Hey. I’m back. At least for this little post because I miss you and I’ve been wanting to put some different things into words, but I think I also needed to step away to give myself a chance to find those words. But more on that later.
I wanted to talk today about creativity because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I’ve been learning tons through scientific research and talking to different people about the staggering effects creativity can have on our physical, mental, and emotional well-being, and how closely tied it is to our sense of connection and purpose and self.
I’ve also been learning about what creativity is not.
Creativity is NOT about:
- Giving yourself an identity
- Becoming famous
- Being well-liked and approved of
- Making money
- Self-worth
Let me tell you, my learnings on creativity have been both deeply sobering and humbling. They’ve made me pause and reflect on my own relationship with my creativity and get very honest with myself about what isn’t working anymore. They’ve also made me face the very uncomfortable truth that I had been faking my way through creativity and hoping no one would notice.
Womp womp.
Let’s back up a bit, shall we?
I’ve always felt quite connected to my creativity, partially because as a child I spent a lot of time doing creative extracurriculars, and partially because there were certain creative things that came easily and naturally to me. One of those things was writing. As a little girl, I was always writing short stories, little poems, even starting fiction books (though I never got more than a few chapters in). I also loved anything to do with music, so I sang pretty much all the time and started learning guitar in my senior year of high school.
What I should note is that back then, being creative was simply…fun. It certainly wasn’t something I had to force; I didn’t really think too much about sharing my creativity (though there were times that I did want to, and it felt genuinely good to share). I didn’t think about how often I engaged in it, or what my “goals” were with it. I just did it because it brought me joy or helped me process feelings. In short, I didn’t overthink it.
And then at some point, something shifted. Some old belief, programmed in me throughout my life, convinced me that if I was going to spend time doing something, it had to “lead somewhere.” It had to [insert any item from the What Creativity is NOT list], or else it was a waste of time. And so, I figured if I was going to keep spending time on creativity, I needed to throw myself headfirst into it and not come up for air until I had something to show for it.
I chose writing, since I was already spending so much time doing it (and because I could see so many people who had become really successful through their it).
I decided that I would be a Writer (giving myself an identity), and that this meant that I would do all the Writer things. I would wake up early to write for a couple hours before the work day started. I would write articles for different journals and wait with bated breath to receive notice of acceptance or rejection to various publications. I would research writing hacks and “how to get published” articles, and I would talk to magazine writers and editors asking them for advice on how to “break into the biz.”
Along with all these little daily habits, I created a new set of long-term Goals for myself. Goals like having an article go viral or having more than X amount of people see my writing (becoming famous). Making over $10K per month from my writing, which I have found is something of a holy grail in the writing community (making money). Having dedicated fans of my work who love reading everything I put out and shower every piece I write (and me) with compliments and praise (being well-liked and approved of).
And perhaps most insidiously, I slowly began to tie all of my self-worth into not just what I was creating, but whether I was moving along on these goals I had arbitrarily set for myself. If I was hit by writer’s block and couldn’t write the three posts a week I had told myself I had to, I felt guilty and shameful, telling myself I had to do better next week. If I got rejected from yet another publication, or a post didn’t receive the amount of views I’d hoped for, I felt that there was something wrong with me and I was obviously not doing my best.
In retrospect, of course I can see these highly controlling, obsessive, and desperate actions for what they are – nothing more than an attempt to find something stable to hold onto when everything around me was totally in flux.
On top of the general uncertainty and chaos of the global pandemic, I had just graduated from college (technically… though the lack of an actual graduation ceremony also made it really hard to close that chapter), was navigating a long-distance relationship, unexpectedly moved back home with my mom, lost a grandparent, aaaaand ya know, was trying to figure out what the heck the world of adulting was.
Lost….is an understatement. I was flailing, and though I have to give myself due diligence and kudos for never giving up the fight and staying determined to “figure it all out,” I wonder if I could have saved myself a lot of stress and anxiety if I just allowed things to be really messy and uncertain and unsexy for a while.
Alas, sitting in the discomfort does not come easily to me. If something feels wrong or off in my life, I’ll get right to work finding ways to fix it and start feeling better again. This trait is a double-edged sword. I think it’s amazing in terms of my resiliency and the ability to move past hard things with strength and grace. But it often has me attempting to skip through the hard stuff, trying to find a way to bypass all the emotional pain and hard lessons and get right to the bright side.
And so I see now that throwing myself fully into Writing, and placing a staggering amount of pressure on my creativity in the process, was simply a protective mechanism. An anchor to hold onto that felt adequate enough to skate through all the uncomfortable and difficult things.
Okay Harry Potter metaphor coming (it’s me, come on).
You know when Harry’s wand breaks in the 7th book, and he has to use Malfoy’s and Hermione’s and other people’s, and though he’s still able to do magic with them, and he’s obviously still a wizard, and they WORK, it’s just not the perfect fit that his wand was?
That’s how it felt when I was burying myself in the Writer life. Because that’s exactly what I was doing. Burying and burrowing, hiding under a new identity and new goals. Finally, an answer when people asked what I was doing with my life or what my next steps were. Finally a pastime that would make the hours go by when I felt most lonely. I blamed and shamed myself when I didn’t make progress on a certain Writing goal, without considering that maybe the goal wasn’t even meant to be mine in the first place.
The heart of it is, I convinced myself that doing the Writing thing would give me that sense of purpose and fulfillment that I was so yearning for. I also thought it would give me an easy identity to slip into when I wasn’t quite sure who I was yet in this new life stage. Of course, identity, much like creativity, cannot be contrived and mentally fabricated. At least, not if you want it to be authentic. And seeing as authenticity has always been one of my core values, I knew I was doing something wrong when it felt like I was putting on somebody else’s pants day after day after day. Or rather, grabbing someone else’s wand hoping it would work just as well for me as it seemed to for someone else.
Of course it never really did, and eventually I had to be honest with myself and look at whether my “creativity” was truly serving me and making my life richer and fuller, the way it’s meant to, or if it was instead helping me avoid all the hard things I didn’t want to face.
And here’s the thing I’ve been reckoning with most.
I love writing, I do. I also love sharing my writing, particularly on this blog. When I had my first stage of this Big Realization around a year ago, I started the Joy Diaries, deciding that I would bring my writing back to the roots and let go of all the arbitrary goals I had set for myself to do the various Writer things I saw other people doing.
But after a while, I noticed that I had somehow seamlessly transferred all that pressure over to my blog. If I was going to put time and energy into writing for my blog, then I would identify as a Blogger. With that came a new set of goals and expectations. A new list of exhausting standards that I was using to measure myself against once again.
And as I felt less creatively inspired, I felt increasingly lost and shamed. The more shame I felt, the less inspired I was. It was a perfect cycle, a recipe for quitting if I ever saw one. Because at some point I realized that I’d totally lost touch with my personal definition of creativity.
My favorite authority on creativity is the amazing human and author Elizabeth Gilbert. I love her attitude toward creativity and the way she explains it, as something divine and sacred and also totally light and carefree. Elizabeth Gilbert says that creativity is “constantly choosing the path of curiosity over the path of fear.”
What I have come to realize is creativity is inextricably tied with two things – vulnerability and play. Without these two fundamental qualities, creativity can still happen, but it will lack that authenticity and spark that makes it meaningful both for us and for others if we choose to share it.
And the truth is that I was no longer being vulnerable or playful with my creativity. I was following a formula that I had come up with a long time ago, one that seemed to work for others (and maybe even had worked for me in the past) and that didn’t require me to take any more risks than necessary. Of course, by avoiding risk and giving into fear, I was sabotaging my own creativity.
But I also need to pause here and give myself a healthy dose of self-compassion because the truth is, I wasn’t in the right headspace to be vulnerable or playful throughout much of the past 18 months.
Vulnerability is about exposing yourself – I wanted to cocoon and barricade and protect. I didn’t want to layer on more risk or uncertainty because the world felt risky and uncertain enough.
I remember when I first started to feel the signs of creative block, I got right to work trying to fix the issue. I worked with a creative coach and read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, diligently practicing all the exercises. I wrote morning pages every day, woke up early to work on creative projects, used affirmations, the whole lot.
In retrospect, those methods didn’t work for me because I was trying to game the system. I wanted to force out creative output while avoiding vulnerability at all costs. I wasn’t ready to feel and sit in the discomfort, so I thought I could just dive head-first into my writing and avoid dealing with the hard stuff. Of course I see now that I had it all backwards. Taking vulnerability out of creativity is like taking all the salt out of an ocean; passably similar on the surface, but underneath, devoid of all the life and energy that made it what it was.
This I know.
Creativity should never and can never be forced. True creativity should feel good, regardless of whatever outcome it may or may not bring, because it’s one of the very few areas of life where we can be totally free, wild, and uninhibited. To let go of all the rules and proper ways of doing something and just have fun.
Oftentimes, the product of that kind of raw unbridled energy is something spectacular that other people will appreciate and benefit from. Other times, it’s not about the result at all, but about the act itself. If engaging in creativity brings you closer to yourself and allows you to let go of who you think you should be and, if only for a moment, become who you really are, well then that’s when you know you’re doing it right.
And I think the other element I need to note is I’m not who I was five years ago when I first created this blog and threw myself head-first into it. Back then, it felt like the most right thing in the world. I happily spent hours and hours, on top of my busy college schedule and work and social life to write and share and edit and design and make this space as ME as it possibly could be. And for a while, it was exactly what creativity should be. Freeing, exciting, FUN. No expectations or rules because I was making things up and doing what felt right as I went along.
And then, the pressures and expectations started coming in (all internal, of course). And suddenly, what had once felt fun and light and joyful became weighed down and heavy. Writing still brought me joy, but I hated how drained I felt by the constant pressure to share and promote. Every time I wrote, it had to be shared, or else it didn’t feel like it counted. And if I didn’t get the response I’d wanted, I felt like a failure.
I noticed that over time, the sharing and promoting aspects began to overshadow the writing aspect, and though I’ve always loved how writing can be a source of connection and community (that’s why I started this blog!), I felt like I was getting farther and farther from my roots.
I also noticed that as I choked the life out of my writing creativity, my other creative pursuits began to feel similarly lackluster. It seemed like the cloud of expectation and pressure had permeated into every nook and cranny of my creative essence, turning everything a dull shade of gray. Creativity no longer felt joyful and free and wild to me. Instead it felt stressful and forced and bland.
And it makes sense why. Creativity simply cannot survive under that level of pressure. It’s not supposed to be your stable anchor, nor the place you derive your identity from. It’s not meant to be the source of your worthiness.
Creativity at its best happens when we don’t layer your stories, expectations, and agendas on it. When we allow it to take over instead of trying to steer it a certain way. When its “being good” or getting praise from others is a nice bonus but not really the point at all.
When I am being vulnerable and courageous and, yes, playful with my creativity, finding joy and pleasure in the act of it, the result doesn’t matter.
What matters is that I am no longer running away but instead going deeper. What matters is that I feel more alive, more real, more ME. No hiding, no walls, just me.
So my intention for this current phase of my life is to find my authentic creative spark again. By letting go of all the rules, the stories, the identities I’ve created around my creativity, and getting really open and receptive, I’m hoping to allow creativity to take the form it wants to take in this current season of life, and then be brave enough to honor it without trying to control it.
I want to finally meet with creativity on its terms, not mine. To trust that whatever it calls me to is what I’m meant to do, and that I don’t necessarily need to know where it’s going to lead or what the “payoff” will be to take a chance.
And really, that’s how I want to approach my life as a whole in this phase. I’m at the precipice of change right now, caught in that confusing in-between when you haven’t yet entered a new stage fully but also no longer fit into the old stage. One foot off the ground, I am currently suspended, waiting for that next step to reveal itself to me.
I used to think that if I could just figure out what felt right and true for me now, I’d be set for the rest of my life. I could skate on through from here on out, avoiding hardships and missteps and uncertainties.
But I see now that this is false. Living on autopilot in this way might feel safer and easier, but it’s certainly not authentic. It doesn’t leave room for the magic that can only unfold when you’re taking chances and being brave with your life. When I tried to put my creativity in a box, choosing safety over courage, it stopped being the authentic and beautiful thing it once was.
I think when we stop being brave with our lives and start living based on “shoulds” and old stories, we miss out on the very same magic that emerges when we are being authentically creative. If life is the ultimate creative act, then it necessitates that same kind of courage, vulnerability, and authenticity.
So I’ll start with being brave and honest and real in my creative practice. Allowing myself to be guided, while taking action that feels inspired and right. Seeing what happens when I drop the stories and agendas for what it “should” be and let it be exactly what it is. I have a feeling this simple shift might just change everything. And I’m really excited to see what happens.
So this isn’t a goodbye. The blog isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but I’m also not quite sure when I’ll pop back in here. It could be next week, or it could be a year from now. But what I promise is that when I do come on here, it will be because it truly feels good and fulfilling and joyful, and not because it’s part of some arbitrary contract I signed with myself at some point in the past.
I’m ready to witness the magic that unfolds when I stop doing creativity (or life) on autopilot. As Brene says, it’s time to dare greatly.
Lots of love to you, as always. Thank you for being here <3 xx.
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