The Heartwood Letter: A creative lifestyle and business newsletter by Katrina Heartwood

Edition #5 — Thursday, January 29, 2026

TL;DR: Minecraft taught me that creativity thrives without pressure, rules, or productivity and in play, presence, and building where you are.

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I've never really been a video game person. But I've been thinking about them all wrong.

One of my least favorite things about video games is mainly the controller.

Every single time I would try to play a game like Skyrim using a controller, I would get so FRUSTRATED.

It's too sensitive sometimes. I don't know where to go or what I'm doing in the game. There's too much to remember. It's like never having a sticky note to rely on and even when you're able to remember things, they just escape your brain again.

My brain would short-circuit while playing games on the console. I wouldn't have a good time anymore.

I knew about one particular video game, and gave it a chance, and still felt the same I did like I just explained.

I thought all hope was lost.

But then someone wise gave me an idea: "Why don't you try playing it on your computer instead?"

I never thought that was even an option, if I'm being honest. One of my favorite PC games is Neopets, so what makes this other game any different from Neopets?

And that game was Minecraft.

So I gave it a chance, spending $30ish dollars on the Bedrock and Java version of Minecraft and started playing with my loved ones.

Something felt familiar.

There was no dramatic opening scene. No instructions barking at me. No expectation that I already knew what I was doing.

I dropped into this blocky, quiet world with nothing in my inventory and nowhere I had to be.

So I punched a tree. Then another. I accidentally kicked a cat and killed a cow. I built a tiny shelter hiding in the dirt blocks. I let other people help me.

And that’s when something shifted in me. I realized something.

Minecraft was about engaging with the world. It's about being where you currently are and seeing what it feels like to be in God mode.

I was thinking about video games the wrong way for most of my life. I never thought they were bad or anything. I just always saw certain kinds of games as a waste of MY time. I didn't want to fight other people.

I also told myself the stupid lie that I was too dumb for video games.

But no.

I'm not dumb at all.

I don't care for video games on a console. But I definitely fuck with video games on a PC because that's where I'm the strongest at.

This sudden realization changed everything for me.

Holy shit.

I actually like video games.

I just needed to change how I played them.

I may not have been able to create paper collage art as much. But I set a personal goal for myself to make at least 1 brand new paper collage artwork every month.

I think that's a very realistic goal and doing the virtual art hangouts with the Valkyrie Initiative every Wednesday at 7pm MT have been a game changer for me.

Minecraft reassures me that I'm not going to get punished for experimenting.

This is what practicing creativity is supposed to feel like.

You're not optimizing for anything, nothing has to look picture perfect polished, and nothing has to be immediately useful or impressive.

It's just you and all that you are, learning how you like to build.

I am someone who values creative living and living intentionally. Playing something that challenged me in the past on an accessible outlet for me gave me the confidence boost I needed to incorporate more intentionality into my life.

I've been putting more thought into how my bedroom/art studio/office looks.

I've been making even more of an effort with my appearance.

I've been much more social with people, even when we're all just hanging out on Discord playing Minecraft.

I've been setting healthier boundaries with technology and having a more consistent personal creative practice with my paper collage art.

I'm noticing things in the real world like I was actually in the Minecraft world.

I'm relistening to my favorite Spotify playlists (particularly lofi, jazz, and subliminal music.)

I'm spending more quality time with my family because my communication skills have been improving.

Accepting Minecraft into my life has positively contributed to my life by making more loving, more creative, and more organized, which is ultimately helping me make more money in my small business.

Minecraft taught me this: it is a lie to think that creativity in general has to be productive, profitable, or worthy of approval to count.

I think a lot of us avoid creativity in our everyday lives because we’ve been trained to treat everything like Skyrim on hard mode.

There are a lot of high stakes and high expectations, too many rules to follow before you're even allowed to play. Fuck that.

We've been spoon fed bullshit convincing us that our creativity has to be money-making, productive, or worthy of approval for other people in order to be considered or worth a fuck.

But no, it doesn't.

There ARE no rules to follow. That's what makes creativity so inviting and welcoming. It's like yoga: it will always be there and meet you where you are.

You can be slow and go at your own pace.

You can make a new artwork every single day, week, month, or year. *cue the Friends theme song*

Your work area can look like a disaster or like a clean office space.

You can create something fugly and call it practice and play.

And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is stop trying to win and start trying to build and see what the building will grow into.

You don’t have to do things the hard way.

You just have to start where you are now.

🧠 Brain-Picks

• As a creator who wants access to many rooms, you have to learn quickly how to monitor what you say and post online. Not to blackball yourself, but to move with tact. You’re your own PR until you hire one.
• I’d say out of the entire zodiac Sagittarius and Capricorn have the most interesting mythology. All the other signs are just regular animals or people. But those two are these weird amalgamations of different things.
• In some scenarios, the person giving 150%% at work and the other person doing the bare minimum get the same paycheck.

🫀 Tips for creating and living creatively

• Life gets easier when you understand that a lot of people are really just projecting onto you.
• I firmly believe that you’re not allowed to sit around and hate on someone who puts in the work to look and feel good because you don’t bother to do it for yourself.
• Aim for expression, not excellence.

Thank you for reading! I'll see you next Thursday. 🖤

With gratitude,

Katrina

PS: Reminder that the Social Media Cash Flow Systems™ blueprint is now LIVE. 🎉

This blueprint contains 150 pages of 50 evergreen social media management systems that support your income efforts and save you time, branding information, content pillar creation, and more.

​Get the systems here.​

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