Jumping in

 It can be a challenge to attract people to participate in creative work these days, let alone asking them to have faith and actually believe in their innate ability. It’s not always easy for folks to feel ‘creatively worthy.’

When we invite people to get creative, you know, let down their guard, pull out pen and paper and actually write or draw or even glue a bunch of random stuff together, it can be a hard ask. Mind you we’re not looking for anything earth-shattering; I mean no one expects that proposal to scream of Martha Stewart-like perfection or even to stumble upon some ‘happy little accident’ like Bob Ross used to do.

No, I’m convinced our creativity gene is its own happy self, dutifully sitting idle, just beneath the surface, patiently waiting for us to decide to jump in.

But maybe that empty, blank white page staring back at us with its manic cursor blinking on&off, on&off makes us goofy with fear. Heck I bet all our moms were guilty at some point of telling us ‘not to run with scissors.’ Or even dear Mrs. Potter, 4th grade art teacher. You know, the one who ever so politely yet firmly discouraged us from ever becoming the artist we dreamed of. She patted us on our head and sighed, ‘bless your heart’, as she then. quietly pushed our cute smiley-face clay ash tray unceremoniously into the recycle bin.

Yeah, many of us didn’t get a lot of encouragement to show our creative side after about the age of … 6 or 7. I suppose well-meaning adults were doing it for our own good, right? Saving us from the pain of feeling silly or being embarrassed. Reminding us instead to focus on getting a good job.

Well, while we can’t go back to being 6 y/o again, we can recognize that creativity is not some popular buzz word or new skill to be learned, but rather, it can be released, re-awakened.

Our creativity hasn’t abandoned us. It’s just that we so readily succumb to all the other societal ‘learning’ pressures, where the rewards are given for compliance and following rules often at the expense of our creativity. And then it keeps getting pushed further and further down into ourselves until it becomes practically invisible.

Luckily, one really just needs to …. decide. Decide it’s time once again to recognize that our creativity is still there, has always been there, waiting patiently in the background for us to engage. Can you do that?

We begin with small steps, through awareness and by unlearning the pile of sneaky limiting beliefs we’ve acquired over time that have conspired to block it, conveniently keeping it out of sight.

We can seek out and surround ourselves with those who want to share the journey with us, as we set out on a path of re-learning what lights us up and ignites the spark we relished as a kid. Of remembering that amazing feeling of joy and freedom creativity brings in all we do.

Can you do that?