Creativity and Inspo

What do you think it means to "be creative"?

To be a creator? To create? To make? To craft?

For so long, I attached my sense of personal creativity (and value) to my work, to making theatre and making music, for audiences.

And ya know what?!? I don't think that's the whole story?

Social media has really gotten in our way, labeling only certain people as "Creator, "Creative," "Content Creator," etc. Seemingly only applied to what certain people are doing for work, how many TikTok challenges they're starting. Or whether someone else would label what you make as "art." Somewhere along the way, "creative" turned into a job title. Get paid for it or go viral for it, and you're a creator. Everyone else is the audience.

Yet creativity can (should) infuse every moment of our lives.

We are all creators. Creative. Creatives. Every day.

Creativity of mind is as natural as breathing.

Human brains seek patterns and habits, but are also constantly on the prowl for innovations. And maybe that innovation is deciding to use a different spice in some favorite dish you cook and maybe that innovation is painting or knitting no matter how 'good' you might be at those things and maybe that innovation is making up a silly song and maybe that innovation is looking at a cloud or a stranger in a new way and maybe that innovation is dreaming of a world you want to help create. None of it needs a witness to be real.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Taking in inspiration, sending out creativity.

Watch young kids doing art projects, and they're not so worried that things are the "right" colors or that a nose is perfectly centered on a person's face. They're simply expressing a world as they feel it. We all start that way.

Taking in what's around us, expressing how it all makes us feel.

Anything that comes out of you is an expression of the center of your Self.

Yoga, journaling, meditation, these help us peer into that center. We spend our days, all day, breathing in what's around us; and then we give ourselves moments of introspection to integrate what we've taken in. And then, all that good stuff, it's just a part of who we are.

Whatever we do next, that's our creation. Whether it's a spreadsheet or a recipe or a doodle in the margins or a new idea about literally anything.

Sooooo...the yoga. You tune into your subtle body, those energies of expression far beyond the literal and obvious. You can use that to get you unstuck when something feels blocked.

Choosing your own path to downdog in a vinyasa class is creativity. Taking a rest when you need it is creativity. There are no right colors here, no nose has to sit perfectly straight. You take in the room, take breath into your body, and you let it out as a shape. That shape is a drawing.

You can practice non-attachment or vairagya. You can learn to ride the waves of 'this is awesome this is total junk' as you remember it's all just process. Somewhere between the crayon years and now, most of us picked up an inner critic. The practice isn't to evict it. It's to let it talk while you keep drawing. And to possible not let that critic observe at all.

Learning not to attach your value as a person to what happens in those moments, so that you can stay awake and alive to your ability to live a creative life off the mat.

So here's a tiny practice, if you want one.

Breathe in. Notice what catches you today. A sound, a color, a feeling, a passing thought. Pause. Give it a few moments. Breathe out. Let something come out of you. A sentence, a stir of the pot, a shape on your mat, a song, a cry, a laugh. It's entirely up to you whether you share it or let it be something no one ever sees or hears.

You've created. You're creative. You ARE a creator.