AnonymousJan 11, 2012 02:46 PM ASKS...
Dear Rox,
How DO I become more creative? I used to feel as though a stream ran through me, tip to toe. Now I feel like a dry riverbed.
Dearest A,
Thanks so much for the great question! A lot of people have been wondering this lately, as well as insisting they are simply not creative, or incapable of creativity ("I just wasn't born with it!"). To me, this is like saying "I don't have any rhythm," which is nonsense because you have a heartbeat.
Creativity, that "stream" you beautifully describe, is something we all have. Your stream is your stream forever, available to you any time. Once in a while it may need a little inspiration or occasion or big feeling to spark it up because sometimes indeed our creativity goes to sleep. But mostly, while inherent, creativity is like any other muscle that needs to be worked until it becomes integrated into who you are. For a lot of us, creativity was not encouraged in our formative years... we learn to shut down fairly early. As much as I bitch about my latchkey years in feral LA, I am grateful for having grown up there, around tons of creative "open minded" liberal (read: crazy) characters who collectively modeled the importance of "living your truth" no matter how much of a freak it made you. Sure, everyone may have been totally high and/or vying for the Hollywood spotlight, but it was my everyday normal and it took. I also went to an open school and had friends and parents and elders who encouraged us youts to follow our hearts. So lucky for me, creativity was integrated into my lifestyle at an early age. It was never something anyone ever commanded on the spot: Sit! Roll over! Be creative! It just was part of life, part of survival, perhaps related to the buzz of being on stage; in my landscape, everyone always knew someone "in the business" (showbiz).
Sometimes it is helpful to tune into your creativity and mindfully tend to it. Years ago I taught a class at the Loft called Creative Workout and the majority of the exercises were doing things to get out of your head and then writing about it from that out of your head place. Like what? Jeez, we walked around the room and pretended to be buffalo... or bugs...the ocean. We drew self portraits with our feet. We made up dances named after randomly selected newspaper headlines. We collected litter and then wrote it's life story—from the voice of the litter. Odd? Maybe at first, but once given the permission to be creative, first by an "authority" figure, than by oneself, that permission can really simply open it up. The only thing that keeps us away from creative expression, authentic creative expression, is our thoughts. The ones that scare us back into our comfort zone.
Back in the day, creativity—before we called it creativity— was simply survival. Before it became a "thing" and associated with trillion dollar art and highbrow aesthetics, and long before it was put into a word, creativity was that life force we relied on to get ourselves out of sticky situations or simply communicate. Were hieroglyphics art at the time? Were the Pyramids? No. I mean, yes, but no.
You doodle right? You are creating, being creative when you doodle. You start and have no idea where it's going, but you just go with it. You don't think, "jeez, this doodle sucks so I think I'll stop doodle looping my squares now." And you never know; your doodles may someday appear in museum halls of the future.
All too often folks associate creativity with outcome like a beautiful painting, poetry, collage, wheareas the real gift of creativity is the process itself. The creative process is your life force, your spontaneity. It is nothing you can preplan. Psychodrama founder Jacob Moreno, one of my favorite do-gooder guru folk, based his life—lived his life—on this theory which you can read all about in his Canon of Creativity or by googling Moreno. He says it much more scholarly than I, but the point he makes is that creativity is connected to, perhaps the outcome of warmed up spontaneity, and can essentially never produce the same thing twice. It's the moment. That's not to say that you can't capture the moment on film or in watercolor or in poetry, but the essence cannot be captured. The pulse of it, the energy loses its life force as soon as it becomes a thing to replicate. It's complicated, but it's very very cool.
So here's what you can do: First, acknowledge that your creativity is part of who you are and is not going anywhere. In fact, to deny your creativity is to deny the truth of who you are! You may have days where you feel uninspired or judged or PMS or whatever it is, but this doesn't mean you are not creative. Likely what is keeping you from BEING/LIVING creative is your thoughts. If you can push past those thoughts and go ahead and be creative, you'll be back at it in no time. Know that no matter what, you are a creative being and always will be. Wanna see for yourself? Okay. First, translate in writing the following sentence in the MADE UP language of your choice: "I am a creative being. Creativity lives inside of me and lives in every living being. I am a stream of creativity tip to toe." Next, doodle the same message. If that fails, walk around the room and pretend you are the most uncreative person in the world. Embody it. Say what it says, think what it thinks, do what it does. Then write a letter to you from that uncreative person telling you exactly how to be creative; make sure and stay with the voice of uncreative. See where that takes you. Enjoy it. You really will. But really, you can just do anything different, "respond new to an old situation" as Moreno says and you are in the creative stream.
Part of creativity is "going with the flow," committing to the moment and making the most of it, no matter how absurd it seems to be. Saying yes to what's right here, right now. So get back to your stream. It's waiting for you whenever you're ready.
