Step Two to Unblocking Your Creativity is Understanding
Last week I wrote about declaring your intentions for your creative self. In that< I even talked a bit about what I have learned thus far about creativity and helping folks unblock or reclaim theirs.
This week’s Grow Boldly workshop series on Unblocking Your Creativity reminds me why the practice of creativity is one of my favorite topics with folks.
I have found 3 main trends of BIG PICTURE creative blocks:
You don’t see yourself as creative like artists or writers, ya know, ‘those art people’
Your creative self has been so censored you don’t know it anymore
Your creativity is regulated for specific areas of life rather all throughout
How this plays out in a workplace system - for me in higher ed was that - creative wounds got more pronounced with:
Other’s criticism disguised as feedback and often anonymous thus preventing constructive conversations (cue the censorship);
The need to be an expert right out the gate instead of a beginner's mind with new things (cancel that curiosity and wonder so needed in the creative process);
The superiority of 'legitimate artists' owning creativity rather than creativity is in ALL of us which allowed creativity in segmented/safer parts of life.
The over-scheduling and over-working snuffs out time, space, and energy for creativity at all so it keeps you in status quo rather than out-of-the-box creating.
Wrapped up in all that is often perfectionism and icky comparison with all the fears that underscore those beliefs and behaviors. It has been helpful then to understand the creative cycle and what hijacks it, which I drew out a couple years ago that you can see below. I think of it now as my own reinforcing and the system’s culture reinforcement. We live in a ‘both/and’ world and in one where capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy need to keep us producing with a nose to the grind rather than free thinking and going with what our creative needs and wants are.
Unblocking my creativity helped me get on the path of clarity and that path is a daily practice of realigning, reset, and resistance. My creativity reminded me to fuck following other people’s rules. Their rules kept me small and wounded. Instead, creative clarity showed me what choices I needed to make to be in alignment with my values.
All of which was way out of whack for me a few years ago, even though I knew I used my creativity in how I designed curriculum, course assignments, and programs. But I wasn’t fully integrating my creative flow because I didn’t see the connection between my limiting behaviors and thoughts and what messages I got from my workplace. Understanding this cycle and what my patterns and habits of hijacking my creativity have been so critical in shifting and transforming. In this now, I can make more empowered choices when I do engage in work and I can bring in creativity to that.
Your reflection time:
What do you see of your own patterns in this creative cycle?
What mindsets (thoughts) or behaviors (patterns) are you ready to shift?
What mindsets (thoughts) or behaviors (patterns) are not even yours but from outside you that you are D-O-N-E with?
What are you ready to realign, reset, and resist in re-writing your creative rules?