Do You Let Yourself Be Satisfied

The world is really a beautiful amazing place and our lives are actually filled with moments and experiences of fulfillment and satisfaction. Yet we hardly ever allow ourselves to feel them. Our minds push us ever onward to the next thing never stopping to savior the moment.

What does it take for us to be satisfied? Where does the constant restlessness and striving come from? Certainly we live in a culture that asks us to keep wanting: the bigger house, the newer car and so much more. Perhaps some of the lack of satisfaction stems from our soul's longing for a more authentic life, one that honors and allows for the expression of our uniqueness.

Still we can learn a lot from being satisfied in each moment and that can help us identify what brings us happiness and joy on a deeper level. Take a deep breath and notice everything about this moment. No matter what is going on in our lives in each moment everything is usually okay. It's when we run ahead of ourselves and anticipate a future based on our past that anxiety and doubt creep in.

Being satisfied is especially important when it comes to engaging our creativity. We need to learn that it's enough that we show up during the day to play with a creative project or idea even if only for fifteen or twenty minutes rather than thinking we should have worked for two hours. Then be satisfied by what you learned from whatever time you spent. Young children are good reminders of how to do this. They are just happy to be absorbed in the play and hold no attached to outcome. Adopting this attitude during the process of creating can really help our creativity flourish and allow us to feel more satisfied with our lives as a whole.

I've begun a daily practice of noticing moments of satisfaction. It can be eating an artichoke which is one of my favorite food experiences. It can be looking out the window and catching the streaks of pink, orange and red in the sunset sky and stopping to breath the beauty in. It can be working on a draft of a poem with gratitude that the muse joined me in the work. As we cultivate a sense of fulfillment we actually find more to be satisfied by.

Ready to Set Your Creativity Free?

Does it feel like your creativity is locked up tight in a box you are afraid to open? You put it in there long ago when your third grade teacher didn't like your drawing or your father disapproved of you wasting your time writing poems or your grandmother told you that you didn't have as good a singing voice as your sister.

It happened to me in junior high school when my in my design class the teacher exclaimed about a drawing I actually really liked, "Suzanne, you can do better than that". Decades later I've yet to pick up another drawing pencil. The creative self is a tender and vulnerable part of us, so it doesn't take much to discourage it.

I could have left the creative urge locked up with my drawing pad but fortunately I found other outlets. In college I developed a passion for black and white photography for creative expression. It was a fine replacement for drawing. Eventually creative writing became my main form.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a city, San Francisco, and with a parent, my father, who valued the arts so I wasn't weighed down by the general cultural beliefs that the arts and creativity are frivolous. I had implicit permission to play with creativity from early on and it informs my life in countless ways.

Back before I started my own writing and creativity coaching business and needed a resume to apply for work, the line that got me the most interviews was "creative problem solver". My relationship to creativity allows me to use the process to access the field of all possibilities so that I can come up with new ways of looking a situation and new solutions.

We all have this capacity. I just was lucky enough to grow up in an environment that age me permission to play with it. Whether you know it or not you probably are using this ability to some degree on a regular basis. You've all had the experience of trying to solve a problem at work using your rational, linear mind. Frustrated to give up and let it go, you drive home and as you pull up to the house the solution pops into your head. That's one way the creative process works. You learn to trust that if you give a problem over to your subconscious the answer will show up.

So to reclaim your creativity, to set it free, consider the ways you are already creativity in every area of your life and the benefits it brings. How have you been discouraged over the years from being creative and what action could you take today to begin to reclaim those gifts. Play with the idea. Have fun. That's the heart of the creative process. Joy and a deep sense of satisfaction.

Finding the Rewards of Being Creative

There is a growing awareness that creativity is a capacity that everyone has, though they may not understand what is involved in accessing it. One of the main things that gets in the way of people embracing their creative gifts is a belief that creativity should be easy; that it should just flow out. They think they should be good at it immediately. If they are not and it's not easy, there is a tendency to think there is something wrong with them and it's never going to work.

Yet creativity in whatever form you choose to pursue is a complex process that actually asks a lot of us. This is why is feels so good to engage since it helps us discover that we are capable of more that we thought possible including working from expanded abilities. It is a muscle that we need to work with to develop, just like if we decided to run a marathon we would understand we needed to run daily for shorter periods to build up to the full distance.

Creativity is a practice that you have to stay with even when doubts arise. It tends to progress in a stair step fashion. We spend time showing up to the work each day for weeks, maybe months and we don't seem to be getting any better. Then one day we have crossed a threshold to a new level where we can do things we have been unable to. We will need to work on that plateau for a while before being boosted to the next level.

Being creative also involves studying our chosen form of expression. Long before I wrote my first personal essay, the writing form that almost seemed to choose me, every time I went into a bookstore I was drawn to the essay section. Those were the only books I read. I was learning to write in that form by reading it. So when I started to write, my creative mind already had a sense of what to do. Sort of.

I then had to practice, writing pages and pages that never went anywhere but taught me a lot. I learned to trust that things were cooking on the level of my subconscious and super conscious minds. The more I showed up to practice, the more I had a sense of what to do and how to work with the material on a conscious level. The more I stayed with it, the more the wonderful, magical state of flow would occur where I was definitely operating in an expanded state.

Being creative feels like a beautiful dance. Engaging in the process feels good, so I never really thought about all the time and work I had to put in to become an accomplished writer. For me the act of creativity has always been it's own reward. That has allowed me to stay with it through the doubts and slow going.

Now more than ever we need to resist the distractions like social media and the internet that give us a sense of instant gratification, making it more difficult to go the distance with our creativity. Keep in mind that you can make great progress with small steps taken day after day.

Try it: Pick a creative project. Then show up ten minutes a day to play with it. I did this recently in a form new to me, nature collage. I asked a painter friend about the best materials to use. Then with acrylic paint, glue and objects from nature, I let myself be intuitively guided in what to do. It took a bit before any of them turned out in a way pleasing to me. Yet each one taught me something.

As you play with your project resist the urge to judge. Put it away and look at a few days later when the critic has quieted down. Keep showing up, ten minutes day after day and see if you don't feel the deep satisfaction that comes with opening to your creativity.

Now Is the Time to Get Really Creative

by Suzanne Murray

The only truly happy people are children and the creative minority. -- Jean Caldwell

For the past couple of months the words "the time is now" have been running through my mind. I think a lot of people are feeling this. The momentum of change in the world nudging us all forward in new ways, asking us how do we want to create our lives moment by moment.

If our lives are the blank page, the white canvas and creativity is an energy that connects us to something beyond our everyday self allowing more of who we really are on the level of our heart and soul, then what do we want to create. This involves bringing creativity into our day to day life.

To start consider all the ways you are already creative in your life including cooking, gardening, decorating, parenting, teaching, work, business and every other area of your life. Often unless we are actively involved in some form of creative or artist expression we tend to dismiss our innate creative tendencies and gifts.

We just automatically think, "oh, I'm not creative". On top of this we have learned to see creative endeavors as frivolous. I work with a lot of creativity coaching clients who, at first, have a hard time showing up to the work of exploring and supporting their creative self because they have been taught from an early age that creativity isn't valuable. If you can't make money at it, it's a waste of time.

Yet our creativity is our greatest strength and gift in times of change. It gives us an ability to see what is possible and discover new ways of getting there. Daydreaming where we allow our minds to wander becomes a valuable tool when we understand that creativity involves a willingness to receive and be open to new ideas. As the French philosopher Joseph Joubert said, "the thoughts that come to you are more valuable than the ones you seek."

What would it take for you to develop a new relationship with your creativity. Consider giving your creativity a personality. Talk to your creativity. Ask her what she needs. If you have neglected your creativity for a long time you may need to do some coaxing to get her to talk to you.

I often suggest to people who are looking to reclaim their connection to creativity to get a box of crayons and start doodling and drawing the way you did as a child. You can ask questions like "what do I need to know right now?" and doodle the answer. And look at the doodles the way you ponder your dreams or messages that are wanting to arise from a deeper part of yourself. Most important. Play. Joy lies at the heart of our creative practice.

Think You Have to Be Original to Be Creative?

by Suzanne Murray

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. . .just steal the hubcaps. - Michael P. Naughton

One of the misunderstanding around creativity is that you have to be utterly original to do it. Yet the truth is all creative people stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Writers learn to write by reading, painting students are sent to museums to copy the masters, while great chefs learn the already tested basics of cooking in order to create some new dish.

Pulitzer prize winning poet Mary Oliver in her poem titled Stanley Kunitz, honoring one of her mentors, has a great line that describes this, "like the human child I am/I rush to imitate." We play with the work of others as we develop the sense of how it works and then how we can make the form our own. Ultimately our own unique creative expression is a remix of all our influences. Most of this is going on at the level of the subconscious and comes out when we get to work.

Innovation stands on a platform that already exists. Yes inspiration is involved, those flashes of insight, the ah...ha moments. Yet you start with something that already exists and take it to another level. So relax. Let go of thinking you have to do something original. Take the pressure off. Celebrate that there is all this help available.

One the best exercises I use as a writing and creativity coach, is having people ask advice of an imaginary mentor. I teach this as a stream of consciousness writing exercise, where you ask a question of someone you admire, like Einstein or Emily Bronte. Then writing faster than you can think, you write the answer as if it is coming from them. Ten minutes is usually enough time to get good advice.

Try this now. See if you don't feel the support of those you have come before you in what creative form that calls to you.

Think You Need to Wait for Inspiration

Recently a new writing coaching client emailed me to say, "I haven't been writing. I just don't feel inspired." I immediately shot a message back explaining that "You can"t wait for inspiration. If you get nothing else out of our coaching together beyond this awareness it will make a huge difference in your creative life."

No writer or other artist waits for inspiration before showing up. Painter Chuck Close said, "inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work." Flannery O'Connor, the noted Southern writer, described her habit of going to her office everyday from 8am to noon, “she wasn't sure if anything was going to happen but she wanted to be there if it did.” 

Most writers just start writing and find inspiration along the way. John Steinbeck would always end one day's writing in the middle of the page, so he could pick up the thread the next day. He insisted that "In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration."

Current research in the neuroscience of the brain shows that creativity is activated when we are in the brain wave states of alpha and theta which are associated with meditation, intuition and information beyond our conscious awareness. This is why a writer often needs to write a page of what feels uninspired in order slow the mind down and hit the zone.

This is true of all acts of creativity. We have to show up and begin to play with the process to access the place of inspiration. The more we commit to our creativity through our intentions and actions the more our creativity flows and the more juiced, excited and inspired we feel.

Are You Ready to Create Your Life?

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

It's hard to describe the creative process with words and rational thought. It's really a dance, a song, music in the blood, rising on the breath of inspiration. It's a flow of energy that connects you to the heart of the universe. When you enter that river it feels really good. You are alive in the moment, expressing the uniqueness of you.

You can create anything from this place: a poem, a song, a garden, a solution to a problem or a new story for your life. Take a dash of inspiration, a flood of ideas, woven into a images in the mind's eye by your imagination. Your heart and intuition play a key role, too.

What if you really knew that you could create anything from this place? What if you understood that you could rearrange the creation of your life by what you imagine, what you pay attention to, and what you choose to focus on.

Begin by relaxing your hold on whatever you think of as your story now. Suspend disbelief and imagine that you can change the story of your life more easily than you think. Consider that you have an opportunity for rebirth. What would that look like if you had a magic wand that allowed you to access infinite possibilities?

TRY THIS: Take a moment and consider the life you desire for yourself. What do you feel called to create? What areas aren't working the way you would like? Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. and drop your attention down into your heart. Then imagine yourself journeying to a place where anything and everything is possible. As you leave your old story behind feel the creative excitement and energy of the new life that wants to be born. Invite your soul to participate and ask the universe to help.

Imagine the elements of your new life coming toward you. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Using your senses makes the experience feel much more real. Know that whatever you can imagine is possible. In your mind's eye try on whatever comes to you. How does it feel? Do you feel expanded? Does it feel light? If so, this helps you discern what is for your highest good. The more you play with this exercise on a daily basis the more you are energizing the potential for what you want to create.

To help your creativity along begin to break out of habitual patterns. Find new ways to creatively engage even the most ordinary aspects of your daily life. Put your clothes on in new order. Eat new foods. Find meaningful and inspiring challenges. Explore new possibilities for interacting with your inner and outer worlds. This generates new opportunities that will lead you to the future you feel called to create.

You can use this exercise for anything you want to create whether it's engaging with a new art form or creating a whole new life. In the changing world we live in using our expanded capacities of imagination and intuition can open you up to things happening in magical and unexpected ways, that our mind would never have considered. Living from this place allows you to tap the creative flow in every area of our lives. It leads to our greatest happiness and fulfillment.

The Importance of Embracing Your Creativity

I believe this passionately: that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. - Ken Robinson

The title of Ken Robinson brilliant book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, springs from Robinson's belief that at this time in human history if we fail to promote and support the vast reserves of latent creativity and innovation living within every person, then we must be "out of our minds".

He insists, and I agree, "that everyone has a huge creative capacity as a natural result of being a human being." The challenge is the lack of cultural support and permission for reclaiming the creative gifts that we have been largely schooled out of. There needs to be an atmosphere where it's okay for everyone to be creative rather than holding the assumption that it's the domain of a select few.

On a global level, we are in the midst of a major paradigm shift where old structures unravel because they no longer really serve the greater good. Humanity is in the process of evolving from a world based on competition to one where cooperation and co-creation holds the key to our well being and survival. Since entirely new ways to doing things need to be developed, engaging and expanding our creativity and innovation are absolutely critical. Creativity is where our intuitive and imaginative minds play with the field of infinite possibilities.

Since most of us have had our creative efforts discouraged from an early age, we have a hard time wanting to re-open that door. Start with this. Look at all the ways you are already creative in your life. This includes creative problem solving. Many years ago at a wilderness trailhead miles from help I fixed the broken cable to my gas pedal using a paper clip and rubber band so we were able to drive home.

In the past couple of years we have all been asked to figure out new creative ways of doing things. I suspect that if you look at your creative self in this new light you will come up with a long list of all the ways you are already creative. Then ask yourself, "how can I expand my creative capacity?" and "how can I support others in being more creative?"

Along with helping the world, on a personal level being creative feeds our own heart and soul. When we fail to use our creative capacity we limit our experience of the joy and presence that being absorbed in the creative moment brings.

Ask yourself"how can I bring more creativity into my life and the world", let it go and just see what pops into your mind when you aren't thinking about it. Pay attention to synchronicities, those chance occurrences that hold meaning. I've had books I've needed to read literally fall off the bookstore shelf at my feet. I tend to get goosebumps at such moments as if my body recognizes the communication from a higher source at work. That's part of how creativity works.

Opening more fully to our intuition, imagination and creativity can be key in navigating the rapid pace of change in the world. Accessing the expanded way of knowing, at the heart of being creative, can keep us from feeling overwhelmed by our sense of uncertainty.

The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges. - Ken Robinson

Living and Creating with the Unknown

The scope of challenges we face in the world today is staggering. Everything seems uncertain. We can feel overwhelmed and very uncomfortable in the face of so much unknown. Yet the unknown is really the only place for any new creation. How do we work with it without feeling paralyzed by our fear of the uncertainty?

Trusting that something larger than our everyday selves is available to support and guide us is essential. Creativity, our ability to come us with new ideas and solutions in every area, is impossible without a willingness to be open and surrender to the inspiration that wants to come through us.

Creativity is all about working with the unknown. Whenever I start a piece of writing I rarely have more than a vague idea of where to even begin. Yet as I show up inspiration arrives to guide me as I go. I may ask a creative question, like what is this newsletter about, then let it go. This month I got living and creating with the unknown as the topic. As I sat down to write it came to me in pieces that I could weave together from my intuitive knowing. That’s how we can create anything, even our lives and our world.

Visionary creative Jan Phillips suggests “once we begin to see ourselves as creators of our lives, we can start to see ourselves as makers of the culture. And from there, we can weave our personal hopes and commitments into the social fabric around us . . . No political leader has the power to override or diminish the public imagination.”

We often resist playing with our imagination and opening to create new possibilities because some part of us considers the unknown to be unsafe. We can experience a physical sense of discomfort in our body that can keep us from even trying something new.

Try this: Close your eyes and take a few slow deep breaths relaxing your body on the exhale. Relaxing your body can make it easier to access your imagination. See your mind a blank slate as you continue to breathe. Focusing internally in a meditative way actually slows our brain waves down from everyday beta waves of the analytical mind to alpha waves of the intuitive mind. This doesn't need to take a lot of time. In ten minutes we can feel more peaceful, centered and open to our creative imagination and the flow of new ideas and new stories for our lives and our world.

When we get a new idea that feels inspired we can act on it. Step by step, we can create new ways of being in the world and navigate these uncertain times with grace and empowerment seeing all the changes and challenges as a tremendous opportunity.

How Being Creative Makes Us Happy

Years ago I heard Nobel Prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney give a lecture at the University of Washington. In the middle of this very academic speech, he paused, threw up both his hands and said, "oh, just write for the joy of it" and then dipped back into the lecture. I don't remember anything else from the talk, but Heaney's sudden burst of inspiration stayed with me because it really captured an essential element to being creative.

Whether you are cooking a great meal, growing a beautiful garden, writing a poem or singing in the community choir, you likely feel a deep sense of satisfaction and a joyfulness that comes with being creative. Creativity draws on the best of human nature: perception, imagination, intellect, inspiration, courage, intuition, and empathy. The urge to create asks us to bask in the experience of the world, to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell the magnificence around us. It allows us to celebrate, with a spirit of gratefulness, every aspect of our lives and the beauty and complexity the world offers. It can help us make meaning from our sufferings.

Being creative also breaks us free from our ruts and habits allowing us to look at the world anew. We are able to tell a story that touches others, envision a unique way of solving a problem or offer counsel with fresh clarity, even if we have struggled with the same material or ideas a hundred times before. Embracing our creativity allows us to tap a deeper more insightful way of knowing beyond our conscious mind and thoughts.

I think being creative feels so good because it connects us to divine imagination and when we actively participate in developing and fulfilling our gifts it feels like a mystical experience. We intuit that we are connected to something larger than ourselves which is perhaps the greatest gift that comes from following our creative urges.

Early in my work as a writer when I became aware that I was writing from an inspired sense of flow, I would get this urge to look around the room to see where is was coming from because I sensed it was exactly coming from me. Now I am just always deeply grateful when I tap fully into that vein and welcome it with a sense of grace.

In looking for your own ways of being creative you can start by celebrating your uniqueness. There never was, nor ever will be, anyone exactly like you. In exploring your uniqueness there is often a central preoccupation, an interest or passion that runs through your life? There can also be more than one.

If you can't name it right now, think of something that you are fascinated by again and again. The possibilities are infinite; from needlework to rock climbing, from bird watching to playing the piano, from English country dancing to writing haiku, from gardening to giving foot massages. Look for what brings you joy and then begin taking actions to embrace your creativity and enjoy the process. One small step a day will set you down the creative path to increased happiness and fulfillment.

How Do You Take Inspired Action

I taught the Heart of Writing classes for more than twenty years. When people ask me about the main focus, I will sometimes laughingly respond, "I teach people to loose their minds." If we are going to really engage our creativity and expand our possibilities, we need to let go of the rational mind's need to figure things out, and allow inspiration, imagination and intuition to inform our decisions and guide our actions.

Much of the time, we try to figure things out with our minds, hoping we will be able to find a way to make the changes we desire. We make up a daily to-do-list based on what we think we should do to make things happen. Yet things often don't work as well as we would like. Our rational, linear thinking minds can only draw on past experience, so it leads us to repeat variations of the same pattern. We feel frustrated because we "think" we should be able to figure out how to change our situation.

Yet, the linear mind really can't create anything new. It's not designed to comprehend spiritual or creative matters. That's the domain of our imagination and intuition which connects us to expanded ways of knowing and being. Our being is connected to the field of Oneness or all possibilities, so it can guide us to situations we would never have considered from the limits of our thinking mind. This is the place creativity comes from. This is the domain of inspiration. If you want create newness in your life you need to access this deeper way of knowing.

Intuition and inspiration usually come as a soft whisper or a felt sense of lightness in our bodies. If our mind is busy chattering, we can't pick up these signals. When we do pick up on the guidance, we often feel fear because we are being asked to step out of our comfort zone. Our mind tells us that fear is protecting us, keeping us safe. Our mind wants us to believe that worrying is productive. Yet, have we ever solved a problem with worry or have we just dug ourselves in deeper?

If we really want to live a life of peace, happiness, freedom and creativity we have to learn to quiet our minds. Meditation can help. So can yoga or a walk in Nature. Using our breath to be more present in our bodies can bring us into the moment and the awareness that wants to be revealed. We have to learn a new language. One that involves a felt sense of knowing, an openness to being pleasantly surprised, and an awareness of synchronicities, the way the universe supports us and reassures us we are on the right track.

If I need to make a decision and find myself stuck running a mental loop, I use the technique of free-writing or stream-of-consciousness writing to gain clarity. I will often start with the question, "What do I need to know right now?" Then I'll write the answer as fast as I can. If you write fast, your rational mind can't keep up and you tap a deeper knowing. I always get much better advice this way than if I tried to "figure it out".

From this place of knowing rather than thinking we are able to take inspired action that supports our deeper desires and goals and we can experience miracles as we open to the help of the universe.

Using the Power of Your Imagination

Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso

Imagination is at the heart of creativity. It offers us offers us a doorway to expanded possibilities and ways of knowing. Imagination is a powerful capacity for creating not only stories or pictures or music but our very lives. With it we can find solutions to problems, for ourselves and the world, that our rational minds couldn’t solve.

In my own creativity as a writer and photographer as well as my work as a creativity coach, I’ve always insisted that our imagination is smarter than our mind. It allows us to access expanded states of consciousness where fresh ideas spark and we find the flow of infinite possibilities and intuition. If we can imagine something, see it in our mind’s eye or get feeling sense of it, we can create it, often in ways that seem miraculous.

Most of us have been discouraged from engaging our imagination with comments like "stop daydreaming” or “why are you wasting time staring out the window.” or “oh you’re just making that up.” These activities all allow our creative mind to run free to make new connections and give birth to new ideas. Rather than being encouraged to dream big, to ask questions or expand our awareness beyond our linear rational mind, we have been consistently schooled in restricting our imaginative potential.

As adults we often define ourselves as not being creative and imaginative. Yet it is a gift we were all born with and something we can easily reclaim by our willingness to play with it. One way to start is with “just pretend”. Just pretend what you want your creativity or life to look like if you had no limits and all was possible. Imagination is the faculty that can take you there.

Our imaginations are like muscles. If they haven't been used they atrophy and we to strengthen them to allow for optimum access. As we start to exercise our imaginations we actually form new neural connections in our brain.

Try this. Take three deep breaths all the way down into your belly and with each exhalation let everything go and let the peace of simply being present in the moment enter you. Then imagine being in a favorite place. What do you see. If you are not visual, don't worry about it. Instead focus on what it feels like to be there. What sounds, scents, tastes are involved. Use all your senses. The body can't distinguish between a real experience and something that is imagined so this is a great way to give yourself a mini vacation without leaving home.

Then try this. Try using your imagination to talk to a tree, a squirrel or a stone. See what they have to say to you. Just pretend and play with it. Have fun.

The Gift of Creativity For Chaotic Times

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems. - Martin Seligman

As our world seems to be getting more and more chaotic, I am reminded of the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. After spining a protective cocoon, the caterpillar dissolves into a dark goo. Then specialized imaginal cells begin to move toward each other and band together to guide the restructuring of the goo into the butterfly.

It’s a great metaphor for what is possible when people work together from a common, inspired vision. I like to think that when we embrace our creative gifts we become imaginal cells for our culture or society. When we connect with like minded souls who want to make the world a better place, what problems can we solve? I just read about people who are harvesting and recycling the plastic clogging our oceans. That’s an inspired idea creating positive change.

What if the chaos we are experiencing in the world today and in our lives is actually an invitation to let go of the old ways and create something new. What if in letting go, even as we fear the unknown, we actually make room for the new to enter. Often when we give up trying, unexpected opportunities, beyond what we thought possible, show up in miraculous ways.

Chaos is at the heart of being creative. Creativity begins from a place of swirling possibilities. It can be messy. On the creative journey we often feel like we don’t know what we’re doing or where exactly we’re going. Yet as we take it step by step following the threads of intuition and inspiration, as we show up for the work we find ourselves guided along the way. We discover the process itself is deeply rewarding and has the capacity to change our world.

By bringing creativity into every area of our lives, it can help us transcend the chaos by reordering the world and our lives in new and inspired ways. Take a minute consider a place in your life that feels chaotic and ask “what newness wants to be born in my life?” Don’t think about it, just allow an idea to pop in, and follow your heart and knowing. Then see what one small act that you can take to start creating from this inspiration. Taking it one small step at a time helps to keep us from feeling overwhelmed. What if this is how we create a world that works for everyone?

How Creative Can We Be

It’s the end of the month and I am just getting to the January blog. Every time I considered the topic I came up blank. What finally came to me is the sense that we need to create from a more expanded place than we have ever considered before. As we move into the third year of the pandemic, most of us have had our lives shaken up and are probably wondering where can we go from here.

Consider asking the question, how creative can we get in response to all the changes in our lives and the world. How can we create, create, create. What wants to be born anew from old ways that have unraveled. I get the image of confetti being thrown into the air in celebration of the creative potential in all of us. It's time to leave behind the beliefs that limit us and embrace the creative beings we truly are in whatever form that calls to us.

So I asked my muse for specifics. What should I create? The answers didn't come all at once. Generally they came as flashes of insight while I was out on my daily walk that puts me in a meditative state where an idea arrives that excites and energizes me. Then I know I'm on to something.

Beyond that I got that we all need to be willing to be surprised. That we need to open up in new ways. We tend to limit our creations, whether in the realm of creative expression or in creating our lives, to what we already know or to a variation on what we have already done. We also limit ourselves by thinking we need to figure out "the how" of whatever we are inspired to create rather than trusting and allowing the universe to support and guide up step by step.

At this pivotal time in human history opening up to truly new ideas and possibilities is essential. To paraphrase Einstein, "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." So here are some questions to ask. Can we allow ourselves new thoughts? Can we start to see ourselves differently? Can we see ourselves as capable of more than we have imagined up until this point?

I am asking myself these same questions aware that there is a seed within me and all of us wanting to emerge. We don't have to go looking for our creations, they live inside us in the dark womb of our soul and imagination. We can open up to let them grow, leaf out and blossom. We can do this one little step at a time.

Falling in Love with the Creative Process

A lot of people think that when it comes to creativity, inspiration is the key. Yet those moments of insight or revelation never occur without the willingness to commit to the work and continue to show up. This perseverance is just as important. You get a creative flash. You show up to the work and what wants to be born becomes more clear.

Nobel prize winning Canadian short story writer Alice Munro once said, "I threw away all my early writings and it wasn't because I was the mother of three small children. It was because I was learning my craft and it took a long time."

It was the same with David Guterson who wrote the award winning novel Snow Falling on Cedars. When critics acclaimed that a brilliant new writer had just come out of the Pacific Northwest as if he and his book had arrived by magic, he responded "excuse me but I've written in the early morning hours for 25 years before going to my job." It took him ten years to write the novel.

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning poet, Mary Oliver wrote for twenty five years before putting her work out into the world. She refused to take an interesting job because she didn't want to be distracted from her work. It was only a few years after she started publishing her work that she won the Pulitzer. Her perseverance clearly paid off.

One of the favorite essays I've ever written is 13 pages and it took five years to write. I started from a clear place of inspiration but then I had to do the work. I needed to do research. I needed to continue my writing practice. I had to put the draft away for a couple of years while I developed my skill as a writer because this essay was very complex and when I started it I didn't have the level of ability to finish it.

This is why as a writing teacher and creativity coach I teach people to fall in love with the process. It is true for any form of creativity. You show up, you start playing around and you find yourself in the flow where time stops and you taste of the joy of being creative. This allows you to persevere. Even when things aren't going well, you can find pleasure in showing up and being willing to play with what wants to be born out of your effort. This provides its own sense of satisfaction.

Cultivating Innovation

Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat. - Steve Jobs

I call innovation one of the "i" words, like imagination, inspiration, intuition and illumination. It is a process, like creativity, that rises from an expanded state of awareness, where we find ideas and solution that come from beyond our rational, thinking mind. From this place we can do and be more than we ever considered possible.

Innovation is defined as introducing something new, be it a new idea, method or device. I remember hearing an interview with Steve Jobs where he described inventing the first floppy drive (remember those?); the way he spoke of trying lots of different strategies before it finally worked. Innovation asks for patience and perseverance.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point, identified two types of innovators. The rare conceptual innovators like Picasso who burst on the scene in the early 1900s and revolutionized how we think about art. And the much more prevalent experimental innovators like Cezanne, who worked endlessly by trial and error to find the look that captured his vision.

Picasso dazzled the European art world as a young man with his sudden passion to show a new way to do things; Cezanne's masterpieces did not come until he was in his 50s and then they came in a rush when 40 of his most famous works were produced in a few years.

It helps to understand how innovation works. Like creativity, innovation is usually a process that involves trial and error as well as a learning curve. So many think that this is the domain of a select few rather than a possibility for everyone. 

Now more than ever the world needs people willing to exercise their natural ability to innovate. And it is not restricted to the arts or technology. The development of microlending to help people in the third world become self reliant is a kind of innovation. New strategies for gardening and growing food in very small spaces is another example. 

Asking the question what else is possible here when we need a better way to do something can open us up to receiving new ideas. We can do this in every area of our lives and let ourselves play with new possibilities from a place of curiosity. The challenges we face in the world today can feel overwhelming, yet the solutions to solve our biggest problem already exist. Can we get innovative in their implementation? Can we get innovative in our own lives. Innovation, like creativity, puts us in the flow, which always feels good.

Working with Creative Anxiety

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible:
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

- Dawna Markova

With anxiety and fear running high in the world these days, I wanted to share how we can make friends with these feelings and use them to our advantage. Anxiety and fear can prevent us from being creative or living a life we love. To live and create fully be must be willing again and again to step out of our old comfortable life and into unknown territory. This always feels scary. Many years ago I read the self-help book Feel the Fear, And Do It Anyway which presents the premise that just because we feel a sense of fear about a project or moving in a new direction in our lives doesn't mean we are supposed to stop ourselves from proceeding.

More recently I've been fine tuning my understanding of what this really means and feels like, how to best use it in my life and creative work, and how it fits the idea of following my internal guidance of my intuition and heart to bring my soul and creative gifts into the world. Any time I stretch in a new direction in my writing or my personal and professional life I have to step out of my comfort zone which gives rise to a feeling of anxiety. I've found it's important to learn to distinguish between the kind of anxiety that represents our bodily intuition signaling a real threat (like don't walk down that dark alley or that new relationship really isn't good for you or that's really not the best art project for you to pursue) versus the kind of anxiety we feel when we step out of our comfort zone in a way that stretches our capacities, capabilities and sense of self. The anxiety that is genuinely trying to warn us off feels heavy with fear whereas the anxiety that simply marks stepping out of our comfort zone has a sense of exhilaration to it.

When I'm at my desk writing and I start to feel a lot of resistance, if I make myself sit in the chair and keep writing, (even when I desperately want to get up and make phone calls or clean the refrigerator), I find that I will usually move through the anxiety into what I really want to say and find myself very excited by the work that results. The same is true every time I do anything new in my life that feels like a stretch. I feel nervous and excited whenever I push past the feeling of fear and take action to make the new idea or vision happen.

When you are trying to decide what the fear or anxiety is trying to tell you, just take some deep breaths and get clear on the exact quality of the feeling in your body: whether you feel contracted or expanded by the thought of what you desire. If you feel expanded then you need to "feel the fear" that comes with it and begin to take action however small toward achieving your desire. Also new neuroscience shows that the simple act of naming or labeling a negative emotion like fear calms the brain which makes it easier to get clear on what to do.

Claiming Your Creativity

Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate profits. - Edward de Bono

Everyone is creative. It is a natural gift we are all born with that we actually have to be schooled out of. Watch young children at play and see how they naturally use their imagination. Consider their willingness to draw outside the lines and the way they don't judge what they are doing. They are "just" playing, having fun, trying different possibilities.

Play is a large part of what creativity is all about. Once we start playing with an idea or any creative form we then need to be open to the inspiration that will come through when our everyday mind is quiet or distracted by routine tasks like doing the dishes, driving our car, going for a walk, or taking a shower. At that point the bright idea or solution rises up out of the subconscious almost like something out of a dream and we need to write it down or intentionally remember it or like a dream image we will not be able to recall it later on.

One way to claim your creativity is to begin asking questions like "what would it take to solve this problem" and then don't try to figure out the answer or solution with your rational mind. Rather let it go and then just notice the thoughts or ideas that pop into your head during the day.

This can include the urge to turn on the radio where you hear a song or program that provides you with an ah. ha moment. Or you pull a book from the shelf and open it at random and a bookmark falls out with a quote that gives you another idea. Or we wake up in the middle of the night compelled to start writing. We are all different and creativity speaks to each of us in different ways. Part of being creative is learning what works best for you.

Another benefit from learning to work with your creativity is that we naturally experience a sense of joy and excitement since we are operating in an expanded state that feels really good. Start playing and see what happens.

The Importance of Taking Action

It's not enough to have a dream or vision for your work, creativity or life and just visualize the intended outcome. You have to take action; and it's easier to get started and keep going if you take a series of baby steps. Just one small step toward the life you really want will get you there.

My favorite story about the power of taking small daily actions comes from David Whyte, in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea. He tells of working for a nonprofit while holding the vision of making a living from his poetry. Since he wasn’t doing anything to turn the idea into reality, he began to feel exhausted. He asked his friend, Brother David Steindl-Rast to tell him about exhaustion and Brother David responded “the solution to exhaustion is not rest, it is wholeheartedness.”

At that point David Whyte began taking one small step a day towards his vision of making a living as a poet. Some days he memorized a poem, other days he made phone calls and he let people know about his dream. By day 273 he got a call from a consciousness raising conference at Asilomar, California, where one of the speakers had canceled and they wanted to know if David could take his place. That launched David Whyte on a career where he uses poetry to talk about the life of the soul. This eventually lead to his being invited to do this work in corporate America and he makes a six figure annual income from his poetry.

Whether you have a creative project in mind or you want to make major changes in your life, break your goals down into small action steps and take one each day. Then with every step congratulate yourself for moving closer toward your dream. If you try to make big leaps toward your goals you usually meet with too much resistance and fear that stops you. Small daily actions allow you to sneak under the radar of your resistance to change and stretch your comfort zone in a manageable way.

The best kind of action is inspired action where you listen to your heart or the still small voice within. You take action not out of the sense that you've got to make something happen but out of an inner knowing that this is the right step to take. You may have the intuition to go to a place for coffee that you don't usually go to but while ordering your latte, you run into someone you haven't seen in years who has a contact that will help you on your way.

What Are You Waiting For?

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.- Jack London

Many of us find ourselves repeatedly waiting for some future moment to claim our creative self. We think we need things to be perfect, our circumstances just right. We need more time, more money, more experience before we begin. We think we need to feel inspired.

Waiting is a form of resistance that keeps us from diving into the unknown or facing our fear of failure. The truth of being creative is that you have to be willing to embrace the unknown. You never really know what’s going to happen or if something is going to work out until you give it a go. The real pleasure in engaging our creativity comes from playing with the process without concern for the outcome.

So pick up a pen, paintbrush, cookbook, camera, lump of clay, musical instrument or sketch pad. There are countless ways to engage your creativity. What calls to you in this moment. Try something new. Have it be okay that you are not very good at first. Everything takes practice and a willingness to discover what works and what doesn’t.

Be like a child who could care less if something works out or if it is messy. Young children, until they are taught otherwise, revel in the mess of the creative process. They have no concerns about making mistakes. They simply enjoy of experience of creative forces moving through them.

So give it a try. Take one faltering step forward that can lead you to a new perspective, where possibilities are actually waiting for you. Have it be okay if it feels uncomfortable and uninspired at first. You find inspiration through the doing. As we enter a new year, a new decade what do you want to create. Take a deep breath. What are you waiting for?