In my experience it can be restorative when you are around kindred spirits. But it can be hurtful or embarrassing around self-appointed critics. If you are secure in what you are doing, however, it will only strengthen you. Am I sounding enough like a self help book for you?

I’m confident that as self-aware as Diane is, she knows the vitality and connectedness that happens with kindred spirits.
Diane realizes, as do few Americans, that we also need to be connected with ourselves, and with God (the spirit world, higher power, universe, nature, as you have experienced Her/Him/It).
Artists (musicians, dancers, painters, etc.) experience being in what Diane calls “the flow” more frequently than most, I’d guess. It’s that feeling that what you are doing or creating is just happening, and you happen to be there at the time it is shaping itself. It’s a sense of being completely in the present, completely involved, completely in love with the process.

Meditation and solitude are ways of reaching that “flow” without anything actually happening, being created, or done. In fact, it is getting in touch with BEING pure and simple.
Before doing something worthwhile, we must BE someone worthwhile. And one step is to meditate, pray, or read something inspirational – alone.

of creative tasks and academic tasks. I haven’t been in the academic world for some time, but when I’m involved in creating, I definitely have to be alone and it is at its best when I’m in silence or instrumental music.

Also, I noticed on the Saturday before Memorial Day that I got up and read one of my Patricia Cornwell novels and just lost track of time completely. It was quiet if I remember correctly and I was totally in my own world. I did this from the time of waking up until I left to go out of town at around 1 p.m. Usually I hate packing, but it wasn’t a stressful process after the relaxation I experienced.