When Creativity Finds You in the Chaos: How Sidewalk Chalk Became Anxiety Relief for One Overwhelmed Mom
Picture this: Your anxiety is climbing the walls of your chest, and your child is tugging on your sleeve asking you to come outside and play.
You almost say no—because there's dishes and laundry and seventeen other things that feel more important than sidewalk chalk. But something inside you whispers "yes".
This summer, I received a DM that stopped me in my tracks. An overwhelmed mother shared her story of having an anxiety attack, putting her phone away, and spending the evening drawing a "mediocre garden bed with flowers and a sun and clouds" with chalk alongside her child. She described it as the lightest she'd felt in months.
Her message continued: "Time feels hard, to express myself. If I want to cry, it's alone in my room with nobody in my house so I can get a bit noisy and not have to worry about it. If I want to write it's finding time in my day. I have sooooo much I do in my day that when 10pm rolls around, it's like, I have to put sleep first or my anxiety spirals. I haven't written for weeks."
I'm Kayla Huszar, a creative counsellor for moms who helps millennial mothers rediscover their authentic selves through creativity and expressive arts therapy. As someone who has navigated postpartum anxiety and the crushing mental load of motherhood, this DM felt like a love letter to everything I believe about the healing power of creative expression for mom burnout.
Even when it's "just" chalk on concrete.
Here's what happens when anxiety meets simple creative moments
Something radical happens when we choose creativity in the middle of anxiety. Not because it's a cure-all, but because it offers your nervous system something different than the endless loop of worry.
When we create—whether it's mixed media collages with lots of layers or wonky chalk flowers—we activate parts of our brain that exist outside of anxiety's favorite playground.
Research shows that creative expression helps calm our nervous system, moving us from that hypervigilant mom-mode into actually being present.
The mother who wrote to me didn't set out to have a therapy session. She just said yes to chalk and yes to her child's invitation to play.
Sometimes the most profound anxiety relief happens in the most ordinary creative moments.
Your "mediocre" art is actually the perfect anxiety antidote
Let's circle back to that "mediocre garden bed" "mediocre garden bed" for a moment.
You don't need to be an artist to benefit from creative outlets for anxiety:
I love that she described her creative time this way because it cuts through one of the biggest barriers: the belief that our art needs to be good.
You don't need to be an artist to benefit from creativity for anxiety:
You don't need perfect technique or expensive art supplies
You don't need Instagram-worthy results for it to be effective
You don't even need a clean kitchen before you're allowed to create
Your mediocre chalk garden (or whatever) is not just valid—it's vital
The pressure to create perfectly is just another way we deny ourselves the simple pleasure and profound healing of creative expression.
When we let go of the outcome and sink into the process, real magic happens—not Instagram magic, but the kind that helps us remember who we are beyond our worry and mental load.
Going back to her message, it's this line that gets me
"I have sooooo much I do in my day that when 10pm rolls around, it's like, I have to put sleep first or my anxiety spirals."
This hits differently when you're a mother navigating the mental load, doesn't it?
Moms do not (I repeat: do not) have the same "time" as non-parents. And newborn parent time is different than teenager mom time.
Creative self-care that used to feel possible pre-parenthood now feels as mythical as eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
But creativity doesn't require large blocks of protected time (even though you've been led to believe this).
Some of the most profound creative moments happen in the margins:
In the ten minutes while dinner cooks
In the space between putting kids to bed and collapsing yourself
In early morning moments before the house wakes up
As a 50% solo parent, this is where creative self-care has to happen for me. It won't happen unless I seize these ten-minute margins like a bull and steer it towards myself.
I do not and cannot find an hour to be creative. But I also need it to breathe through mom burnout.
And sometimes, creativity finds us when we least expect it. Like when anxiety is running the show and your child wants to draw with chalk.
When rest needs more than sleep for burnt-out mothers
Sometimes sleep does need to come first for exhausted mothers. But what if that exhaustion you feel at 10pm isn't always about needing more physical rest?
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith identifies seven types of rest that moms desperately need:
Physical rest - sleep and naps for tired mothers
Mental rest - breaks from decision-making and the mental load
Emotional rest - being authentic instead of people-pleasing as a mom
Spiritual rest - connecting to something bigger than motherhood demands
Social rest - time with people who energize rather than drain you
Sensory rest - reducing overwhelm from lights, sounds, screens in busy family life
Creative rest - experiencing beauty without having to produce anything
That evening of chalk drawing hit multiple rest needs at once:
Sensory rest from putting the phone away from social media
Creative rest from experiencing simple beauty without pressure
Social rest from connecting with her child without agenda
Emotional rest from expressing herself authentically
Maybe what you need isn't always more sleep (but sleep is f-ing medicine).
Maybe you need permission to rest in ways that nourish different parts of your being. Sometimes creative expression IS the self-care that mothers need—not another task, but a way of replenishing what's been depleted.
If you're recognizing yourself in this exhaustion, you're not alone in needing this kind of support.
The beauty of creating together helps everyone find calm
What strikes me most about this chalk story is that it happened alongside her child.
Children naturally help us regulate when we're anxious. When we slow down enough to match their pace, our nervous systems often follow suit.
Drawing chalk flowers while your child chatters about their day isn't just parenting—it's healing. It's creativity as connection, both to another person and to parts of ourselves we might have forgotten existed under the mental load.
Your child doesn't care if your chalk sun looks realistic (it's probably better for their own little perfectionist tendencies if yours is wonky).
They care that you're there, present, creating something together.
And in that presence, anxiety has less room to operate.
What creative self-care actually looks like for busy mothers
What if we measured self-care success not by the beauty of what we produce, but by how it makes us feel?
7 simple creative practices for the chaos of motherhood:
Five minutes of doodling while your coffee cools
Humming while you fold laundry
Dancing in your kitchen to your favorite song for instant mood boost
Writing six words about today in the margins of a grocery list
Taking a photo of something beautiful you notice while walking to your car
Building block towers with your kids for connection
Rearranging furniture in your living room for fun
Creativity isn't just what happens in art studios.
It's any moment you choose to engage with the world in a new way, to express something true for you, to play with possibility.
The space to feel everything without judgment is essential for mothers
"If I want to cry, it's alone in my room with nobody in my house so I can get a bit noisy and not have to worry about it."
How many overwhelmed mothers have mastered the art of silent tears?
The silent seething.
The suppressing the urge to walk away from mom burnout.
The burning resentment of having to DO IT ALL?
The bathroom cry, the car cry, the middle-of-the-night cry that so many anxious mothers know?
Creative expression offers us another way to be witnessed in our full humanity and another container for our feelings. When we write, draw, sing, or dance our feelings, we create space for all parts of ourselves to exist beyond the mental load.
We don't have to be quiet or convenient or palatable.
Your creativity can hold your rage, your grief, your overwhelm, your joy—all of it.
It doesn't judge or try to fix or offer solutions you didn't ask for. It simply witnesses and holds space for whatever is true for you.
Your creativity can hold your rage, your grief, your overwhelm, your joy—all of it. Creative self-care doesn't judge or try to fix or offer solutions you didn't ask for. It simply witnesses and holds space for whatever is true for you as a mother navigating anxiety and burnout.
Your invitation to begin creative self-care as an overwhelmed mom
If this story resonates with you, if you see yourself in this mother's words about anxiety and the mental load of motherhood, you're not alone. The struggle to find time and space for creative expression while managing everything else is real and hard for overwhelmed mothers.
Maybe today that yes looks like humming while you make lunch.
Maybe it's letting your child teach you their favorite dance.
Maybe it's writing one sentence about how you're feeling in your phone's notes app.
Your creativity is already there, woven into how you comfort your children, how you make a meal from whatever's in the fridge, how you find moments of beauty in ordinary days.
And sometimes, to pick up a piece of chalk and draw mediocre flowers with your child while anxiety settles back into something manageable.
Because that, my friend, is creative therapy for overwhelmed mothers at its finest—not despite its simplicity, but because of it.
What's your go-to creative outlet when you're overwhelmed? Drop a comment below - I'd love to hear what works for you.
Found this helpful? Share it with a mom friend who needs to hear this today
P.S. If this resonates and you're craving more space to explore creativity without pressure, The Motherload Membership might be exactly what you need. It's where mothers put down the mental load and reconnect with themselves through creative expression and community. We meet weekly for open studio hours where you can create whatever calls to you—mediocre chalk gardens absolutely welcome.
Follow Kayla on her Instagram account @kayla.huszar
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