A Lifestyle Lesson for Creativity
I talked about this topic in a recent podcast episode of Anne’s Anatomy. Listen here.
If you don’t consider yourself a “creative,” it might be tempting to just scroll right by this lifestyle lesson. But the fact is, if you’re human, you are a creative.
When you hug your child, you create something.
When you stand up for yourself, you create something.
When you pick up trash, you create something.
When you whisper encouraging words to yourself, you create something.
Your existence is creation incarnate. The Creator is you because Source is moving through you all the time, every second of every day of your life.
So you, my friend, are a creative.
And as a human who creates, it is your responsibility to allow for creative energy to flow through you because after all, you are a beautiful conduit of the Divine.
And that’s what creativity does – it flows. It’s not forced or pushed. It flows.
The only job you ever have to do is to create the conditions for your creativity to flow through you.
So if you’re trying to make a decision, redesigning your home, strategizing a project at work, or anything else that you do on a daily basis, it’s not your job to determine every detail, plan it down to the particulars, or to know what it’ll look like when it’s done.
Your job is to make space, listen, and get out of the way of the creative flow moving through your cells.
Here are three lifestyle tips on how to do that.
SEE: Monitor your basic needs.
Creativity flows from a foundation of safety and self-sustaining energy. This means your basic needs must be met first. We’ve all heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy, right? Safety is at the bottom because everything else build up from there.
If you’re hungry, thirsty, have to pee, need a bowel movement, or are longing for companionship, these needs must be monitored and met as they arise.
Again, you’re not forcing creativity. You’re creating the conditions for it to flow.
Make sure your “bio-needs” are satiated and creativity is more likely to naturally come your way.
STOP: Don’t overextend yourself.
Bringing something from your mind into the 3D world is pretty fun and extremely satisfying. When creativity flows, that’s exactly what is happening. Your invisible mind is working with visible matter.
When this energy is flowing, personally I don’t want it to ever stop. Ever.
So my biggest mistake with creativity is expecting it to keep flowing once it’s begun, and usually I’ll sacrificed other areas of my life for it to do so.
I’ll sit in front of the computer longer than my eyes can handle. I won’t get up from my writing on the couch even if I have to pee. And when I get to a point where the next step isn’t coming to mind, I’ll work myself up into a tizzy thinking this will help.
It doesn’t.
What I’ve learned about creativity is that when it arrives, welcome it. When it leaves, welcome that experience too.
START: Work with your energy reserves and trust them to teach you what to do.
Most of us have been so deluded by the concept of 9 to 5 that we expect that’s when we should create. So, when we wake up at 1am in the middle of the night wanting to clean the kitchen, we stay put and talk ourselves into believing that staying in bed is the best thing to do.
Usually this just results in a couple hours of tossing and turning, frustrated that our body won’t bend to our mind’s will.
When you have energy to do something, do it.
When you don’t have energy to do something, don’t do it.
In my experience, trusting this flow usually means everything that needs to be done will get done when it’s meant to be done.
Most importantly, you’ll be happier for it.
MAGIC MANTRA: I am a creative.