Three simple ways that being human aids our creative practice

One of the things that I always have eyes for is how I can be more consistent and focused in my creative practices (and a few human ones too!). I can dream up new ideas, play and create and have lots of fun in my practice all day everyday (I’m an artist!) AND I know that moving my practice forward and developing as an artist and creative requires some consistency and focus.

I know from my own experience and from my work as a coach listening to other creative folk - that being an artist of any sort can look to all intents and purposes like a very up and down experience.

One day we are pumped and feel this whole life and art thing is like one massive ecstatic dance party and the next we wonder what an earth we are doing and think that we suck at art (and then everything else - on a really bad day!)

For some this can lead to a spiral of “artists block” and other evasive tactics to avoid the studio or finding all sorts of other chores to do other than do the one thing that always has us connected to ourselves and what we love!

Can you relate to that?

Even if it isn’t quite as dramatic as that, it can still cause a sense of unease and dissatisfaction - which frankly isn’t the energy we best create from, and certainly isn’t great for our wellbeing.

Much of the time we cruise along in neutral doing just fine. It’s just that we really notice the highs and lows - we seem to put a lot of our attention there. This is true of life and art!

Our innate human design, and the fundamentals of how we work as human beings, when we understand them, can alleviate the challenges we experience when we encounter these polarities.

In truth all of our experience of life as a human - including our creative practices - are an inside job. Now I know this sounds like a cliche, but it’s true, so it is worth pausing and really focusing in on what we mean by an inside job.

To start with lets look at the three ways that being human help us to understand this better: -

1. Firstly - you are a complete whole human being with creativity as an innate gift - this is constant - you are one and the same with the bigger creative energy behind all of life - even when you forget/overlook/ignore this fact! It’s a universal truth.

(I know - read that again and let it sink in ;))

2. Secondly - the only thing that ever gets in the way of this fact is your personal thinking i.e. the superhighway of creativity that are your thoughts  -  especially the negative stuff we make up about ourselves, our art etc - these are temporary and come along like busses - so you can always rely on a new thought at any time.

(Yes, this personal thinking that we get stuck in at times is just temporary - including the habitual recurring thought patterns - even though it doesn’t look this way to us lots of the time!)

3. So - when you cultivate your awareness and understanding of 1 and 2  - and do so from your heart, with love and compassion for your human-ness - you expand the space for creativity, wellbeing and clarity to flow through you more of the time.

(I know it’s one of those brain exploding realisations that we all wish we had known years ago) (and yes they do teach this in some schools - thankfully!)

So - armed with love and the above understanding - we create the feelings in which wisdom, ease and creativity flow in - just by being human - our factory default setting.

Now I know your head is probably going - “but it is the bad painting/lack of time/too many other things getting in my way/<insert your own external factor> - that is causing my negative experience”. But honestly it really isn’t - it is your thinking about those things and the meaning you have given them, that is causing you to feel how you feel.

Yes, this can be a brain scratcher - but stick with me and try it out for size. We all fall for the illusion that it’s not our thinking from time to time  - it’s part of being human - but when we come back to the above principles of the nature of being human, it helps us move through it with grace.

Here is a practical illustration that might help:-

Ashley has a great day in the studio and has added some new work to their current series in preparation for open studios in September. They are feeling happy that the work is progressing and had a couple of break-throughs today, which they feel have moved their work on. They open their laptop to post about their excitement on their social media pages and notice they have received two emails from shows that have turned down their work.

In the blink of an eye Ashley goes from being happy to despondent. Why am I doing this? No-one likes my work. I keep getting turned down, maybe I am not talented enough to do this work? In fact maybe I am just useless full stop - look at all that washing-up that needs doing!

You get the picture, and I am sure that at some point you have had the experience of being high and then being low - in seemingly a split second.

It looks to Ashley, that their experience of being low is caused by the “rejection” letters. That something outside of them has caused them to feel the way they do.

What Ashley is missing (and this is the clincher!) is that it’s not that they have been rejected, or that they have had break-throughs in their work, that has them feel what they feel - it is that in their minds they think this means something about them and who they really are e.g. I am a great painter and am developing great work this means I am great and valuable or I have been rejected by two exhibitions and this means I am not a good painter and I am no good/not enough/not a real artist etc.

Ashley’s paintings, work, and rejection letters have nothing to do with who they really are - their innate wholeness and creativity is still intact (inside) regardless of anything that happens with their work or what anyone else thinks of their work (outside). Hence their/our experience really is an inside job - 100% of the time - despite our minds best efforts to convince us otherwise!

This brings these seemingly polar feelings and experiences into the land of neutral. Because all thoughts are neutral, it’s just the meaning that we add to them that has them feel a particular way.

This is so good to see in all of our experiences in life, but from a creative perspective it helps us to move on from disappointment quicker, keep focused, and maintain a consistency of practice - knowing that whether we think we are doing well or whether we think we are not - neither impacts our capacity to create. (unless we let it!)

This enables us to keep creating, to keep showing up and doing the work. This guarantees that our work will develop and more importantly we can stay in the action of creating and doing what we love to do - regardless of the outcome.

AND one final reminder - whilst we may have all sorts of intentions and desires for our development as creatives, it is good to remember that regardless of where that goes, we are already innately whole, healthy and creative - the creative source is a constant flow through us -  the kindness of the human design - and this my friends is the sweetest insight of all.

Happy Creating!

xx