Finding your creative edge

I believe we all have it. What I’m referring to is creativity.

Humans are creator beings. We build cities, create art, stories and facilitate life. We come up with solutions to problems and find ways to adapt. All this takes creativity.

Creativity gives you a spark of life. This energy connects directly with our inner child. If the inner child is wounded in certain areas this can have huge impacts on how you bring creativity into your life. Perhaps someone told you that “you’re always so loud, just stop talking” or perhaps someone didn’t like or give you the recognition for a piece of art you poured yourself into. Repetitive bruises like this can hurt and prevent people from wanting to even try out of fear of being rejected.

Sure, as an adult we may rationalize that our parents or teachers didn’t have ill intent. Perhaps the were too busy caring for the family and working hard to put food on the table. We may now understand the reasons why we were “turned down” in a sense but if you are still experiencing lack of creative spark then perhaps you still have judgement imprinted on what it means to allow yourself to be creative. It is so important to deal with these deeper emotional links and blocks that now prevent you to go out and explore and find play! By doing so you will unlock so much of your potential to create wether it is in your current job or even how you interact with your kids and how you experience simple joys in life. Life is meant to be enjoyed and finding play time is part of that.

I use the word play as this is the energy we want to bring in. Play is life giving energy. To experiment with this go outside and walk where children play. Perhaps they are sliding down the winter hills or playing tag with a group of friends. By just observing them play, laughing, yelling and being wild perhaps something can spark in you too. It really is a beautiful thing to see kids play.

Now, it’s time to let loose and let yourself wild and free!

If you’re thinking to yourself “well I don’t know where to start” I urge you to take seat and close your eyes. Visualize one of your funnest childhood memories. What did it involve? What’s one thing you loved to do after school? Perhaps you liked to go play outside, build a snow man or go swimming? Maybe you liked to play video games like Mario or draw and imagine other worlds. Whatever it is that you loved to do start there and grow.

A few other ways to spark your creativity and inner child is to dance! Turn on your favourite songs and let loose. Close the curtains or lock yourself in your room if you’re too afraid of judgement and just go for it. Take your hair down, shake it out. Jump up and down and challenge yourself to see how wacky you can get. Maybe get in the grove and sing along! Sounds so fun right?

Morning pages is also a great way to get into a creative mindset. The premise for this is to place a journal next to your bed and to write three pages in it every morning upon waking up. This journal is meant to be super private and to be used as a mental release. The trick here is to write down everything that comes to mind. It doesn’t have to make sense in a linear fashion. Perhaps you don’t know what to write and you will literally write down “ I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. This is so silly. Knock knock who’s there.” And just go with it. Remove judgement and word vomit on the page.

Gardening is also a nice way to get creative. Go make a garden and get your hands dirty. Throw mud around, jump in a puddle.

Challenge yourself to write a fictional story or freestyle a story for someone else. Maybe you have kids and you can use this time to create a story with them. My sisters and I use to play a game where we would create stories together. Each of us would start a sentence. For example one would open the story with the first sentence: “Once upon a time in an alternate universe lived a fairy.” Then the other sibling would continue: “This fairy had magical hair which grew and grew”. You get the gist.

A few other ideas you can try include:

• Yoga but try to dance with it, flow with it and don’t take it too seriously. (Pure beats classes at Pure Yoga are some of my favourites for this).

• Painting! Abstract painting is a great way to get creative as your painting doesn’t need to make sense. Just allow yourself to let loose and explore with different materials. Perhaps you are a Picasso and you don’t even know!

• Rhyming! I often make up songs as I clean the house or do shores. My mom use to do this so props and thanks to mama for that. Basically you are describing what you’re doing and including rhythm and musical notes.

• Chat with your pet and tell them about your day. Ponder life with them.

• Go outside and do cartwheels or run like Pheobe (from Friends). A great way to pass off as an adult while playing is to bring your kids or pet along with you.

• Learn something new and approach it as a child would. Just try! If it doesn’t jive move on. Perhaps you weren't meant to play the harmonica but at least you tried it.

Whatever you choose to do just have fun with it. Notice if feelings of judgement or blocks arise and push through. Once your creative activity is done perhaps note what that block was and dig a bit deeper to unravel why or what it is that prevented you from flowing. Perhaps a memory from your childhood arose or perhaps it shed a bit of light on your own judgement on others or yourself. Know that it’s all good and these things help us grow.

The more you do this exercise and make time for play the more fun and creative flow you will develop.

I am so excited for you guys to have fun!

Sending you lots of Love!

Renelle B