An experience of creative freedom is like nothing else in the world. You feel strong, confident and clear as your natural gifts flow with ease, blended with the joy of creating things that speak to your heart and soul.
To many, it might sound like I’ve described the “ideal” sensation of creative freedom. So, how often do you experience something similar to it? Most of the time? Once and a while? Only in very specific conditions? Not as much as you would like? Or are there persistent challenges such as time, money or lack of inspiration?
If I had to guess, I would say your experience lies somewhere in between each of these parameters on any given day.
So, congrats! You are human and learning to find your own way to connect with and practice creative freedom – just like the rest of us.
Now, if you really think about it, when was the last time you allowed yourself to explore what it feels like? This week is a great opportunity; the Creativity Kick-Start theme is all about creative freedom, what minding your own business really means and why it’s so important to your creative health.
Ways you Get Tricked into Coloring Between the Lines
This weekend during a phone call with my Mom, she mentioned a chat she had with my youngest niece when dropping her off from school. My mother asked her about the status of some repairs taking place at my sister’s home. Without missing a beat, my niece replied, “That’s mommy and daddy’s business – not mine.”
I love this story because it demonstrates how simple it really can be to mind your own business and remove the silly details, thoughts, frustrations and stressful what-ifs, right now. When you ask yourself, “is this any of my business?”, you get in touch with your personal boundaries and what matters most for your life and self expression, and leave behind attempts to rationalize your sense of self or smoosh it into a pre-existing outline of expectations laid out by someone else.
Now, my niece may have just been parroting something she’s heard before, or simply gave a more intelligent answer than “I don’t know”. Whatever her reasons, this story serves as an example of how a simple “it’s none of my business” shifts your perspective inward to reconnect with your own sense of creative freedom.
What is your Brand of Creative Freedom?
Healthy movement towards creative change only takes place within you. It starts with truly understanding your personal brand of creative freedom and how it operates in the present moment. When focus turns to outcomes instead of the experience of creativity, or when energy moves towards wishing people would react differently to your creative expression, you slowly build obstacles to the creative freedom you seek. The same thing happens when you are using someone else’s definition of creative freedom as your own. It’s one of the biggest creative blocks people face, and it’s one of the things I help clients with most.
Be very clear on who and what you are using to serve as a model for the ideal expression of creative freedom. Would you take advice or opinions from others who lack any sense of their creative self and use that as your benchmark? Is it wise to look outside of yourself and compare successes or failures when only you have lived your life?
The same goes for expectations about how creative expression is received. Does it weigh heavily on you if someone doesn’t like your project, work or opinion? What they like is their business. I bet people successfully moving forward with creative ideas are focusing energy inward towards creating right now, instead of wondering what you are doing.
Your unique brand comes into being when you are clear on who you are and can own it. You are not here to create what makes others happy; your purpose is to create what makes YOU happy, and the joy of others is a by-product of that expression. When you focus on what you love and want to do, creative freedom grows the more you practice. It doesn’t mean expressing yourself creatively is absent of challenges, but you are honoring what needs to be expressed within you – and that is not only beautiful, it leads to a much healthier life. It also leaves room for things to unfold as you focus on your own stuff.
Remember, the why of your creative inspiration is what leads everything else and that can only be discovered by focusing on your own creative freedom journey. It’s not found by poking your nose into all the how’s, constantly worrying about the timing of things or by looking at your neighbors paper (as my teacher used to say). So mind your own business!
If you had to choose three words that clearly define your sense of creative freedom right now, what would they be? I would love to know!
Hungry for a little extra reading on a similar topic? Check out Trying to Measure your Creative Worthiness? Stop it! and Waiting for Someone Else to Validate your Creativity?
Photo credit: Ram Reddy, Mike Chaput, Josef Grunig