Shake up the way you think.
Artwork by: Lucy Crisetig
Shaking up the way you think can open you up to inspiration, motivation, being more aware of yourself and your relationships, spirituality, and serendipity.
I have beautiful memories as a kid of being curious and imaginative. Those are the times that lead me to fun creative adventures.
The freeing feeling of laying on the ground and watching the clouds go by with a friend or by myself. Creating pictures with the clouds and checking if we could see each other’s pictures in the same way.
Drawing with chalk on the driveway or creating a fort or a cave out of snow. Pretending a small grouping of trees was a large forest to explore. Let the adventures begin!
Where did your curiosity lead you?
A creative life is not a divine gift adorned on a select few, it’s the learned application of experience in new and exciting ways.
Here are some ways to lead to a more creative life:
Changing up normal patterns and routines
Asking more questions about anything, be curious
Taking a creative pause when learning new information
Stepping outside your comfort zone
Letting go of needing to be in control
Questioning your thoughts and beliefs
Being mindful in the present moment
Spending time in reflection
Playing - just for fun
All these things can help cultivate more creative ideas, solutions, insights, or breakthroughs to come to you in new and exciting ways.
The Role Of Creativity In Our Lives
I’ve heard many people say, “I’m not creative”. Immediately, their body language shrinks just a little and the energy around them does too.
So it begs the question, are creativity and innovation only a divine gift adorned on a select few of us? Or could it be a learned application of knowledge and skills?
Here are some characteristics creative people tend towards:
Spending a great deal of time silently reflecting
Capable of looking at things in a fresh, even naïve ways
Are playful yet disciplined in the pursuit of their passions
Use creativity to foster more creativity
Are guided by their intuition or gut instincts
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou
What Is Creativity?
Creativity is the ability to generate, create, or discover new ideas, solutions, and possibilities through insight, convergent thinking, and divergent thinking. All three combine to give rise to creativity.
Convergent Thinking is laser-focused. When you’re focused on a specific intention or task, such as questioning a belief or a feeling in your body.
Divergent Thinking, or open focus, is the capacity for exploring multiple potentials, solutions, or ideas to a question or problem outside of routine.
Insight is the capacity to gain an accurate and deeply intuitive understanding of a person or thing. This is where the spirit-lifting, a-ha moments arise.
A creative idea need not be artistic or world-changing to count as creative. It could be just an expression of something communicated to yourself or another individual.
Life requires daily acts of ingenuity and novel workarounds, and in this sense, everyone possesses some form of creativity.
Research shows creativity requires making new connections between different regions of the brain. This is done by cultivating divergent thinking, focus and tapping into new experiences to take you out of your comfort zone, and coaxing out your curiosity.
Making new neural connections in the brain, restructures it for growth and repair. This is beneficial for people as they get older to be more flexible in their thinking, beliefs, and in their body.
Creativity In Personal Development
Creativity, from the point of view of personal growth, helps people to think for themselves, rather than walking through life with blinders on, following the people in front.
Creative work takes information from the senses to give expression to the feelings born of experience.
Pausing to mindfully create gives you space and time to get to know yourself better. The better you know yourself, the more you trust yourself, build your self-worth and self-confidence.
Your creativity is unique to you. It can never be replicated by anyone else anywhere. This is partly because only you have the perspective and experience from your vantage point. No one else can see the world quite the way you do.
Imagine an old wagon wheel with all the spokes around it, or like a bicycle wheel. Imagine that each spoke as a different person. They’re all facing towards the hub. It’s the same hub, however, each person on that wheel sees a slightly different version of that hub.
The way light will shine on the hub will be different from every perspective. Some may see a large crack, others a small fraction of the crack. Some may see some rust, others might see a spot of oil, and others a gleam of light, etc.
So each individual’s expression through convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and insight is also naturally unique.
Creativity allows you to spend time with your unique self, getting to know who you are. It can be an open door to personal growth.
Once you open your focus and reflect to gain insight on a convergent issue, it’s amazing to find the aha moments that spring up.
Ways to Use Creativity for Personal Growth
In my practice, I use a number of creative ways to walk with people on the journey so they can find answers for themselves and assist in their personal growth.
Guidance with open focused questions and turnarounds
Mindfulness practices
Using paints, pencils, markers, or crafts to bring ideas and reflections out of the mind and into expression for practical solutions
Journaling as reflection and interpretation of insights
Various types of visualizations to gain insight, solutions, and understandings
Breathing and grounding techniques
Creativity combined with mindfulness can give rise to re-establishing your relationship with you.
Getting back in touch with your values, your dreams, and your desires so you can feel whole, centered and on purpose.
Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash
Nourishing yourself is the first step to having much more to give to your close personal relationships, your work, and community involvement.
Be amazed to find out there is genius inside you patiently waiting to express itself.
Download my free ebooklet "Generating Your Soul's Genius" to take the first step to nourishing yourself or book a quick chat with me to see how we could work together.
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