Engaging our creative selves is an ongoing
journey
that needs space and time for refection, exploration, and cultivation. Here are 12 reminders of ways to engage with creative self this summer:
1. Cultivate a creative mindset. Stay open to new ideas and perspectives. Embrace ambiguity and uncertainty as a creative wellspring filled with creative opportunities.
2. Engage curiosity and wonder about the world around you in your daily living. Ask questions, seek out new experiences, and be willing to to be uncomfortable in the unknown.
3. Make time for reflective thinking. Journal about your experiences, thoughts, feelings, dreams, hopes, aspirations and intuitive knowings. Look for patterns that emerge over time to gain more insights about yourself of whatever you are reflecting on.
4. Follow your aliveness. Make choices and engage in activities that resonate with your passions and interests. Try different things out until you discover what is. Authenticity fuels creativity and aliveness.
5. Embrace playfulness. Engage in activities that are fun and joyful to unfold new ways of thinking, being, and interacting. This also changes our brain's chemicals and keeps the energy high - opening us up to new levels of creativity.
6. Tap into something meaningful for you. Align your creative pursuits with your values and sense of purpose to create something meaningful for you. It can be anything - meaning generates creativity.
7. Integrate left and right brain activities. Use both analytical and intuitive thinking to get clarity and generate ideas. Balance planning and structure with allowing emergent space for spontaneity.
8. Use your body. There's a connection between your physical body, your passions and your creative mind. Practices like movement, dance and somatic exercises enhance creativity. Move differently to think and embody differently.
9. Get present. Stay present and engaged in the moment. Improv theater, mediation, and mindfulness can help you tap into deeper levels of presence for creativity.
10. Engage with diverse perspectives. Co-create and collaborate with others who bring different perspectives, skills, and talents. Explore different cultures, art forms, values and disciplines to broaden your world view and inspire new directions.
11. Follow creativity's natural rhythms and cycles. Allow for periods of activity/generating (yang) followed by rest and integration (yin). Sometimes the most creative thing you can do is focus, while other times is it to release focus. Follow your feeling and energy (where it generates, and when it wains) in this, not a prescription.
12. Cultivate resilience and adaptability to navigate challenges and setbacks. Know that resistances happen in every creative process, and find ways to recognize and move through them. Let yourself embrace mistakes as iterations toward what actually does eventually work. Creativity is messy.
Michelle James © 2024
