data matter - causes anxiety, shutting you down. 

Meanwhile, the right brain inspires curiosity, which has no expiration date. 

So you’re more open, Beck said.

Stepping into this space from an anxious place requires dropping the What can I do? question in favor of this one:

WHAT CAN I MAKE?

“That shift takes you into curiosity and into the part of the brain that connects things together and solves mystery  — you’re in creativity,” said Beck in Constantly anxious? Ease Your Mind by Asking Yourself This One Question, a recent article in the LA Times. 

This creativity, Beck said, “opens you up, where anxiety closes you down and crunches you.”

In short, Beck’s creativity is a door to (anxiety) freedom and light. 

I see creativity as artful practice and knowing how to choose what works for you. Giving yourself that freedom means that technique can always be tailored to YOUR style. 

(I talk more about this here.) 

CURIOSITY MARKS THE PRESENT

Part of the bear making journey is being curious about the kind of bear a pile of fabric will become. Because remember we’re making a WHO, not a WHAT. 

Trusting the process and trusting your choices means trusting yourself and all you will infuse in the bear thanks to your experiences and dreams. 

The result is not ‘just’ a bear.

IT’S A TANGIBLE, HUGGABLE MOMENT IN TIME. 

A piece of your present.

If your bear is a gift, it will become part of someone’s future. 

This interconnected maker cycle adds to our collective and individual history of self expression.

Day by day.

Stitch by stitch. 

Bear by unique bear.

That uniqueness will be a given each and every time you sit down at the sewing machine and run your teddy bear pieces under the foot.

Guiding, pushing and turning the elements to and fro. In a rhythm that calms, soothes and clarifies the ramblings of your mind.

Making, Beck says, is a switch.

To me, making a bear (sewing) is both a stop sign and a bridge.

It puts a period on worries as you cross a mental bridge into focused work.

Daydreaming while doing.

Finding confidence in the repetition of familiar,  yet simple stitches that bring about transformation.

YOUR MAGIC LIES WITHIN

Irresistible bears are magic and so are you. 

Looking outward for that magic has become more than a habit for too many of us. Often, it’s The Way.

But like I said at the start, this is the year to be more like Meow Meow. 

Who not only trusts her agility, but also her ability to catch herself, if needed. 

(Seriously, she could be in a Matrix movie sequel.)

The sewing room is one place to plant your Magic Beanstalk this year. 

Let its creative powers take root and grow.

At your pace, for your peace.

LAST WEEK IN HISTORY
WHEN BEARS RODE SHOTGUN

FAD OF THE TEDDY BEAR
CAIRO MERCHANTS COULD HAVE REAPED A HARVEST AT CHRISTMAS TIME.
IF THEY’D HAD ‘EM. 

Some of the ultra fashionable women of New York, it is said, appear on the streets or in their automobiles with bejewelled "Teddies" whose collars and clothing are worth a small fortune, and there are constant changes and new “bear models" are concocted by ingenious dress makers and consumers. Some of the silly owners of these toys have numerous changes for their bears, regulating the clothing worn by the season or weather, and some of them dress the bears to match their own gorgeous raiment.

WITH PETTY MODE ACTIVATED, THE REPORTER DETAILED GROUND ZERO.  

As the story goes a fashionable young couple were walking down the broad walk one day and stopped to admire the display in a toy shop. The young lady especially admired a huge Teddy bear, fully four feet tall. The young man offered to buy it for her if she would carry it in her arms along the walk.

She eagerly consented, and it was not long until every fashionable woman at Atlantic City was carrying one of the plush toys.

As silly and utterly absurd as is the Teddy bear craze, when pursued by children of a larger growth, it has one redeeming feature. It has supplanted the poodle dog and has driven the pampered toy spaniel out of the laps of the fool fashionable women.