So You’re Not Creative? Think Less. Notice More.

We’ve all heard someone say “I’m not creative. I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” In my work as a creativity and awareness practice educator, I hear participants make these statements again and again, voiced with certainty, often tinged with regret and shame. We hear folks say that they can’t sing, write, cook, maintain a rhythm, or play an instrument. Each time that I hear such statements voiced as facts, it gives me pause. Each utterance could be a reminder, an opportunity for us to experience the actual nature of being alive, and when we do so, we may well discover that our existence as humans on this planet is far beyond what we had thought.

My mother loved music. She loved to sing and to play piano. Together we sang so many songs as she played on the upright piano. She taught me to harmonize as we drove in the car. I sang along with the music on the radio. Mother helped me to feel the music in my body, and although she has passed along, I am so grateful to her for this teaching, for the resonance of breath, muscle, and the stretch of the vocal chords in my body that allows for singing to emerge. I also experienced the pain of being in music class at my school, practicing as a choir, when the music teacher silenced certain members of the group, publicly asking them to mouth the words. Some of these young people never sang again, convinced that they are not able, not good enough. What a terrible scar this is to carry in a life.

I was in college in New York when I understood that I am also a visual artist. I’d always identified as a poet, and carried a view that I couldn’t draw or paint. But I made a friend who carried around a sketch book in which he was constantly drawing abstract pen and ink pieces with Rapidograph pens. I watched him and wanted to learn to do what he was doing, so I purchased a sketchbook, pens, and ink, and I began what has been a lifelong practice and pleasure. I draw in my own way, out of my imagination, out of my body, out of my pleasure.

All of existence is an unceasing creative process. What we experience as form, including our own bodies, is a constant engagement and change. We take in nurturance, air, water, and stimulation. We then transform and emerge in newness. Each moment is new. Every body is a creative masterpiece - as our hearts pulse and blood swirls, in a state of total awareness, without second guessing or doubt. With each breath, we are in a profound creative relationship with all of being. Our lives are creative journeys in which we can engage as we are. We open to the creativity of life itself, and as we learn to do so, we can explore creatively. It is not possible for us to be anything other than creative.

How do we begin to shift out of the worn-out labels that limit our exploration of life on this abundant and mysterious planet? How do we find the courage to feel into our own relationship as a living being rather than holding onto what has been told to us regarding who we are? One possibility is to feel the breath in the body. We begin to notice the details of our relationship with breath, with space. We shift the allegiance away from thinking and attend, with feeling. What do you notice as the breath enters the tips of your nostrils? As you exhale, you might activate your vocal chords, and hum as the breath moves out of your body, an aimless humming, the miracle of sound. Perhaps you notice the sensations that arise when you focus your awareness into the palms of the hands. And then, when you realize that you are back in thought, you can, if you wish, return to the feeling. What do you notice?

If you’d like to explore further, please join my free Three Simple Ways to Access Your Creative Power webinar on May 11th. To register https://www.annemarkhambailey.com/programs/three-simple-ways-to-access-your-creative-power

So You’re Not Creative? Think Less. Notice More.

B.E.S.T. INTEGRATED HEALING

Filling the Mental Health Services Gap