Episode 082: What to Do When Creativity Feels Forced
Hi creative soles! I hope you’re having a beautiful day so far. What socks are you wearing today? I am wearing a pair of navy socks with colorful snowflakes, which is kind of funny - so last night after I took a shower (because I’m a night showerer, sometimes I shower in the morning but for the most part that ritual has perplexed me. I like to shower off the debris of the day before I feel like I can really relax and set myself up with a clean slate for the next day.) But anyway, shower times aside, last night after I took a shower, I purposefully, intentionally chose to trust my intuition when putting on socks that I was going to wear for the night and the next day i guess that’s why the night shower detail was somewhat relevant - I’m still wearing the same socks I put on last night ok?
Ok. So this trusting my intuition when putting on socks maybe that sounds a little bit silly, but this is just a little thing that I do as I’m going about my day, to help me tune into my intuition more and more - I check in with myself on little decisions, like these kind of low-stakes decisions like what to eat for lunch, or which way to turn at an intersection when I’m out for a walk, or which socks to wear. And that just helps me kind of build that trust muscle with my intuition, if that makes sense. So last night, as I was intuitively choosing my socks for the next day, I felt drawn to these snowflake socks, and then this morning, I was totally surprised when I opened the curtains and it was snowing. Now I don’t know why I was totally surprised exactly - because I live in New England, and that’s pretty normal in February, but I guess I just hadn’t checked the weather and it wasn’t on my radar. But anyway it made me chuckle when I looked out the window today when I saw that snow because it matched my socks, and I chose to see the situation as confirmation of the wisdom of my intuition. Now did my intuition know it was going to snow? Who knows. Not to my knowledge. But somehow it knew that these were the right socks for today, for some reason, and I think that is quite a delightful thing to think about.
Before we dive into today’s topic, I want to remind you of my new free workshop on setting up a creative workspace. If you’ve been listening to me for a while, you know how much I believe in the power of having a dedicated space for your creative practice. I really believe it makes it that much easier for us to prioritize our creativity when we have a space already carved out and set up in a way that inspires us. So if you want to get access to the workshop, which I’m very excited about, you can go to thephilosophersstem.com and I’ll send you the key to my Secret Garden of Creativity, where this resource lives. I’m really excited for you to set up a creative workspace in your home, and then once you have done that I am really excited to see and hear about it!
So, today I had this inspiration, this intuition, to record an episode about the idea of forcing creativity. I talk a lot about creating structure and routine and boundaries around your creative practice, and making time to just sit down to create even when you don’t feel inspired. And I 100% stand by this. The best way that I have found to tap into more creative inspiration is to just do more creative work. Which includes doing creative work even when I don’t feel particularly inspired. Maybe when I don’t even feel like it in the moment.
But this idea is also kind of at odds with something I also believe about creativity, which is that it can’t be forced. I believe that creativity and imagination and inspiration are these kind of wild forces that can’t be tamed, so to speak. I don’t think that they like to visit us when we are trying to grasp at them. I don’t think that sitting at your writing desk just banging your head against the wall for hours on end is going to lead to your best creative work. At least, that doesn’t work very well for me and I’m guessing it probably hasn’t worked very well for you either.
Instead, I think what we have to do is to go back to this idea that I’ve talked about before of making energetic space for creativity. We’ve made the physical space, by setting up your creative workspace, maybe with the guidance of my workshop that I mentioned, we’ve made the time space by carving out a few minutes in our calendar and committing to our creative practice. But if that’s all you do, and you’re sitting down and you’re still just feeling stuck, I think something is missing. And I think what is missing is this energetic space.
When we are trying so hard to MAKE creativity happen, we don’t leave any room to ALLOW it to happen. People talk all the time about being in flow when you’re in a creative project, when you’re working on a creative project, and I would guess that you’re probably familiar with being in a flow state when you’re creating…even if it feels like a distant memory, or it feels inconsistent and hard to access at the moment - you’ve probably experienced it at some point. And you probably also know that flow and forcing don’t exactly go together.
So, if you’re thinking, alright Maria, I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do by just showing up consistently for my creative practice, how do these things fit together? How can we be consistent and disciplined and create boundaries around our art AND make room for flow at the same time?
And first, I want to mention a concept I learned from my feng shui teachers. In feng shui, we talk about yin and yang, which are two different kinds of energy. In many ways, they’re opposites - for example yin is soft and dark and passive, and yang is hard and bright and active - but the interesting and paradoxical thing about yin and yang is that you can’t have one without the other. Nothing is entirely yin or entirely yang - and there is always yin within the yang, and there is always yang within the yin. And this very dance of opposing energy is what makes up our world. It’s what makes up us, it’s what makes up everything around us.
So the way I see this applying to creativity is that the structure of a creative workspace and dedicated time in your schedule is kind of the yang piece, and the flowy, boundless state of inspiration is the yin piece. And again, you can’t have one without the other.
And I think this is interesting and important because it’s easy to think about structure and routine as something that’s separate from creativity and flow. But really, everything is connected and everything is a part of everything. Which is kind of wild and trippy to think about. And maybe it doesn’t even make a lot of sense logically. But I wanted to mention this because I think it sheds some light on the question of how structure and flow fit together - they’re really both part of the same whole.
So, on a practical level, maybe you’re wondering now how to make this energetic space for creativity that I mentioned earlier. Or maybe you’re wondering what that even means. And what it means to me is: intentionally shifting our state of being to one that is conducive to creativity. So shifting from the state of gripping and forcing and willing creative ideas and inspiration to come to you, to the state of allowing and inviting them to come to you.
I think there are many ways that we can do this, and the ways that work the best for you will probably be unique to you. They might not be the same ways that work for me, or for an artist that you admire. I’ll share a few of the things in a moment that help me in case they can offer you some inspiration, some things to play with, and then I invite you to experiment with these ideas, and any other ideas that come to you, and then see what resonates with you and what works for you.
So one of the ways that I like to make space for creativity to flow to me is through journaling. I find that when I can write my thoughts down on paper and become aware of them in this way, it clears out some of the static that is getting in the way - I can notice those grippy thoughts where I feel like I’m trying to force something, and once I’ve written them down it’s easier to just observe them rather than keep playing them over and over and getting caught up with them in my brain.
I also really like tapping, or Emotional Freedom Technique. This is essentially a technique that involves tapping with your fingers on certain acupressure points on your body while talking to yourself out loud about what’s bothering you. And I’ve found that this really helps me move through challenging emotions, like when I’m feeling really frustrated or sad or anxious, which can all be again like debris in the way of my creativity, and tapping has been really helpful in shifting my emotional state into something more supportive, where I can settle into my creative practice with more ease, rather than this feeling of trying to push and force everything.
The last thing I want to mention that has really helped me is moving my body. When I feel stuck, or like things are not flowing, I find it really helpful to actually move my physical body. Maybe it’s the endorphins or maybe it’s the space I’m creating in my body - you know when you’re like crunched inwards from sitting still too long, and then you stretch or walk or something and then you feel more spacious in your body? That’s kind of the feeling that I’m going for with this strategy. I love dancing and yoga and going for walks. I find that these all shift how I’m feeling and invite more feelings of flow and space into my life and into my creative practice.
So those are just some of the techniques that I rely on the most to create energetic space in my life for creativity. Before we wrap up, I encourage you to ask yourself a few questions to kind of tap into what this might look like for you.
Do you have any tools or practices currently at my disposal that help you shift how you’re feeling? What are they? What do you already do and know how to do that help you to feel more spacious and more at ease when you do it?
How can I incorporate more of these things into your daily life?
Are there any new tools that you want to try? Is there anything you’re feeling inspired to play with and experiment with? And see what happens.
And I would love to hear what things have been helpful for you! So if anything comes up, or if anything seems interesting that you’re going to try, let me know what they are you can send me an email at hello@thephilosophersstem.com or a DM at @thephilosophersstem on Instagram.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode, my dear creative sole. I hope it was helpful or interesting to you, and if it was, maybe share it with a friend! I so look forward to talking to you again soon, and in the meantime, remember to never wear boring socks.
Show notes:
Get the free workshop on how to set up a creative workspace
Learn more about creativity coaching with Maria
Website: thephilosophersstem.com
Instagram: @thephilosophersstem
