What does creativity mean to you?

Creativity is one of those words that either inspires excitement or instills fear on people’s faces when I bring it up. Yet through the years [of facilitating workshops, 1:1 coaching/advising, and graduate courses,] creativity is often absent from our intentional conversations and strategies - especially in higher ed and academia, oddly.

What I’ve learned about creativity comes down to these points:

We are all creative beings.
Other people and systems can be creative energy sucks.
Creativity requires boundaries to protect it.
Routines and calendar scheduling are one form of protection.
Play and rest are critical radical self-care tools to set the foundation for creativity.
The practices of bring attention to our breathe and body fuels creativity.
Nature gives us new perspectives and restoration and outside movement heals.
Our gremlins show us where to heal our creative wounds.
Perfectionism keeps us small, fearful, and error focused.
We have regular opportunities to make the embodied creative choice.

I’ve worked with folks to get them back to creativity so that they can get over value misalignment, writer’s block, research dead-ends, motivation loss, and over-thinking. And if that intrigues you, next week is my Grow Boldly summer workshop series on Unblocking Creativity (and it’s free). I’ll be sharing some of my favorite activities and reflections to get you on your way this summer. If you can’t wait, check out some creativity restoring homework here. Or want to read about my uncomfortable use of creative affirmations in my own creative healing.

So much of creativity is about beginning and continuing with choice.

The choice to embrace your creativity and the choice to protect it.

The choice to know that creativity is at the heart of all our work, even ‘rigorous’ research that we pretend is all objective and verified.

Let’s start at the beginning then. Declare a commitment to your creative self!

Liz Gilbert in Big Magic says,

“Defining yourself as a creative person begins by defining yourself. It begins when you declare your intent. Stand up tall and say it aloud, whatever it is: I’m a writer…..” p. 94

What are you ready to declare for yourself? What is the creative endeavor you want to claim (even if it is hopefully uncomfortable AF)?

Remember that creativity is somatic (held, created, fostered, grown etc in the body) so take some grounding deep breaths and feel into your core/gut. [more on the somatic nature next time but for now, just breath.]

Creativity is playful and joyful so get out there and have some fun! It’s summertime here in the northern hemisphere!

Adventures out in Nature always offer amazing perspectives. This one was a trail down in Cañon City, CO that took me through some tunnels to amazing views of a canyon near the Royal Gorge.