The Wacky World of Creativity

What? Hello? Where am I? Oh, I´m back in my blog – almost didn´t recognise it, it´s been so long since I´ve been here!

What a funny old thing creativity is. This seems to have been one of my lessons over the last few weeks, and the thing I feel compelled to write about today.

Up to recently, I´d never experienced any kind of block when it came to writing regular blogs, then suddenly bam! Out of nowhere, a wall Hadrian would have been proud of flung itself up in my mind and every time my thoughts to turned to writing something, I just kept banging my head against it.

Headaches and frustration ensued and all of a sudden everything seemed preferable to sitting down and writing. Scrubbing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush, ironing socks with a crease down the middle, sorting out CDs into alphabetical order – you know, fun stuff and, of course, all hugely essential.

But, as with all things in life, there was something to be learned here – although, be warned, it is a bit of a dichotomy.

On the one hand, I totally agree that there is little point in waiting until you feel inspired and creative to sit down to write. Inspiration tends to come along while we are working and many times in the past, I´ve not been in the mood to write but just got on with it anyway, soon to find myself in a strong creative flow and loving the process. I get that, I do.

And yet, on the other hand, I also believe that there are times when it´s best not to force it. I mean, where does creativity come from? Is there a magical, creative voice informing us? Our muse, as it were? I think so, and I also think that at the times we feel “blocked”, it is at its busiest, working overtime whispering the best and most authentic way forward to our subconscious minds. If we and our rational minds can get out of the way and not interfere with this process (too many cooks and all that), very soon those ideas will burst through to the surface and we are back in the flow – writing, making music, painting, sculpting – whatever our particular creative outlet may be.

Sometimes the rational mind just doesn´t get the magic of the process and has to be kept occupied doing something else while the real inventive stuff gets cracking behind the scenes.

So, the next time you catch me sorting a whole cabinet of books into alphabetical order, looking all fed-up and sorry for myself, just remind me of this, would you?

Thanks. :)

Stepping out of your Comfort Zone

Now, why on earth would we want to do that? Isn´t being in our comfort zone all kind of comfortable and comforting? Well, yes, for a while, but Clint Eastwood summed it up nicely in an interview I saw with him recently. He said that when he was a child his father had told him that you either expand or decay - “and I didn´t want to decay.” You have to admit, it seems to have worked well for him, and I figured, if it´s good enough for Clint, then it´s good enough for us.

We stay in our comfort zones due to the stories we are telling ourselves about our lives, our capabilities, our talents, our weaknesses, our backgrounds – and countless other elements that we perceive as making up “us” and our place in the world. And for the most part, this is a pretty limited vision – partly due to the fact that a lot of our beliefs about ourselves are inherited from parents, teachers, family, friends and other influential people in our lives, and it simply doesn´t occur to us to question it; and partly due to our own lack of self-confidence and belief in ourselves.

But that´s all it is – a vision. And we can expand it any time we want, in fact, we all do. Those times we catch ourselves daydreaming about how things could have been, entertaining those fantasies in which we are perfect – the true hero/heroine of our life movie. Come on, don´t pretend you don´t know what I mean...we´ve all used hairbrushes as microphones and sung in front of an adoring, imaginary audience; we´ve all been the one who kicked the bad man´s butt and saved the day - that kind of thing! The reason we inevitably snap ourselves out of these “fantasies” is because it somehow feels easier and safer to stay put. To stay where things are familiar and you´re not venturing out into the land of the unknown.

Wouldn´t it be something, though, if we did just allow ourselves to go with these expanded visions?

Take a quiet few moments and just let your mind expand out and out, and see where it takes you. What is your greatest vision of yourself? It doesn´t matter if your rational mind starts sniggering at you and trying to get you to stop being so ridiculous and please come back to reality right now before you make a complete fool of yourself. It´s important to understand that it´s more than likely this vision will be acting very much like a dream – in other words, more symbolic than literal. What does it mean or signify to you personally? How does it make you feel? For instance, in my mind´s eye, I can hold an arena full of admiring fans enraptured with my amazingly powerful and beautiful voice as I belt out song after song and take the roof off the place. In reality, I´m very self-conscious and completely tone-deaf!! It´s at this stage, if we listen to our rational minds, that we feel stupid at even daring to think such unrealistic thoughts and quickly push them away.

What I´m suggesting is that each of these thoughts is trying to tell us something about ourselves and where we could be heading next, if we want to step out of our comfort zone and fulfil our highest potential. Me standing on stage singing has nothing to do with me standing on stage singing – were I ever to find myself on a stage, microphone in hand, in front of thousands of people, I guarantee I would throw up. No, what it symbolises to me personally is my deep-held wish to have my voice heard, to make people feel better, uplifted, inspired by my words – in reality, words I write, certainly not words I sing!

So, if stepping out of your comfort zone and achieving your highest potential is your thing, allow yourself to think BIG. It´s not childish, it´s not unrealistic and it´s not pointless. You just need to quiet your rational mind enough to hear the true message of your higher self which is concerned only with your highest good and in showing you the next best possible and most empowering step you could take.

Understand.

Trust.

Then go for it!