LEARNING TO BE CREATIVE

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Creative exploration of Van Gogh's Starry Night, painting by Jenny Leigh Hodgins

by Jenny Leigh Hodgins 

Listen to the Podcast version here.

Plenty of adult music students have told me that they were not creative. I’ve always responded, ‘Nonsense!' Everyone is creative. Some of us have learned to tap it more naturally than others.  

Anyone who knows me uses the word creative to describe me. I blog, podcast, write, compose, play piano, improvise, sing, garden, take photos, make videos, design my website layout, present, facilitate. As a former music and piano educator, I've been known to tweak a lesson in mid-stream to make learning accommodations for my students, lead drum circles on the beach, and more.

The point is that I know how to be creative.  Ideas, thoughts, patterns, melodies, rhythm, words, drama, and humor burst forth from me as an unstoppable fountain. Creative expression is more natural to me than breathing. Immersed in creative projects, I sometimes forget to breathe!

Incidentally, I’ve never met a child who was not able to be creative.  Young people are fully tapped into the creative dimension.  They need no map to get there.  

​Adults, however, are a different story.  We sometimes lose our way to creative freedom, due to stress and pressure from our daily responsibilities. We grow out of touch with ourselves, and forget how to listen to our intuitive voice. We pay too much attention to the harsh judgments from society, and shrink our creative energy in response. We foolishly compare ourselves and our creativity to others, with standards that aren't fair or realistic. 

There will always be art that's better or worse than ours. There will always be someone whose creative skills are more honed than ours. There will always be people whose creative output surpasses our own. None of this matters.

What matters is that we allow our authentic creative expression to flow sincerely and honestly. If you’ve lost your way or simply need some help getting connected to your creative side, here are some things I’ve learned about how to be imaginative:

• Give up caring about the result.  You can think about that later. To get your creative juices flowing, let go of your expectations.  Once you can loosen up on that, the real source of originality will become accessible.

 

• Take off your head.  Don’t think about structure, the rules, or what you know. If you start thinking or judging your ideas, throw the judgement into an imaginary balloon and send it off into the vast sky. Goodbye.

 

• Tap into your heart, your soul–what you believe in and care about.  Let everything come from that inner compass.  Once you can channel directly from your core, your purpose, your spirituality–your unique truth will freely spill out.

 

• The more you connect with your inner voice or faith–the more readily your pure, yet wiser self will lead the way.  Just follow your intuition and let your journey take you where you’re going. You don’t have to know where you’ll end up for now.  Be confident it will be someplace cool.

 

• Open up your courage. Address your creativity as an adventure into your deeper existence.  Go forward with humility to learn and to be true to yourself.  Go forth willingly to be taught and led.

 

• If you lose focus and begin to feel limits due to ego, shake it off. Reconnect to the primary purpose; communicating with your creative life. Communicating through your creativity to reach a connection with others.

Setting aside time to explore creative adventure is not only healthy and enriching for you, it will lead to your creative development. The more you give your creative life, the greater energy it will ignite.

​Enjoy your process and Viva La Vie Boheme!


Let me know if these suggestions are helpful or if you have more tips for tapping creativity by leaving a comment below! 

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