Creativity holds a strange place in our society. It is both admired and looked down on. Parents normally don’t want their children to grow up to be artists. At the same time when they see art they love they admire the work and the artist.
Why is this? I’m not sure maybe it has something to do with preconceptions that artist are weird flighty people. I don’t even know when that misconception began. When did artist change from the honored people that recorded history, created sacred objects, and preformed a valued service? What is it about creativity that makes us both love and dislike it?
I think it may have something to do with the idea that only some people or certain activities are creative. Guess what, everyone is creative! It is true, I’m not lying. The creativity that brings about beautiful works of art is the same creativity that brings about the solution to a problem. It is what helps us write book and successfully budget our money. It is inside all of us waiting to be called to action. For many of us it is like a bit of coal hiding a diamond inside.
This elitist view of creativity is rippling out negativity into our lives. It keeps us from using our imagination to live our dreams and overcome life’s day to day obstacles. Being connected to our creative centers keeps us open to inspiration and leads to AH HA moments.
It also feeds our passion for our project that keeps us working, even when we don’t want to. Creativity simply is bringing something new into existence. It can be any new thing a new song, new photo, new way of dealing with customer service, or new marketing plan. Creativity is not for the sole purpose of making art.
We all have our own process we work through when being creative. Taking the time to learn what your process is makes it easier to start the process whenever you need to. This helps us avoid getting stuck and frustrated when we are forced to produce a product by a dead line or create something we wouldn’t normally choose to. It may be hard to think of creativity this way, but it is inside you waiting to be mined.
There are many things you can do to reconnect with your creative center. I say reconnect because you were born connected and stayed connected until someone told you that creativity was bad or only for special people.
Start paying attention to what you are doing or how you are doing things when inspiration strikes or solutions and ideas come easily to you. Try to meditate or do some other calm relaxing activity daily or at least regularly. Stop telling yourself that you are not creative. Negative self talk kills creativity and our dreams! Be kind and loving to yourself and do something you really enjoy doing as often as you can.
