FINDING YOUR CREATIVE CONNECTION SERIES
Weekly Inspiration to help you find and stay connected to your creativity.
#1 JOURNAL IN NATURE
How do you stay creative through trauma, disease, fear, and… life! Parenting, jobs, chores, and the day-to-day cycle of living.
How to find it, how to keep it, nurture it, cultivate it, and not strangle it along the way. To keep it flowing. How to find it again if it’s been disconnected for years, or decades.
How to stay creative and connected to your core soul, the very essence of your being,
That’s what I am looking to explore here. Hoping to uncover and share ideas, insights, concepts that will help open the flow for you and for me. Learning ways to maintain that connection and stay rooted to our essential selves.
If your creativity is flowing you can find more peace, more enjoyment and so much less stress in life.
This subject has kept me up at night. I feel like the Monet quote about color, except I would substitute the word creativity for Color and it becomes…
“Creativity is my daylong obsession, joy and torment.”
Thank you, Monet!
I have experienced over and over and over the break in my creative thread each time I went in for cancer treatments, every 3 weeks for 2 straight years. No matter the flow I was in, the groove I had found, the work I was making, the inspirations that were coming – after treatment it was as if I was on one side of a concrete wall and my creativity, inspiration, and art were on the other side.
They were completely out of my reach; I started describing it as trying to find the creative thread because it felt elusive and delicate – barely, barely there. I could ‘sense’ the presence, but it was pretty much invisible.
Ever walk into a spider or cobweb and you can feel it on your face or neck but can’t grab it or get it off? – yeah, like that!
I started leaving notes, and sketches for myself the few days leading up to treatment in hopes it would bridge the gap back to my creative process. I felt a bit like the guy in the movie Memento… And occasionally the notes or sketches did help. I also started reading books about creativity, and how to cultivate and nurture it. I have been reading books on creativity quite obsessively for the last 8 -9 months and will be sharing tips from my favorites along the way.
Hoping that by sharing this exploration, and the processes I try, will help me - and you, to nurture and cultivate creativity. We need to find our way back to our creativity that has been out of reach, which is ultimately our essential self.
In each weekly post I will share one idea/artist date/activity that I have used and invite you to give it a try for your own connection. My first suggestion is Journaling in Nature which is proving to be tremendously useful for me!
A few months ago I participated in a journaling workshop and have incorporated this idea of writing in nature into my weekly, sometimes daily, routine….
JOURNALING IN NATURE
Take a journal outside – in any weather – and write one page. No judgement, no editing just write stream of consciousness.
You can take a walk first, or just go outside, sit and fill that page.
Now a blank page can be intimidating and make your mind go just as blank! So, start by writing something you are seeing, hearing or feeling around you. Even if you are just describing the weather, it will get you started.
If you really run dry, she gave us the tip to write “and… and… and…” as it will usually trigger something. (It works, I tried it!)
I normally do this after my early morning walk, but you can do it any time that works in your schedule. Maybe lunchtime, or after dinner. I estimate it takes about 20 minutes.
The suggestion is once a week, but it has been so effective for me I quite often do a few times a week.
I am finding by the time I get to the bottom of the page I am feeling inspired, or have found a solution to a dilemma.
Sometimes it’s not all that earth shaking but still I feel more settled, grounded and satisfied by the time that page is full. And ready to work on my art with a clear head.
I hope you stop by next Tuesday as I continue this exploration into the creative connection and flow. Sharing insights, tips, and tricks – those that work and some that don’t. Because there is something to learn in the failures too. And what works for someone may not work for another and vice versa.
I encourage you to give Journaling in Nature a try and see what surfaces – and please let me know if it helps you!
Stay creative my friends,
Erin
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