A Creative Life
Author’s Note: I wrote and scheduled this blog before I heard of the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last night. I want to dedicate this blog to her because I think she lived a creative life that has undoubtedly affected us all. The ability to see beyond what existed, and enter a profession where there were so few women at the time, took creativity. To interpret the law, play out different scenarios required by the interpretation, and examine the repercussions (both positive and negative) of every opinion or dissent , took creativity. To trailblaze a life that few could have imagined, took creativity. I honor that and all of her contributions known, unknown, and those still unfolding.
I strongly believe that every human being is creative. Though I often hear “I’m not creative,” fall from people’s mouths on the regular, I know that it is a limiting belief likely heaped onto the person from an outside source in their youth.
One of my earliest memories is journaling. Several years ago, I found a pad of paper with poems on it from 1993 - 1995. I used to make pot holders for fun. My Mom taught me to crochet several times over my life, with it finally sticking around college. I have sketchpads full of indecipherable drawings. In college as a freshman, I could often be found coloring in a coloring book in the common lounge ( before that became a proven stress relief. Though all they had to do was ask me and I could give them a cross section between exam times and how often I was asked to borrow my coloring book and markers.) I once sold $1,000 worth of jewelry just because I was going through a beading phase. When I lived alone I decided that the best way to use the over-sized kitchen in my apartment was to throw down a drop cloth and paint canvases at will (sometimes while cooking). I keep a notebook and pen with me always, just in case. My travel blog has spanned more than 10 years and 400+ posts. Hanging out in the darkroom swirling a print through the fixer is one of my favorite past times. A couple of years ago I wrote 130,000 words (for context, that’s longer than three of the Harry Potter books) of fictional stories I’ll never publish…for fun.
This list could go on, but you get the point, I create.
Until recently, I never realized that the energy of all of these things is deeply feminine. When I create I am deeply in flow. What has been happening all this time, is that I was naturally trying to balance the deeply entrenched masculine energetic aspects of myself. All of the doing, all of the pushing, all of the striving, all of the not good enough-ing inducing traps we have laid for ourselves (or have been laid out for us). My system has always been trying to balance itself…and I had literally no idea. (A note here, we all have both energies in us, no matter our gender or how we identify with gender. How we interact with and express those energies both outwardly and inwardly is the product of a myriad of factors.)
Looking back I can see all these great expansive creative times that were then cut short or contracted as I tried once again to fit into the molds of a society obsessed with performance metrics, mindless doing, wealth, and productivity. But no more. I am a creative being, as we all are and my creativity doesn’t have to “work.” It can simply be there for the sake of it and for the sake of balance within me.
So my questions to you are, how are you creative? What is your unique creative signature? Can you challenge your conception of what creativity is?
While you ponder that, here are a few of my favorite creative practices that always help me shift.
1 - A daily walk. Yes, really. Take your human out for a walk. And if you can’t take your human out for a walk, do some laps inside. If your body is not available for a walk, visualize a walk in your mind or listen to a guided meditation about taking a walk. I cannot overestimate how important this is to the creative process, especially if you feel stuck!
2 - Morning Pages. In Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (which I cannot recommend highly enough), she introduces the practice of morning pages. It is an automatic stream of consciousness writing process where you don’t worry about anything, you just write. Full disclosure, it took me three tries to get through The Artist’s Way, but when the time is right, the time is right. I still to this day do morning pages. Since I used to be very mean to myself and perfectionist to the point where I couldn’t get anything done for fear of being wrong or getting it wrong, I give myself a little leeway with when I actually do my pages. Mostly it’s in the morning, but if it needs to be at another time because of whatever is going on that day, I do it at another time. (This book and practice is for everyone, not just writers.)
3 - Put the phone away. (Take a break from it.) If you constantly occupy your mind, there is less room for creativity to come through. It’s okay to be bored, in fact, it’s great for creativity! Don’t believe me? Then read this - Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi or join me for my conscious technology use and yoga course :)
4 - Believe that you are a creative being. I do a lot of work these days with limiting beliefs through PSYCH-K. What you believe about yourself is really the foundation of your life. And I have decided one of my foundation stones is that I am a creative being. Accepting that, embracing it, and believing it, helped me to release my creativity from needing a specific purpose. Aka, if it doesn’t make you successful it’s not worth doing it. Being creative for the sake of it is essential, full stop.
5 - Break the rules. Creativity does not have rules, but I bet you think it does. Notice how this happens to you when you start to create. Notice the shoulds, the woulds, the can’ts, the “it’s not done that way’s” and any other manifestations of you trying to keep creation in a box…then let yourself out of the box and into the flow. (It can take time, but it’s a practice, keep practicing.)
My view on creativity is not fixed and has a lot of latitude. For example, you can be creative in how you organize a closet. You can be creative in how you structure your day. You can be creative in painting a “mundane” wall. You can be creative in the way you cut your grass. You can be creative in how you code. Creativity doesn’t have to mean you are an artist, though sometimes it does, but it doesn’t have to. Creativity is so much more vast than we can use our creative minds to imagine.
You are creative. What will you create today?
