Seven Ways the Act of Creating is Good for Your Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Health.
In a world where uncertainty has become the norm, how do you maintain your well-being and peace of mind? When there’s uncertainty on the outside and more uncertainty on the inside, it gets very difficult to maintain a clear focus and direction and joy is hard to find.
We all have creative gifts – whether you’re a passionate gardener, you love to play with colour and design, you find solace through writing, making music or dance – giving attention to what you love, what nurtures you and what you’d love to bring into being, is a beautiful path towards peace.
Here are some ways creating uplifts us:
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Connection
As soon as you make the choice to go into the garden, get your paints out, find a quiet spot to write, or move your body to the rhythm of the music, you become connected – with your body, with your whole self, with the earth, with your soul wisdom, and with all the resources of your imagination. That’s a fabulous feeling!
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Absorption
Remember how you feel when you’re absorbed in a task that is taking all your attention? Concentrating on a creative act brings you into presence and timelessness. Hours can go by, or moments can feel like hours. You forget all your daily worries as you shift out of stress and into relaxation and focus.
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Coherence
Along with connection and absorption comes coherence. When you’re stressed, you’re easily distracted and everything appears to be fragmented, overwhelming, nonsensical. But the act of creating re-forms your reality into new patterns and new meanings. It feels magical – but it only takes your choice.
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Healing and Integration
Creativity and healing are entwined together. As you create, you express yourself, you feel beneath the surface, you stretch beyond your comfort zone, and old patterns of limitation begin to move and be revealed. The act of creating gives you the opportunity to revision your world and regenerate yourself.
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Expansion and Possibility
We are all so much more than we appear to be on any ordinary day. Your imagination arises from Soul and holds the key to new worlds. Through creating you can move into other dimensions of consciousness – deeper, higher, more expanded. Remembering these bigger perspectives can be crucial when you are moving through troubled times. The more we visit them, the more they become part of us.
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Exercising Your Brain
Creating isn’t always fun, sometimes it takes effort, requires us to hold tension, to pay attention to detail, or to come up against our doubts. But creative action focuses on finding solutions and it always exercises the brain. Particularly for those of us who are in our elder years, this is a brilliant way to stay young and vital in spirit.
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Meaning, Purpose, Direction and Confidence
Throughout a lifetime we may be tempted to search for what we want outside of ourselves, and this is often a path to disappointment. Creative fulfilment, on the other hand, is always a choice you can make to draw out riches and resources from inside you and then to offer them in service.
Some Reasons You May Not Be Exercising Your Creativity
Stress
Everyone is stressed because the earth is stressed, and all our systems of civilisation are stressed. And when we’re stressed, we tend to take refuge in well-known comfort zones like sweet foods, social media, or inaction. We become distracted, overwhelmed, closed down, only half alive. From here it can be difficult to make the choice to be creative but when we do it feels so good.
Out of Practice
If you’ve been out of work for some time and then you begin a new job, you’ll likely feel unsure at first and it feels like a big leap. It’s the same with creating, if you’re out of practice, doubts and fears come flooding in and sistract you from taking your next step.
Fear of Lack
You think you don’t have time, don’t have the space, don’t have the money to buy tools, don’t have the talent. You’re caught up in limitation and you forget your inner abundance.
You Think You Don’t Deserve
Who are you to think you’re creative? What makes you think you can take time for yourself? How can you justify taking pleasure in creativity when the world is falling apart?
Fear of Asserting Your Needs and Claiming Your Space
If you believe you don’t have any talent and you don’t deserve, then how can you claim your space?
Fear of Being Judged, Ridiculed or Punished
Some of our fears of creating go very deep and may be rooted in old trauma, which may even go back across generations. When you become creatively engaged you need to be a bit discerning who you share your gifts with. But even more than that you need to be bold and determined. You can create just for you and for the pleasure and growth this will bring you.
Fear of Connecting with your own Strengths and Limitations and Speaking Your Truth
It takes a heroic spirit to commit to a journey of conscious healing, creating and transformation. The journey will grow your courage, and you don’t have to do it alone.
Some Ways Being Part of a Transformational Practice Group Can Help You
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Companionship and Conversation
When you connect with others who have similar aspirations and you meet with them in an intentional space, you will encourage and inspire each other and open the door to new possibilities.
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Intention and Accountability
Stating your intention to step onto a creative path is powerful. Being heard and witnessed is even more powerful. Your companions will keep you accountable to your own dreams and cheer you on as you take small steps in your chosen direction.
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Unconditional Love and Acceptance
When you approach your creative path with beginner’s mind, and in a spirit of curiosity and experimentation, you don’t think so much about success and failure. Instead, you think more about the challenges of creating and how you can become more skilled in expressing what is inside you. In an intentional group your companions will always accept you for who you are and appreciate your willingness to keep showing up – even when you’re feeling vulnerable and lost.
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A Strong Yet Flexible Container
Whether you’re creating in solitude, or as part of a transformational group, you need a strong, flexible container, – one that will hold you, give you a sense of safety, and also enable you to stretch, grow and blossom.
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A Creativity Practice
When you think about creating as a practice rather than a goal, your focus shifts from trying to control results, to recognising how creating can grow your consciousness, your strength, your love and ability to contribute.
If you resonate with what I’m saying Take a look at the Create! Group
