Making Time to Create

This post is for all the supposed “non-creatives” out there. The ones who tell themselves that they’re not musical, or artistic, that they can’t dance or write, that there’s just no way they could possibly create anything. 

I want you to know that you’re lying (at least partially). More importantly, you’re selling yourself short and depriving yourself of a fuller experience than the one you’re currently living. Let me explain.

The world in which we live tends to categorize people in extremes. One is either an artist, or they’re not. They’re a dancer, or they’re not. Spiritual or not. Extravagant or frugal. An athlete or a couch potato. A morning lark or a night owl.  You get the point. 

The very real truth, however, is that most people don’t live at one extreme or the other. They actually fall somewhere in the middle. When it comes to the creative continuum, what this means is that while you may not be a virtuoso in terms of creativity, you actually do have creative capacity. 

Why does this matter?

Because being creative is a way of rounding out your human experience. By tapping into your creative side, you gain access to a whole other way of seeing the world, of being in the world, of experiencing the world, of making sense of the world. Different parts of your brain come alive when you choose to engage in creative expression, whether that’s dancing, singing, writing, cooking, painting or anything else. This is particularly important to remember for those folks who tend to spend most of their days anywhere but in the land of creativity. 

Full transparency: none of my personal stories is that I am not at all creative. More specifically, there’s a voice in my head (a very loud one) that tells me quite regularly that I am not an artist. I participate in paint nights when I can, because I find them fun, but I’m not an ACTUAL artist, you know? It’s the voice of my inner critic speaking through a megaphone. 

But the thing is, I AM an artist. I AM a dancer. I AM a singer. I’m not a professional in any of these areas, I couldn’t claim any of these creative outlets as a source of revenue, but that doesn’t mean that those capacities aren’t present for me. And whenever I tell myself that I’m not those things, I deny myself the opportunity to engage with life in another way. 

Last week, my family and I had the hectic experience of having our lives shift as we helped my mom move into a long-term care facility. After having Mom live with us for over 7 years, the last two of which have been in the wake of my dad’s passing, I found myself facing a whole new reality. At first, while I allowed the relief of knowing that Mom was now in a space where she could get the care that she actually needed, I found myself feeling completely discombobulated. And confused at the discombobulation. Giving myself over to work gave my brain a sense of normalcy to a point, but it didn’t seem to be enough for me to orient myself to my new reality. And my usual “therapies” – journaling, meditating, online-shopping (keeping it real, here) – just weren’t helping.

So, I decided to tell the very loud “you are not an artist” voice in my head to shut it already. Because I just felt like I needed to paint something – to take out my little bottles of acrylic paint, my dollar store brushes and a leftover canvas I had lying around, and paint. The swirl of emotions that was churning in my heart space didn’t’ seem to have another outlet for expression. So, painting needed to happen. 

I didn’t have a template.

I didn’t have a guide.

I didn’t have video tutorial to follow.

I just had my thoughts, and I gave myself permission to use the mode of painting to get those thoughts out of my brain. I painted those thoughts into a piece that I gave to my mother to hang in her new room. It’s a piece with three lotus flowers, on a blue-ish background, with swirls of white, and the word “SWAGATHAM” printed in Malayalam text at the bottom; Malayalam is my mother’s native language and “SWAGATHAM” means “welcome”. 

I don’t know WHY I needed to paint that. But I do know this: letting myself paint, letting myself be creative, letting go of my fear of judgement and not being “an actual artist” allowed me to stop the internal churning, at least for a bit. I couldn’t make the churning stop logically; so, I did it creatively. It was cathartic. 

What I know for sure is that being creative is a part of being human. It isn’t a question of whether you are or aren’t creative. It’s a question of whether you’ll allow yourself to create. Allowing yourself to be creative, giving voice or expression to what you’re feeling in a way that is more than simply logical, actually allows you to live life more fully. 

Bottom-line: everyone is creative, and it’s time for all of us to reclaim the truth of this so that we can live our lives more fully. When your usual methods of expression and processing aren’t working, giving your creative side a chance is liberating and cathartic. This week, I challenge you to find your creative side. Allow yourself to feel into the freedom that comes from creating something as a means of expression, and notice what opens up for you as a result.