If you are a sensitive creative writer, photographer or painter or simply someone who uses creativity to express emotions, you already know how therapeutic creativity can be.
But sometimes creating something, anything, can bring up fear. There are moments of emptiness, of going into the void. There is all the struggle with yourself that makes creating something harder than it is, in itself. This week, I want to do a reminder post, both for you and me, about how we can let ourselves by more creative.
One of the best ideas I have ever encountered about creativity is something that comes from writer Ray Bradbury’s work. It might help you on your journey as a sensitive creative.
Once upon a time, I heard this interview with Ray Bradbury in which he talks about something that felt revolutionary to me. In it, he talked about how thinking is merely a “corrective” in our lives. That’s all thinking is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be the center of our lives.
That knocked my socks off.
What!? Thinking was not supposed to be the center of my life? But I was always thinking and trying to control the outside world by thinking of all possibilities in my head (and then avoiding them.) I was constantly ruminating, something I learned later on is something sensitives are prone to doing, especially those of us who have experienced trauma in the past. What was I supposed to do, if not think and try to maneuver my way through life. How was I supposed to live?
This is, in part what Bradbury says and I think it is one of the best interviews on creativity that I have ever heard.
“The worst thing you do when you think is lie — you can make up reasons that are not true for the things that you did, and what you’re trying to do as a creative person is surprise yourself — find out who you really are, and try not to lie, try to tell the truth all the time. And the only way to do this is by being very active and very emotional, and get it out of yourself — making things that you hate and things that you love, you write about these then, intensely. When it’s over, then you can think about it; then you can look, it works or it doesn’t work, something is missing here. And, if something is missing, then you go back and re-emotionalize that part, so it’s all of a piece.
But thinking is to be a corrective in our life — it’s not supposed to be a center of our life. Living is supposed to be the center of our life, being is supposed to be the center — with correctives around, which hold us like the skin holds our blood and our flesh in. But our skin is not a way of life — the way of living is the blood pumping through our veins, the ability to sense and to feel and to know. And the intellect doesn’t help you very much there — you should get on with the business of living.”
What else can I say, but wow! This is something I have both learnt a lot from and something I still struggle with – getting out of my mind and into feeling and being and creating.
You might be blocking yourself as a sensitive creative by trying to follow someone else’s process.
If you are an intuitive, highly sensitive writer or other creative, the way you do things is probably different from the linear way you might have learnt in school. As an intuitive writer, I have learnt that I need to combine the traditional step-by-step process with my own unique way of doing things.
My process is not a straight line. It’s a spiral path.
When I write longer pieces, for example, I may have bullet points as a guide but I don’t always stick to them. They are a jumping point. By the end of it, I have kept some part of this original outline. I have discarded the rest.
The way I write is also spiral, circling around the topic in tighter and tighter circles, until I get to the heart of it. I was introduced to a very practical way to do this circular dance through fellow HSP and INFJ writer Lauren Sapala’s work. In this interview with Lauren, we discuss how you can approach writing in a similar way to working on a mosaic. While this interview is about writing, what Lauren talks about is also true for accepting our own style as highly sensitive and intuitive people.
Also, check out this piece I wrote on an alternative way to set goals, which might suit you better as a sensitive creative. If you are an intuitive writer, you might also like this post on how including openness in our writing can help intuitive, feeling types.
So, think about this. What is your authentic process? How can you do things your own way? Are you feeling resistant because you are forcing yourself into doing things in a way that works for other people? How can you let yourself “Do you”? How could that help you be more creative?
Resistance shows up in different ways for sensitive creatives and different kinds of resistance need different tools.
Resistance kicks in when we are trying to make some substantial change – whether pursuing a creative calling or launching our own business as HSP entrepreneurs. Are we sure? How do we know we are doing the right thing? How do you we know that it’ll be worth it? How do we know this is even what we want? A thousand-headed monster shows up as we step into the arena. Then, there is the deadly: How do we know this is even resistance and not healthy fear? Some of these are valid questions we have to think about. Some of these are just doubts. We need different tools to deal with each of these.
In this post, I talk about when to know that it is, in fact, resistance and not healthy fear. As a writer, one of the doubts that comes up for me is if I am original enough. Everything has been done before, said before. What’s the point of doing the same thing all over again. In this post, I talk about how I have dealt with this doubt, how I need to keep on reminding myself that authenticity is more important than originality. This is something we need to keep telling ourselves as highly sensitive and intuitive people, especially when feeling self-critical.
And in this post, I talk about a very interesting idea that comes from Nancy Peacock’s work about how and why we lose our creative energy and how we can birth our creations.
These are just a few of the tools and mindsets that have helped me in my own creative journey as an intuitive writer and sensitive creative. I hope you found something here to help you in your own creative journey.
What about you? What things work for you? What helps you be more creative?
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