Nourishing Your Creative Spirit
Let’s talk about this elusive thing called creativity, shall we?
Maybe you don't identify as a "creative person". Maybe you think those people are like a species of their own, born with a certain talent that you don't possess. That creating beautiful pictures and compelling stories is something other people do, not you.
But just by being here, reading this blog post, I can tell that you are an inherently curious being who loves to learn new things and who are committed to expanding and growing in life. Am I right?
Guess what?
That's creative living. Literally the definition of it.
Creativity can manifest in so many different ways. You might think of artists and writers, but this quality can be found in all areas of life. From home decor to parenting to communication to science. A curious and expansive mindset is what defines it, and we all have it in us. Your particular creativity might just need a little encouraging and nice words to show its face. Especially if you grew up not really getting the affirmation you needed to keep following that curiosity.
Regardless of where you are in your creative journey, I would guess that you from time to time find yourself in a rut. With no inspiration to create and whenever you do try to create something, it doesn’t quite come out “right”. We all end up there sometimes. It’s inevitable when going through transformation. It’s the contraction before the expansion happens.
Creativity needs nourishing, and sometimes we have to be really patient and let go of the idea that it should be productive.
In this blog post we will dive deeper into the many things you can do to nourish (and encourage!) your creative spirit.
creativity is everywhere
First of all, let’s acknowledge that creativity is everywhere and all around us. Next time you are out on a walk, try looking a little closer at the shapes, colors, plants, trees and buildings you pass. The first step to forming a relationship to creativity is to lift your gaze and observe your surroundings.
The most simple things can spark our curiosity and make us wanna head home and capture this idea as soon as possible before we forget it. The way the sky melts into the horizon at dusk, an interesting pattern, paying close attention to the people we meet and what they communicate and thereby expanding our own perspective.
In many ways it’s about noticing what’s already there.
When we come home and run this idea or observation through our own interpretations and mediums, something magical happens. You know that expansive moment that can happen when you see a painting or a photograph by someone, and for a split second it’s like you’re seeing the world with their eyes?
Creativity is a process, not an outcome
So often we get wrapped up in the productivity mindset, wanting everything we do to turn into “something”. This is a form of perfectionism that gets in the way of our personal and creative growth. The creative process lives way beyond the capitalist idea of everything needing a “purpose” or to be useful in some way. Art and creativity is not necessarily useful. It helps us grasp the magic of the world, and the creative process has an inherent worth that cannot be measured in sales or outcomes.
When we practice letting go of the productivity mindset and realize that creative living is always going to be process, we can be open to the magic that happens from just doing. Without an end goal, just seeing what comes up if you follow your curiosity and allow yourself to experiment.
Unlearning perfectionism is likely going to be painful to the mind. Simply because it is so ingrained in us that everything we do should lead to something productive. And that we are supposed to be good at something right away. When pursuing a new craft or testing an idea, that negative voice in your head might get louder, trying to tell you how ugly, bad, pointless and stupid this is. But it is important to keep going anyway.
I used to paint when I was younger. I loved to work with the colors and light and composition. But my feeling of satisfaction was solely connected to the outcome of the painting. It needed to be good, otherwise it meant that I, as a person, wasn’t good enough or valuable. So I only painted from photographs. Copying existing motives and other peoples creations in an attempt to control the process and make sure it kept a “high quality”.
After a few years of studying art and pursuing an artist career, I quit. I had no idea what my expression was. Trying to paint something from “nothing” was terrifying to me. I didn’t think about the fact that I already had so much within me to draw from.
About a year ago I was called to pick up painting again. This time I decided to work abstract. Simply because it scared me so much and because it would be impossible for me to try and control the process. How do you determine if a piece is “good”, when you can’t compare it to real life? I wanted to distill the painting process to mere colors and shapes and light. The very thing I used to love working with as a teenager.
And let me tell you, being a recovering perfectionist trying to paint abstract is no joke. My mind constantly bounces between “this is so much fun!” to “this is the ugliest thing I’ve seen in my life”. It takes all my effort to stay with the process and be patient enough to spend more than literally 2 seconds on a piece.
But then something incredible happens. All of a sudden you go from struggle to flow, and the logical mind is off somewhere else for a brief moment. During that brief moment all sorts of cool stuff can happen!
It’s like meditation. You spend 14 minutes desperately trying to keep the thoughts at bay, and then right at the end when the teacher tells you to “let go of the mind” and let it do what it wants to do, there’s this split second of clarity and space that makes the entire, gruesome process worthwhile.
So what can we do to nourish our creative spirit? Below are a bunch of tools and habits that can help.
Meditation and rest
Meditation and rest have been shown to have a neurologically positive effect on our ability to solve problems and think creatively. When we meditate, we increase the grey-matter in our brains in areas connected to memory, compassion, stress and self-awareness. Starting the day with 15-20 minutes of meditation can help us make better decisions and move through the day with more clarity.
Sleep is also important for our creativity. This is when all the new things we’ve learned are processed and solidified in the brain. Research on brain activity in people who engage in creative work followed by rest shows that the areas connected to creativity and problem solving are still switched on, even when the participants stopped working and are just staring into space. This suggests that the brain continues to work on creative problems and generating ideas when we plug away, which explains why going for a walk or “sleeping on it” can help us gain clarity and see things from a fresh perspective.
So nourishing our creative spirit is not only about engaging in creative work regularly. It’s equally important to make space for rest (and boredom, as we will talk about soon), to allow for new skills and ideas to process and grow.
Two great books for exploring these topics further are Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang and High Grade Living by Jacqui Lewis and Arran Russell.
CREATIVE WRITING
Journaling or creative writing is another tool that can help get ideas started. One way to start is to pick up an inspiring book (I like spiritual books or artist biographies for this exercise) and randomly choose a page. Let the first sentence or paragraph (or image) you see work as a starting point for your own contemplations. What associations comes to mind when you read/see this? What does this mean to you, personally? How can you embody or use this concept in your own life/work?
If you feel constricted by ruled paper, choose plain paper and write in more of a mindmap-fashion. This mindmap can then be used as a starting point for any type of creative project really.
Daily journaling can also help us get out of our head and make sense of everything we feel and dream about. Sometimes it isn’t until we write a thought down that we truly realize we had it. Use journaling as a tool to keep yourself aligned to your path and illuminate any creative desires or curiosities lying dormant. I like to write about 3 pages in the morning, in my favorite armchair while having my daily matcha latte.
learn new things
As we already concluded, being a creative person is not so much about being artistic, but rather keeping a curious and expansive mindset. This means that we are never “finished” in life, but rather we are always learning. Enrolling in courses, evening classes, reading books, watching documentaries and listening to podcasts or TED talks are all great ways to nourish that eagerness to grow.
Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way about the importance of scheduling “artist dates” with oneself. A trip to the local art gallery, the library, taking pottery classes or a hike in nature - anything that makes your soul tick and can provide you with new inspiration.
I personally love reading, and I always keep a stack of books of various topics ready to dive into during weekends. Listening to other creatives talk about their work and journey is also a big one. And enroll in courses about stuff I’m curious to learn more about, such as yoga, pottery and photography.
LEARN YOUR IDEAL environment
For many artists and creators the environment in which they live and work has a huge impact on their ability to focus and let ideas flow. What that environment looks like will be different to all of us.
Perhaps you thrive in a messy and eclectic studio with inspirational images taped to the walls, surrounded by your work.
Or you might prefer a calm and minimal environment with as little distractions as possible.
Maybe a busy café is your go-to place for when you need to get ideas flowing.
The important thing is to figure out what type of place and feeling makes you thrive, and then use those conditions to your advantage.
How can you create that environment at home or at work? You might wanna add in things that inspire you and represent who you are, and remove stuff that no longer serves a purpose. Putting on a record or a podcast, making coffee, diffusing oil or lighting incense or a candle can be used to make your space feel sacred.
For me, tidying up after a day’s work is a big one, and one that I (unfortunately) often neglect. Also creating a cozy vibe through music, candles and scent. Since I work from home and it’s not possible to keep a perfectly tidy home at all times, having a separate space where I don’t have to see the mess is crucial.
In time we might want to extend this to the rest of our home. How can we create a home environment that supports the life we want to live, while also supporting the wellbeing of our family? Can the everyday life be made easier by how we organize our home, and are there certain things that only drains us of time and energy?
In High Grade Living, the authors suggest we do a “home audit” every once in a while, where we scan each room and look for things that annoy us, that are no longer in use or that isn’t aligned anymore.
Of course you will take this to the level that feels manageable to you.
Use what you’ve got
One thing I’ve learned through the years of cooking and developing recipes is that oftentimes the most constricted of circumstances can yield the best recipes. It’s like you are forced to be creative when you only have a handful of ingredients to work with. Setting up a challenge for yourself (such as only using one color or only shooting a certain kind of subject) can be a good idea if you are feeling stuck and can’t decide what to do.
make space for boredom
Likewise boredom can be a powerful breeding ground for ideas. I think as humans we are wired to create and make use of our time. So when we don’t have anything particular taking up our mind or time, all sorts of fun and weird projects can start to form in our head.
These days I don’t think anyone of us would say they have a bunch of time lying around. Most of us are so used to always being busy, that making space for boredom can feel almost provocative (“When would I possibly have time for that?!”). But since we are trying to unlearn productivity and perfectionism here, a good place to start might be to ask yourself what is taking up all that time, and why you need to be so busy all the time.
Try taking a weekend off social media, or if you wanna go hardcore - your entire summer vacation. Whaat! Yes, I did just suggest that. Try it and see what creative pursuits you genuinely gravitate towards, once the distraction and comparison from social media is gone.
…And deep work
Deep work is the kind of uninterrupted focus that can happen when we remove distractions and train the mind to work on a single task for an extended period of time. Perhaps you remember this complete absorption from childhood? Being totally hooked on a book, a drawing or watching snails slowly making their way forward in the garden.
These days we rarely get to harvest the fruits of deep, sustained focus. This is because literally everything around us are trying to steal our attention. When you switch between writing a blog post and checking your phone to answer DMs, it might feel like you are “multitasking”, but the brain can only focus on one thing at a time. So what happens is that it switches focus between these two tasks. But here’s the thing: there is a delay. When you think that you are back to writing that blog post, your mind is still somewhat left in the DM section of your Instagram account.
With this constant switching back and forth between tasks, we are never allowed to fully focus and be present on what we are doing. Which can make it hard to do more demanding, creative work. It’s like our mind is perpetually stuck on a superficial level, and never allowed to go deep and dig up those truly revelatory ideas.
We also need a balance between focused work and relaxed work. Perhaps you recognize the “brain hangover” that can come the day after a very productive and focused day? It requires quite a lot of energy to stay in the deep work-mode, so balancing it up with rest will allow you to better process what you are learning and creating.
Cal Newport’s Deep Work and Digital Minimalism is a must-read if you wanna dive deeper into this topic.
Make it less precious
Perhaps you have all these “rules” for your creative work. It should be this time of day and you should be alone and undisturbed and you must feel “inspired” in order for anything to come out. Also you must have your coffee and your favorite sweater and a good hair-day and god forbid if it’s the week before your period, then you will most definitely not be able to create anything.
In other words, we have this idea that the creative process should look a certain way. For all those factors to match, that doesn’t leave much of a window left for us to actually sit down and practice our craft.
In Daily Rituals: How Artists Work Mason Currey writes about the little habits and routines of some of our most profound artists, writers and scientists. Though the daily lives of these people were radically different from each other, they had one thing in common - they all sat down to do the work, every day, usually at the same time. Like any other job.
The most important step towards nourishing the creative spirit is to just get started. By making the process less precious and not expecting immediate results, we will slowly get better, sharper and more clear on what we want to create.
If you are a writer or painter or illustrator or basically someone who uses paper: try jotting down some words or marks before you begin. Never ever start from a blank paper! If you write on your computer - copy paste a paragraph or two from something else you’ve written. Make a list or start writing “hi my name is X and today I feel Y”. Anything will do. We just need to get something going.
When I paint I usually start by blending colors and testing out on paper. It’s an easy enough step that I can do even when I don’t really feel like it.
Honest check-in:
When you sit down to do your creative work, what do you expect to come out of it?
Why do you expect that?
Is there any unattainable “condition” that gets in the way of you getting started?
What would it take for you to feel less precious about it?
If you read all the way here - wow! I can’t believe you stuck up with me for so long, haha.
