The Gift of Wonder: Cultivating Creativity By Amanda

A Favorite Part of Me

Of all the labels others have used to describe me, artist is one that has always resonated with tenderness. The art of making or creating has always been a part of my life. I’ve always dabbled around with different projects. I feel it in my core- it’s something that drives me. Creating is something I value and feel an ache without. Whether it be drawing, painting, sculpting, baking, sewing, something about making has always given me release. I don’t think I’m unique in this, I think this is something planted deep in our human nature and is expressed in a multitude of ways. I suspect you have felt this ache too.

In this post, I hope we can wonder out loud the joy and gift of creating and offer some practical steps to cultivate your own engagement in creativity.

We Each Have Our Own Creative Origins

I’d like to think our creative inspiration is an accumulation of moments of awe. Let me walk you through some of my own accumulations. I’ve always had a nerdy edge- I can thank my older brother for that. I remember being a kid and pouring over his fantasy novels, Warhammer 40K figurines, and DnD dungeon master manuals. Anything that brought characters into life, illustrated mystical worlds, or provided a glimpse of beauty into an imagined world was so captivating to me. The character designs, the world building, the quest! On one level there was an appreciation for the quality of illustrations. I aspired to be that skilled and to create something so cool. Then there was another level, that pulled me into a sense of wonder and inspiration. It didn’t have an end point, I just wanted to make something for the sake of making something, because it scratched an itch deep within me that needed to be scratched.

I suspect many of you have encountered something similar. What was your gateway to wonder? What was your go to media? Did you make comics? Did you act out fantastical sense through make-belief play clothing yourself in a character to drop it like a heavy blanket when your mom calls in to the table for dinner? I’m most versed in visual art because that’s been my art, but let us not discriminate the many avenues you could have ventured. Maybe yours was Lego, fashion, Minecraft, or crafting short stories. Or maybe you were like me and sat for hours in the quiet in my room with the perfect play list carrying me through all waves of emotion while lost in pastels, paints, and graphite. Maybe you knit, carved, or took great pleasure in rearranging a space. I hope this is familiar, I hope you’ve had opportunity to connect into the act of making at least once in your life.

Going Beyond the Art

It’s almost hard for me to name a few, without venturing fully into any activity that engages our creative thinking, a specialized skill set, and sense of mastery. The art of making gets expansive-fast! As well, creating something often verges on the experience of flow-state which is more about the doing of something, which draws you so deeply in by its demand and focus that you lose sense of time, yet what is challenging feels effortless, and in that effortlessness you feel nearly euphoric. You may nearly feel outside of yourself, yet so thoroughly connected to yourself it’s paradoxical and transcendent in its quality. That’s all I’ll say about flow-state for now, maybe more on that in a future post ;)

Whether you’ve experienced flow-state, or just felt the joy of creating, it undeniably powerful. For many of us, art was the first language we learned to express our inner worlds. Whether it be through drawings, poems or song- a piece of us makes its debut to the outer world.

Drawing from the Inside Out

Freud would use the word catharsis to describe this release. Another word from Freuds lexicon that might also be used is the word sublimation as it describes the act of taking something that resides deep in our internal world and bringing it to life in something refined and tangible. It usually has a connotation of taking something form our shadow or ID ( raw unconsciousness) and bringing it to the surface as something more understandable, rendered into the conventions of our values.

I definitely don’t agree with everything Freud has to say about human nature or psychology, but I think there is something to this idea regardless. Maybe it’s not always unearthing something dark from our unconscious awareness, but there is certainly a deeper impact. It’s not just the bringing of some internal content forward that feels relieving, but the process itself is also transformative. We are processing, as we encounter ourselves more deeply, in the act of making we are inherently drawing from a state of connectedness.

I also recognize another side of this equation, which shifts from the art product to the how of our experience while making art. How we feel, how we process, how we determine what feels intuitive, authentic, and right.

I see similarities between the Zen of creating with what some counselling theory would describe as being in our core state. The core state generally describes an internal climate of regulation and authenticity. We often arrive at our core state after processing and riding a wave of core emotion to completion. Such core emotions include fear, anger, grief, joy, excitement, disgust, sexual excitement. These are sensations that happen to us, they trigger a physiological reaction, they are a reality that we live not just a feeling and when we are able to metabolize them the way our bodies and psyche are made to, we arrive in a more connected state which we have access to the resources of the fullness of our humanity. In this place we feel the most calm, curious, connected, compassionate, courageous, confident and clear (I guess counsellors love a good ‘C’ alliteration). We are in a posture where we can remake and reclaim parts of ourselves that have previously been scattered, broken, or lost.

The dots I’m connecting here is creativity can be healing. It can help facilitate the space we need to be with ourselves enough to process and become more connected. It can help free up those internal resources we have built in as humans. It can allow us to organize, consolidate, and difuse what’s within.

And yet… why can it be so hard to get started?

The Cost of Creativity

Creativity is effortful, and we flooded by a sea of effortless and immediate options for dopamine and “rest”. I’ve been listening through Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation which speaks to this at length. He warns against the dangers of phone- based upbringing and how it robbed a generation of the critical ingredients which make us resilient, confident, and regulated people in the world. Part of this danger is the sneaky convenience the digital age offers and how quickly its entertainment becomes second nature.

It can be easy to let my creative spark dim when I feel the weight of a long day, feel drained by decision fatigue. Sometimes the idea of starting a new project feels like another demand. Soon, my phone finds its way inches from my face and suddenly my free time trickles away and I’m left feeling restless, fatigued, and still unsatisfied with my down time. An evening of my life, high-jacketed.

Don’t get me wrong-I love a good brain rot sesh. I don’t think it’s fair try and strip ourselves of easy comfort. However, I also recognize this easy comfort comes at a cost.

I know for myself, that if unchecked, those minutes slip into hours, and accumulate into days which contributes to me living a life that in my heart of hearts I do not consent to. I have an ache I wish to answer, and this is not how.

So here are some ways I try to stay connected to what keeps me tapped into my own creativity.

1. Making ease access. If my phone is easy access, I want my art to also be. One way I do this is by making a home in the open for my art supplies. I must dig out my paints, paper, and water jars from the abyss of my storage closet… the chances of engaging drop immediately. Instead, pencil crayons, paints, and paper have designated homes throughout my space. In my house, these outlets are readily available. There are journals on end tables, guitars stationed in the living room, and pencil crayons and paints at the ready on my desk nearly always.

2. Make it low pressure. You don’t have to fill a canvas to do art. You don’t have complete a novel to write. I’m a big advocate for micro-moments. Have an interesting thought? Spend ten minutes refining it. Want to paint? Do a mini project. Nothing must be grand to be satisfying. It can be easy to create expectations about what our making looks like. So rather than aiming for a specific outcome, take time to also just enjoy the play and sensation of the creating. What colours feel good, what shapes speak to you? What sounds fit your mood today? Lean into the pleasure of the moment rather than the product and see what happens. I have often recommended the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott as she offers a beautiful insight into creative writing but also just the art of living. I draw from her wisdom as she urges us to have permission for “shitty first drafts”. Let it suck, let it be messy, otherwise how will you dig deep enough to find out what matters in your work? Creativity lives in mistakes not perfection.

3. Create the time. I don’t know what your life looks like, but this is what works for me. I know that if I don’t intentionally create the time to be bored and without other options, my phone, Netflix, and YouTube can quickly fill the gap, so I practice boredom. Especially when I know I’m going to have time set aside to relax or have down time. I delete apps and force myself to be without. I think boredom is the cost of creativity at times. If I’m constantly filled to the brim with external noise, how can I truly get acquainted with the voice of my internal state?

4. Don’t wait for inspiration to find you. I get it. There are defined times when the mood simply takes you, but I’ve come to know for myself at least, consistency is what cultivates inspiration- not the other way around. If you wait for inspiration to find you, you may find yourself rarely engaging with your craft at all. You can create your own inspiration through the continual doing. Creativity is like a garden, it requires you to till the ground, plant the seeds, and water it to see fruit.

I hope you’ve resonated with some of these thoughts. I hope you feel your own ache speaking and feel excited to answer. Thanks for listening to a few snippets of wisdom from this counsellor and fellow creative.