Creativity..
Merriam Webster definition: 1: the ability to create. 2: the quality of being creative.
I remember at one point in my life feeling that I wasn't creative. I realize now that was my perfectionist voice trying to tell me that whatever I was trying to do wasn't good enough. I have heard others over the years make comments about not feeling creative. I always wondered about that and have been thinking quite a bit lately about what it means to be "creative". I recently was listening to a podcast (I've been quite the podcast listener these days as I learn about them in prep for recording my own podcast soon) and the guest said that it is in our DNA to be creative and that everything that has progressed through time has been someone being creative to solve a problem, bring beauty on some level and sometimes leap frog us further into the future.
I have changed my creative pursuits over the years, from being a maker, to putting together yoga classes to using technology, to decorating my living space and writing words and coloring. I have been creating jewelry for roughly 31 years off and on, I was a quilter for many years and I love a good coloring session for the inspiration it gives me for my jewelry and for lowering my stress. Not always can I say it was to solve a problem, most of my pursuits were driven by my love of color, love of metal and beads and the tactile feeling of those as well as fabrics. While I do less of those things than I used to, it has morphed into creativity around photos for my Instagram for yoga. While I didn't join IG for the purpose of anything other than trying my hand at using my phone to capture photos of things that intrigued me, I found a yoga community in the early days that spurred my personal practice and found a group doing monthly yoga challenges that not only were about posing but also taught me about using apps for editing and taking an interesting photo. While I do very few challenges anymore, the algorithm seems to have squashed my connection to many of the people who were doing them, I still do take some photos of my favorite yoga dock overlooking Puget Sound.
I think about my day job, which is mostly about numbers and reports etc, it is creative in a way that many times I forget to acknowledge. I am, or so I have been told a person who uses both right and left brain fairly equally and evidently according to one person this is sort of rare. Not sure about that but I do know that I can crunch numbers, wade into technology and then look at beautiful photos, create jewelry and create wardrobes of clothing to wear. While I enjoy technology a whole lot, I had to stop working in it, there was too much frustration for me and I always felt behind the bleeding edge technology and the constant connection all day trying to solve problems and fix the things that broke. I have also during the last couple of years gotten very good at planning and implementing events and really do enjoy that. I regularly plan and offer yoga workshops and am working on plans for online options for workshops and doing retreats in places I have always wanted to travel to.
I am sure there are other creative things that show up in the day and I am going to try to pay more attention to what those are and when they show up. Where are you creative in your life? Try looking outside the things you would consider traditionally creative and think about how you problem solve, how you create an environment for yourself etc, you just might surprise yourself with how creative you are.
XO
Titanium