Hello Friends!
I have been working on releasing some of my own self limiting beliefs and telling myself new stories about what I can do and who I can become. This got me to thinking about being a creative person and facing blocks or resistances and that in turn prompted me to post this question in my Instagram stories:
What are the struggles, blocks, or resistances that show up when you’re trying to be creative in different aspects of your life?
The responses:
feeling like I haven’t done enough
I haven’t mastered enough techniques
self-doubt
too little time - rushing leads to not having time to savor the creativity
Fear of failure or turning out a bad result
not asking others for help, it’s hard to ask others for help
Where is creativity appropriate? (Due to societal constraints and pressures and outside expectations.) Am I qualified to be creative in this area?
Imposter syndrome
Thinking my ideas aren’t valid or that anyone will be interested
So how do we invite more creativity into our lives and release these blocks above?
I have found that by creating some daily habits (meditation, journaling, exercise or physical movement, gratitude) that make me feel good, I am receiving the added benefit of paying more attention to my intuition, ideas, and personal preferences. By changing the negative messages that I see in the world and that I tell myself into more positive ones - I begin to gain clarity about where I want to go. I give myself permission to be creative. I validate myself. I trust myself.
As Albert Einstein famously said,
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Marie Antoinette Shoe Study (gouache and inks on black paper) on Marie Antoinette Private Suite
From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
“Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine every day existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word - all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities - it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the last time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of mental flexibility. Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach.
If you want to be more creative in your life give yourself permission to do so. Validate yourself!
You are enough right where you are. Pay attention to your intuition, ideas, personal preferences…for these are hints at your creativity and if they are ignored or swept aside it takes more effort to coax them back out again.
Give attention, time and space for your ideas to come to you and grow - Keep an ideas list!
Make a space in your home where you collect objects and images that inspire you - a creativity altar or an inspiration station.
Here are some journal prompts for you to spark your creativity…these can be written as paragraphs, blurbs, or lists…whatever works for you!
I am grateful for:
I am attracting:
Today I get to do:
I am manifesting:
I am dreaming about:
Wouldn’t it be cool if: