The Loving Creative
Can I Be Creative?
Spring 2024
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Creativity isn't limited to just traditional arts like painting or music. It can be the ability to bring forth novel ideas or merge unrelated concepts, affecting various facets of daily life.
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Everyone inherently possesses creativity, but societal norms and self-limiting beliefs can suppress it. Recognizing and unlocking this potential can lead to innovative solutions and fresh perspectives.
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Embracing creativity often means being open to change. They're intertwined, with one leading to the other, and welcoming both can lead to personal growth and evolution.
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Using real-life challenges or desires, such as the DIY lotion-making, can serve as opportunities to apply and foster creative thinking.
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Each person has unique sources of inspiration. Identifying and actively engaging with these triggers, whether it's daydreaming, journaling, or other activities, can unleash one's creative flow.
The Loving Creative believes that everyone has creative elements hidden within them, just waiting to be unlocked.
It’s just a matter of how much you access that creativity and how much you let it play with your waking thoughts. How often do you daydream or even wake up from a dream, remembering bits and pieces of some wacky mechanism or situation, and simply push it out of your thoughts because you have "more important things" to do?
It's time you give yourself a little breathing room to introduce some creativity to your life. But fasten your seatbelt; creativity and change go hand in hand, and when implementing creativity, you must be ready to open up your thinking and be ready for change.
Whether you're facing a challenge or want to explore something new, you can either amble back to that trusty worn path, or grow forward through that mysterious opening in the woods.
By testing out concepts you never would have even considered, you start to see different possibilities that lead to completely refreshing results. Are you ready?
The word creativity can bring to mind a slew of things, from mixed media visuals, funky-riginal music, Willy Wonka throwing Alice into Wonderland's fizzy cashew caramel apple chop shop, people wearing disconcertingly disarraying-patterned colors together (though we politely compliment them on it), rainbow-haired poets, and everything else produced in the realm that spit out the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Lewis Carroll, Billie Holiday, and their fantastical worlds of unpredictable and inspiring articulations.
And just as you start to peer curiously through the sparkly window of new opportunities, and contemplate exploring the wondrous potential of imaginative play, we lurch that huge, beautiful barreling train of thought to a screeching halt with the occluding assertion:
“I’m not creative.”
Are you sure about that?
While there are different philosophies on who has creative capacity, we at The Loving Creative believe that everyone is creative, has funky thinking abilities, has a groovy dancing, a capella singing, rainbow tutu-wearing kooky tinker thinker working somewhere in that beautiful brain.
It's just a matter of how much you access that tinker thinker, how many curtains and doors are blocking that tinker thinker from your conscious mind, and how much you let that tinker thinker outside to play with your waking thoughts. Some live and breathe their creativity more than others, but everyone, not only has potential, but already has functional creative elements as part of life. They just might be a little hidden, perhaps because you've normalized them so much that they doesn't feel creative, or they're in unnoticeable droplet-sized doses.
Let's start with understanding what creativity is.
If you just look up the definition in a dictionary, like Merriam-Webster, you'll get "the ability to create." Snoooore... not only is this incredibly boring, but it's also painfully unhelpful. Thanks for that. Britannica defines creativity as "the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form." This is starting to take some more interesting shape.
And dictionary.com states creativity is "the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations." In this convenient infomedia age of Google, YouTube and Ted Talks, we are fortunate to have immediate access to multiple views of the world and different people's explorations, enabling you to search and scour through scads of articles and opinions, and draw your own theories, formulate your own plans.
Someone on YouTube (wish I'd noted his name) stated that creativity is, "Intersecting seemingly unrelated topics and merging them into something new.” Now that's a fun definition.
The beauty is that creativity is whatever taffy-stuffed butter-oozing story seahorse dancing tale you want it to be, how it allows you to construct a song, a story, a fashion piece, a design solution or whatever else you might need. Whatever creativity means to you, the true creative thinking comes into play when you're executing that solution, because it’s a divergence from how you would normally approach and plan, and then operating based on that path of divergence. That's when details get really gooey and you have to work out additional solutions and steps.
In exploring ideas to play around with, you may think, "Why can't I just look up solutions that other do-it-yourselfers post?" Here's why... uh, you CAN!Using other people's solutions absolutely checks that creativity box because for you, it’s CHANGE.
And that's the collaborative secret element... Creativity goes hand in hand with Change. You can't have one without the other. When you're implementing creativity, you've got to be ready for different outcomes, and thus be ready for the inherent change and how it will affect your life.
When you're about to change something in your life, you'll have to think ahead about what that change is attached to, what it touches, and plan the resources and steps around the various resulting adjustments to your life, to minimize getting bumped and bruised in the process.
So, is creativity for you? Heck yes!
Even if your life is fully rewarding and you have everything you dreamed of (not so, for most), there’s always room for growth, new ways to play, unique ventures to explore. Acquire a long-yearned skill, tackle a new language, start … or restart… an intriguing hobby, a calmer outlook, healthier lifestyle, whatever has been drifting around your thoughts over time because it's clearly something you want. Or, maybe you're faced with an actual challenge, such as a memory issue, a loud neighborhood dog, a glitchy relationship, an uncooperative colleague, a memory issue….
Chances are, you’ve already tried some measures and they fell through. Disciplining yourself to try different ideas, to consider things you’ve never tried, would never have thought of trying before, will take you down different paths to much different options, preferably options you’ve been dreaming of… and that’s where creativity sparks.
In starting to play with creative thinking, it doesn’t have to be something big... you probably don't want to start with tearing up your car to construct a new, sportier model. Just pick something you wish you had in your life, or something you wish were a bit better.
Here’s a humble personal example. Many years ago, I decided to make my own body lotion. I couldn’t find a lotion that I liked, that provided long-lasting moisture without feeling sticky or oily, and didn’t reek of eau de parfum. Since this is something I use every day, and contributes to the physical health and longevity of my skin, I considered it to be a rather important issue. So, this became a little life example of being hit with an opportunity... I had to decide if it's worth my time and effort to create a better solution or make do with the existing options. I resolved that instead of being forced to tolerate ick or itch on my skin, it would be worth my time to roll up my sleeves and make a skin soothing solution.
I didn't want to build a laboratory and invest in all-natural ingredients shipped in from a secret herbal reserve in Fiji, or anything like that; I just wanted to use an existing off-the-shelf lotion base and throw in heaps of the primary ingredients I want, like shea butter and aloe ... Of course, this was a perfect example of finding some DIY YouTubers to learn their experiences, their own how-to's, lessons learned, and recommendations, taking elements I like, and tweaking to fit. It’s just like finding online cooking recipes and customizing it to your liking. Learning something new is messy and takes a little time, but once you do it, the happy happy joy joy smile and new solution is worth it. Hop on the DIY bandwagon (or whatever other creative, crafty, or constructive train you find), because not only does it make life a little sweeter because you’re creating better solutions for yourself, but once you start doing it yourself bit by bit, you start coming up with your own ideas to start from scratch, and that is what makes the fun-omenal ideas flow.
So how do you get that creativity faucet gushing? Every person has their own inspirations and triggers. It’s like knowing what your superpower snack is… what’s your creative play? What gets your body and mind rocking and rolling? Is it playing an album or is it doodling on paper? Do thoughts pop into your mind if you’re jogging or flowing through Vinyasa poses?
Do you talk to yourself or sing in the shower? Do you dance in the rain or gaze at the clouds? Whatever works, be sure to write any and all ideas down, and save them all. Pick one or two top interests and start tinker thinking on those. If you don’t know what works for you, play around with brainstorming or journaling activities to find your faves.
Reflect a bit on everyday life, things you enjoy, things you wish you had more time for, things you've always wanted to try, things you want to fix in your life, things you wish worked better in your home, etc. The ideas can come from anywhere at any time; you just want to be more actively alert and attuned to funneling those ideas so you can start working them through your thinking factory.
So, what do you think? Is creativity for you? It's a part of life, from your wildest imaginations of childhood, there's still a tinker thinker in your grown-up mind. You just have to let it out and play. You can use creative thinking to take things that didn't seem related and connect them to make a solution that is meaningful for you. Life is ongoing, full of opportunity and beauty, full of adventure and growth... all those paths are yours for the choosing.
So, what do you think? Is creativity for you? It's a part of life, from your wildest imaginations of childhood, there's still a tinker thinker in your grown-up mind. You just have to let it out and play. You can use creative thinking to take things that didn't seem related and connect them to make a solution that is meaningful for you. Life is ongoing, full of opportunity and beauty, full of adventure and growth... all those paths are yours for the choosing.
It all takes effort and thought about how to add and incorporate any growth and change into your life, to enable you to navigate and embrace the new adventures you're wanting to try.
