Recognize Your Creativity

There’s creativity within each of us, or so that’s my belief, and yet so many people claim they are not creative! What a travesty! I’d like to chat about what this creativity is and what it feels like [to me] to access it. Join along in the conversation! I’d love to hear about your creative process!

Everyone is an artist of some sort and sadly not everyone pursues this within themselves. There is potential for you to reach the sky and find beauty and share it with others, yet why do we hesitate? I want to talk about the Creative Flow. If you let your creativity rest dormant in your soul, you may not know what this is, but if you have an idea, let's chat about it. What I'm referring to as creative flow is this thing that pulls you along and opens you up to a world outside of your own. It's the ideas, the projects, the unshared brainstorm beauties in your mind. It's this thing where when you access it, CREATIVITY POURS OUT! Have you experienced this creative flow? Do you know what I mean? Or is this foreign or sound like a bunch of bologna to you? This is a fairly new thing to me, as I never pursued writing in the fashion that I now am.

It’s hard to call myself an artist, a writer. But I had to take the leap when I became a professional calligrapher. I started calling myself an artist because that’s what people saw me as. I was selling my work in art galleries, art shops, and was the featured artist in cafes. But something still didn’t feel right. I think it’s because I didn't see calligraphy as the outpouring of my creative expression.

I still do calligraphy and consider myself an artist, but I’ve since honed-in on my truest creative expression. Not visual art even though I love handlettering, not music although I am a music therapist, but WRITING. I never knew how much I loved writing until the past few years when I jumped back into my long lost, childhood expression of my deepest emotions. Then when I thought of it, it completely made sense! How many journals have I written? How many English/writing classes did I excel in? How many papers of my were used as examples in college classes and internship? This writing thing has been following me around for decades and I didn’t even know it!

I am a writer. Phew, that's hard for me to accept!

I finally understand the creative flow that my friend experiences when she puts paint to paper. I am recognizing what my husband talks about when he mentions hearing the music in the room and then putting it down into sound on the keys. I’m getting choked up just thinking about this creative flow, because I never thought I had it! I always saw myself as someone who was so-so at a variety of artistic mediums, but none of them ever felt like me. None of them ever felt like my soul was being expressed on paper. But now that’s all changed.

I am a writer and that is my creative flow. Honestly, friends, it’s weird to be writing about this, but I guess it all makes sense. If you think about writing about your creative flow you might feel like it is a daunting task - you’d rather express it through your own creative medium. But for me, this will do. This is the easiest thing and it just keeps on going… I could write forever and ever and ever and ever and it’s just so easy I don’t ever need to stop. That’s what the creative flow feels like, at least for me.

The creative flow has a unique kinship in its feeling. It’s like my best friend has visited me and I JUST DON’T WANT HER TO EVER LEAVE, OKAY?! When I feel the inspiration arising, it’s like I have to catch hold of it and get it out as quickly as possible, or else it may just venture off into the sky for the next writer to grab hold of. It’s like a tingling at the top of my head that stays there until I rest and stop thinking about it. There are so many ways to explain the creative flow, but unless you let yourself go there, experience it, feel what is right to you, you may not ever understand.

Creativity takes exploration and a relationship. I feel like your creativity is skipping along the clouds until to open the door. It’s lounging in the back of your mind, eating potato chips and watching Netflix until you invite her/him/they over. It’s there, and I desperately want you to experience this too!

Elizabeth Gilbert is one of my favorite people who talks about creativity. She said, “Creativity is the engine of resilience.” Isn't that true! She also wrote a book all about it called Big Magic. I would HIGHLY recommend you read this book as you start or continue your creative journey. The world with thank you. We need your creativity in the world. I want to see what’s up there in the clouds waiting for you to express! Show me, please!

Can’t wait til we’re all honing-in on what is truest to our own souls. ❤️