It’s been a little while since my last blog. Somehow, I have just lacked the energy to come up with something that I wanted to write about & I felt the pressure (self inflicted!)to write something interesting…
I could feel myself, sense checking ideas on the odd occasion when my thoughts turned to blogging- feeling that I must be really creative & have some fantastic inspiring story to tell/subject to discuss… when, in fact, I don’t actually need to have the best story in the world to write about…just write about something that I find interesting! In the same way, I try to go with the energy of my coaching clients, I needed to go with my own energy & not try to pull away in a different direction…
So what inspired me to write this post…?
Well, I have recently been following Brené Brown’s e-journaling course, based on her best selling book, ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’. I missed the first course but once I came across details of this one, I felt compelled to give it a go… Her chapter on creativity really resonated with me, particularly about the need to create space to embrace creativity and ‘play’, whatever our age…
Creativity is in all of us in many different forms & not the gift of a few. We just don’t give ourselves permission to explore it… with the busyness of life or we may view it as self indulgent when we have to do lists as long as our arm or cries of ‘it’s just not my thing’!
I’m relishing the opportunity to sketch & draw with ‘old school’ crayons, with felt tip pens & Sharpies, creating splashes of colour as I go along. It has also made me reflect back, on my previous post, about being ‘present’ in the moment, taking time for me. I wouldn’t consider myself an ‘artist’ in the true sense of the word but I have a creative mind & have always loved the idea of creating something from scratch.
I certainly didn’t inherit the family ‘art’ gene from my Dad, who was a really skilled pen & ink artist. He could turn fine strokes into amazing landscapes with just a few strokes of his pen or his brush when painting oils. I can recall my older brother’s creations from his art in school or free hand drawing, as being pretty good too … whereas my attempts at painting or drawing have never been particularly memorable! I did give art a try as an adult, thinking it must just be a hidden skill that I have never honed, given others in my family could draw. So I picked up a paint brush & set of water colours when I was in hospital,at one point, but my efforts still looked like something a five year might produce! Art may not have been my thing but I did inherit the musical gene, playing piano for many years so another form of creativity did come to the fore…
I also had a love of photography, growing up and shared this with my Dad…. I have many happy memories, of hours spent in Dad’s dark room, helping him process our photos, marvelling at the black & white images as they developed. Photography continued to be a passion for Dad throughout his life – he founded the local photographic Club & entered many competitions, winning awards for his black & white shots over the years. Then, the inevitable force of technological progress came strolling into town and the disposable ethos of the digital age arrived in its full glory, taking out awards, with the most incredible picture perfect images you can imagine… a world away from my Dad’s raw, stark imagery.
My childhood memories often included time spent sewing/knitting/baking, whenever I had some downtime from school work & sports. My Mum comes from good Irish stock and is a great cook & homemaker so ensured I would always be able to look after myself!! I have trotted out these creative skills at different times in my adult life – making curtains for houses we have lived in & knitting a very cute snowflake jumper for my toddler son that he had grown out of by the time I had finished it!
In recent times, I suppose cooking has been a creative outlet of sorts, particularly at weekends when I have more time, with modified versions of recipes making it to the table, some edible, others not! It has always been really important to me to make my son’s birthday cake every year, regardless of how busy I am… Although, my creations are a little less ambitious now, than the huge ‘Winnie the Pooh’ cake that took me hours to make in my sleep-deprived state, for his first birthday! Now he’s a teenager, as long as chocolate is involved, it doesn’t matter what it looks like… !
I still harbour a passion for photography, with a fancy camera & associated equipment on my wish list – to buy one day so I can pursue it as a serious hobby… & of course, I can now add writing to my creative list of play too!
What I’m learning from all of this is that it doesn’t matter what creativity looks like, it’s important to just do it – to play & create, in whatever form it takes & not worry about the end result! It’s all about creating space in our busy lives to nourish ourselves, be present in the moment and see what emerges. Creativity doesn’t reduce, we just develop habits that stop us from using it.
And even more important as parents is to nurture creativity in our children , regardless of age, whether it sits in cooking cupcakes, art, photography or creating in some other form. There are some incredibly scary statistics about the reduction in creative thinking, declining significantly between the ages of 5 & 10… and yet our creativity is the very thing that can help us when we get ‘stuck’ in life, making us resourceful and inspired, helping us dream and design…
So what can you get creative about today…?