Webinar: Reclaiming Creativity: Strategies for a More Authentic Life

Do you ever feel like there’s a spark missing from your life? Maybe you used to be full of creative ideas, brimming with projects and hobbies that brought you joy. But lately, it feels hard to tap into that inspiration. You might find yourself stuck in a routine, yearning for a way to express yourself authentically.

The good news is, that creative spark is still within you. We all have that wellspring of creativity, and nurturing it can lead to a more fulfilling, joyful life. It can help us connect with ourselves on a deeper level, reduce stress, and even boost our mental well-being.

But sometimes, daily pressures and that pesky inner critic can block our creative flow. We get bogged down by self-doubt, feeling like our ideas aren’t good enough, or simply not knowing where to begin.

In this FREE webinar, “Reclaiming Creativity: Strategies for a More Authentic Life,” we’ll explore ways to overcome these obstacles and rediscover the vibrant, creative you. Eddins Counseling Group therapist John Watkins will guide you through practical strategies to:

• Identify and overcome common barriers to creativity
• Reconnect with your inner artist and reignite your creative spark
• Develop tools and techniques to nurture your creativity in everyday life
• Learn how to embrace your authentic self and live a more fulfilling life

Watch a replay of the presentation here.

This presentation is titled ‘Reclaiming Creativity: Strategies for a More Authentic Life.’ It’s part of our wellness webinar series, offering free monthly sessions where each therapist explores a different topic.

Agenda:

• About the Facilitator
• Big Magic & the Artist Way
• What is Creativity
• Practical Strategies
• Questions and Comments

Here’s the agenda tonight, you’ll hear a little bit about the facilitator, and then a few stories from his creative journey. Throughout the conversation, we’ll be drawing on concepts from Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic” and Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”.

These are two books that have shaped and reshaped and shaped us again as a person and as a creative being. We’ll be starting with a discussion about what creativity is and what it isn’t. And then we’re going to be giving you some practical strategies about how to be more creative in your life and live more authentically. We can end with some questions and comments submitted to the chat box.

About the Facilitator

John Watkins is currently a graduate student at Northwestern University, where he will be receiving a master’s degree in counseling. With the beauty of the Internet, he is able to do that while not having to move and endure the Chicago winters. As part of his training, he is completing an internship to gain clinical experience, which is how I ended up here at Eddins Counseling Group. 

Prior to becoming a counselor, he had a career in the arts. He did a lot of things but was mostly an actor and singer. And he participated in things from musicals to singing back up in a band, to opera and plays. John has even worked in ballet in a costume shop for a while. He had a really wide-ranging experience and got to see a lot of different sides of creativity. He got to see all the beautiful and varied and sometimes very kooky ways that people show up in creative spaces.

Our favorite form of creativity is nature. It’s what grounds us, reminds me why we are here, and helps us to keep perspective in life. We’re also committed to a lifelong creative recovery. That means that we’re always fostering and nurturing that piece of ourselves that wants to create or wants to think about things in a different way. And we try to get out of its way as much as possible. It also means looking for ways, outside of monetary gain to find value in creativity.

What is Creativity?

• Letter from Martha Graham
• What is it not?
• Can you give your creativity Unconditional Positive Regard?
• Who gets to be creative?

Creativity in its most simple form is a word. It’s an extremely versatile word. It functions as a noun, as an adjective, and as a verb. We have creativity as an entity, creativity as an attribute, and to create as an action. Creativity is something that we believe is constantly flowing through us in small ways, such as navigating your way out of an uncomfortable conversation to big ways, like painting a mural on the side of a building. These are both creative actions that access extremely similar parts of your brain. 

Our favorite way of describing creativity and artistry is in a letter that Martha Graham, the famed choreographer, wrote to Agnes DeMille in 1943. 

These are pretty powerful words, and they really sum up the point. 

What Is Creativity Not? 

When we talk about creativity, a lot of people associate it with musicians who are rich and famous, architects creating the largest, most complex buildings in the world, or the most well-known painters that you see in museums. 

Are these people some of the most creative in the world? Perhaps maybe they are. Are they also sitting at the intersection of capitalism and creativity? Absolutely. And that’s where a lot of people get stuck.

If I don’t make money, am I still creative? If I’m not known for my work, does it matter? So part of what we want to impart to you is a decoupling of industry and creativity and encourage you to nurture that piece inside of you that just wants to express and play. Part of the decoupling of creativity and industry is that when we work from a place where creativity needs to get us something, we put conditions on it. 

Conditions lead to censorship, pressure, and inhibition.

What would happen if you could (as the letter alluded to) not judge the creative expression, but just allow it? Hold space for it with unconditional, positive regard, allowing it to be whatever it is. 

The writer Ann Lamont talks about how all of her first drafts are terrible. She knows that they’re going to be terrible, and she just accepts that. From there, she shapes, molds, grows, and nurtures whatever anything is into its full potential.

But the point is that you have to start with uninhibited expression. So the big question is who gets to be creative? Now, obviously, in this setting, in this context, you all know the answer is everybody. And right now, that might feel obvious, but the way we live often doesn’t support that. 

As a culture, we so often box ourselves and others into these roles, whether it’s your role in your family, your role at your job, or your role in your community. And so, in your mind’s eye, picture a suburban dad who works a typical nine-to-five office job and serves as a crossing guard every couple weeks at his kid’s school. The image you’re conjuring in your head is not that of an expressive artist. And that’s all of our biases at work. So often we limit creative expression to either someone who’s already doing it, someone who isn’t doing anything else (so they have nothing to lose), or someone like that dad, but only if he’s doing it in secret.

Overcoming Fear

• Fear is natural
• Who’s voice are we listening to?
  • What is self-criticism?
  • How do we move beyond fear?
  • Make a fool of yourself!
• Michaelangelo

Let’s talk about moving creativity out of secret and out of a place of fear. Fear and anxiety are natural. We need them to survive. They help us run from an “angry bear”. They become problematic when we over-identify with anxiety or let anxiety lead our lives. 

Often that shows up because of that little voice in our head that says all the things that keep us from expressing. These are the things like: “No one wants to see your painting” or “Going to that art museum is a waste of time”, or the one that a lot of people get, which is “You’re not good enough to be doing that”. 

These statements can run and ruin people’s lives. And so often we think of them as coming from ourselves, when in reality these are limiting beliefs or core messages that we pick up along the way. So whether that’s from your parent when you’re five years old or just some random guy you pass on the street, it’s like that line: “And into the woods, children will listen. They do. And they carry what people say consciously and unconsciously for decades.” 

So when we find ourselves being self-critical like that, start thinking, whose voice am I listening to? Because it ain’t mine. And does that voice serve me right now? Does that voice allow me to get closer to my goals? 

One method to tame that voice that pops up is to do a little exposure therapy in the form of simply making a fool of yourself. 

John Watkins recalls a memorable experience that occurred somewhat against his will. About eight or nine years ago, he was performing in the Houston Grand Opera’s production of Rusalka. During the show, he had a lightning-fast costume change, switching from a chef’s outfit to a full tuxedo in just 30 seconds.

During one scene, a slight delay in getting off stage set off a chain reaction, and after finally donning the tuxedo, he had to move quickly to make up for lost time. As he hurried across the stage to hit his next cue, John ascended a flight of stairs while holding a candelabra, but in his haste, he tripped and fell flat on his face in front of an audience of about a thousand people during their final rehearsal. The experience left him mortified.

Despite the mishap, he wasn’t fired—his biggest fear—and the incident became a great story. Following this, his inner critic had little to say, as it’s hard to surpass such a moment of embarrassment.

Let’s say you don’t have the opportunity to fall flat on your face in front of a thousand people and break a candelabra. What are some things you can do?

Maybe it’s as simple as telling your worst dad jokes to people. And what if you’re not ready to make a fool of yourself at all? How do we move beyond fear? One of our favorite ways to describe this is the way Michelangelo talked about his method for sculpting. When asked how he sculpts, he said that he doesn’t. He said that the statue he was carving was already inside the piece of marble. His job is just to remove the excess marble. 

Think of yourself and your creative expression as the statue and all of the fear that’s holding you back as the excess marble. Can you begin to simply chip away the marble to reveal more of yourself?

You Have Permission to Create!

A lot of people have blocks around simply enjoying a creative process or thinking of themselves as creative people. So if no one has told you, and you need to be reminded, you have permission to create. And next time you start doubting whether you should pick up your paint set, sing a song in the shower, write a poem, or just take a walk down a new path, remember that guy from that thing who told you: you have permission, I grant you permission. 

Start granting yourself permission. But how do we do this? How do we give ourselves permission? How do we start to chip away at the marble of our lives? 

Reclaiming Creativity Strategies

Here are four specific strategies that have been useful in our lives and other people’s lives. 

Strategy 1: Morning Pages

• What are morning pages?
  • 3 pages
  • Can be ANYTHING
  • Handwritten, if you’re able
• Am I doing it right?
• What’s the point?

So the first strategy comes directly from the “Artist’s Way”, and it’s this thing called Morning Pages. In the book, Julia Cameron prescribes that everyone engaged in their creative recovery, but everyone in life really should be doing it.

First thing in the morning, before you’ve done anything else, and before you’re accessible to the world. She says that we should sit down and write three pages. It can be anything, but it has to be three full pages. You can write “I don’t want to be doing this for three pages”. Or you can write about what you plan to do that day, or you can write about how mad you are at your neighbor. The point is simply to write. 

A lot of people wonder if they’re doing it correctly. And the truth is that as long as you’re doing three pages, you can’t do it wrong. You would be amazed at what happens in these three pages. Obviously, as therapists, we advocate for therapy. But these morning pages have been some of the best self-therapy we’ve ever had. 

Just getting stuff out of our heads and processing our thoughts through our bodies and onto the page can be an extremely cathartic experience. It’s kind of like exercise for your mind and spirit. And, much like with exercise, there’s never been a moment afterward where they thought, “I really wish I hadn’t done that; I could have used those 20 minutes for something else.”

The main point of writing your morning pages is to empty out your head and get all the things that are swirling around in there out of your body and onto the page so they can no longer distract you in your day-to-day. 

You’d be surprised at what comes out when you have a little more room in your head. A lot of people report their morning pages being responsible for eliciting a song idea, a business idea, or a new way of thinking about a problem that leads to a solution.

It’s really endless, but it all starts by making a little more room in your brain. So those new ideas have room to grow.

Do the morning pages need to be handwritten or can they be keyed into a laptop?

We don’t want to say that it can’t be keyed into a laptop. There is something about physically writing things out, taking the extra time that it takes to write things out by hand that can really help process the information. And there’s something about getting it, you know, out of your body, through your arm, onto the page. That’s very cathartic. If keying in or even speaking into a device is what’s possible for you, that’s okay, too. There’s really no wrong way to do it. But if I were to instruct somebody, I would advise them to write it out by hand.

Strategy 2: Artist’s Dates

• What is an Artist’s Date? It can be anything!
• The importance of solitude cannot be overstated.
• What if I feel awkward? That’s ok!

The second major takeaway from the artist’s way is the concept of Artist’s Dates. If you were to do the program as prescribed by Julia Cameron, you would do this once a week in your life. You can do this whenever you’re able or whenever you want to. And what it is is engaging in a solo activity that’s creative or artistic in nature. 

Some ideas to think about for artist’s dates include going to a museum, going to the theater, going to a movie, reading the book that you’ve had for two years that’s collecting dust, cooking a meal that reminds you of a special time in your life, taking a walk in a beautiful park, like Herman park if you’re here in Houston… 

The importance of solitude cannot be overstated. 

A lot of us fear being left alone with our thoughts, and this is a great way to do a little bit of exposure therapy for that as well. The fact that you’re taking in an experience alone means that you’ll have time to decide how you really feel about something versus having to agree, disagree, or talk about it at all with other people. It’s something just for you that you alone get to take in and digest.

A lot of people feel awkward about doing things alone. It is vulnerable to go to a big museum alone or go to the theater alone, but I promise that no one else cares. They’re probably jealous that you had the nerve to do something on your own. 

You might even find that you get so much out of it, that it becomes a hobby. Things like solo traveling can bring so much joy and can end up being some of the best experiences of your life, simply because you have space to experience it for yourself and to be there with your own thoughts.

Strategy 3: Getting Still

• Slowing down to speed up
• The Business Trap
• Mindfulness techniques
  • 5-4-3-2-1
  • Free resources

The third strategy kind of stems from the previous two, and that’s getting still. A lot of people tend to yawn when they hear about mindfulness. It can feel a little bit cliche sometimes, but there really is something to it. The idea of slowing down to speed up is so powerful. Our culture is so fixated on productivity and busyness for the sake of busyness that it can feel suffocating.

Oftentimes we get so busy being busy that we forget what the point of everything is. Taking even five minutes to reconnect with your breath and the present moment can have major ramifications on the rest of your day and be one step in igniting your creativity. 

So how do we do this? There are a million and one mindfulness techniques out there. One that we love to teach to all our clients is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. 

5-4-3-2-1 Technique

Look around the room and name out loud five things you can see. Now, name four things that you can touch and actually physically touch them. Next, name three things that you can hear. And now name two things that you can smell. This one is really hard. And then one thing you can taste.

So what we just did is we engaged all of our five senses in the present moment and just notice how you feel you likely feel at least a little more plugged into the present moment. And what a great place from which to jump when working on a creative project or idea. 

There are tons of free resources out there for mindfulness, from the Apple Watch mindfulness app to guided meditations. It’s a lot out there. You can just search on YouTube for a ten-minute grounding meditation and use it as a time to slow down and get all the noise out of your head so you can be creatively engaged in the space.

Strategy 4: Inspired Action

• Action precedes inspiration
• Show up for your creativity
• What does this look like? Done is better than good
• The importance of ritual

Once we’ve gotten still, we can take some inspired action. In the book “Big Magic”, Elizabeth Gilbert emphasizes the importance of taking action to inspire creativity. She argues that action precedes inspiration. In other words, we need to do the work and then inspiration will follow. By showing up consistently, we cultivate creativity and what she says is done is better than good.

This mindset encourages us to prioritize progress over perfection and to keep moving forward in our creative endeavors. But what does this look like in practice? It means setting aside time to do your morning pages or your artist’s date for sure. But it also means just doing the thing you say you’re going to do. Whether that’s a painting, a poem, a trip that you want to plan, or any other creative project, just completing it is so important.

From a neuroscience perspective, our brains are wired to look for rewards. 

That sense of satisfaction that you get from crossing something off of your list, or that feeling of relief that you get when you get into bed after a long day of doing some house project that you’ve been putting off. That’s not by accident. Our brains are wired to desire and seek out that feeling. And what it is is a little hit of dopamine. 

One source of pretty instantaneous dopamine that we all experience a lot is social media. Scrolling on social media will give you really fast and cheap hits, but they don’t last, and then you’ll end up needing more and more and more, which is how you end up scrolling on TikTok for 4- 5 hours into the early morning. 

But getting into the creative work and reward cycle is going to be 100 times more rewarding and much more sustainable. This idea of showing up for your creativity is so important, and it is as distinct from having your creativity show up for you.

A lot of people put pressure on their creativity to produce something worthwhile, meaningful, or marketable, and at the end of the day, it’s just going to be what it is. We decide if it’s worthwhile, meaningful, or marketable. 

Consistently showing up for your creativity, making a ritual and routine out of engaging with your creativity is really the way to foster it. And you can think of it kind of like you would foster a relationship with a friend. There are some days your friend is going to want to take an impromptu trip to the beach, and other days your friend really just needs a listening ear.

Building a ritual around engaging with your creativity gives it the opportunity to grow and thrive, whether that’s every day or every week, or however you decide to structure it. 

John Watkins shared a glimpse into his creative ritual to illustrate his process. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he became deeply involved in recording music at home, even on days when he didn’t feel like singing or editing. His ritual began with clearing his space to avoid feeling mentally cluttered, followed by lighting a candle.

Next, he would choose a song and start singing, allowing whatever happened to happen. Some days, there wasn’t much inspiration, and he would simply pack up and move on. On other days, he felt so inspired that he would record a song, create a video, and either share it or keep it for himself. Regardless of the outcome, the act of engaging in this ritual always left him feeling better and more in control of his life. This is just one example, but the key takeaway is to find what works for you.

Work/Creativity/Life Balance

The last point is something that Elizabeth Gilbert talks about at length in “Big Magic”, and that’s work/creativity/and life balance. In the vein of the decoupling of industry and creativity, it can be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people, that their creative ideas may not generate their revenue right off the bat or at all, and that’s okay. 

Everything is in Service

What Gilbert talks about is reframing that from the creative pursuit, not giving you a return to allowing your day job to be in service of them. Can you let your work be in service of something other than just collecting a paycheck? Can you do what you need to do during the day so that your soul can do what it needs to do at night or on the weekend?

Easy Does It

Allowing work and creativity to exist symbiotically rather than in opposition can be very healing for a lot of people who that maybe previously thought of them as a binary choice. And on that note, easy does it. Creative recovery and the creative process is a lifelong endeavor, which is why we go slow to go fast. 

Community

Finally, we want to talk about community. Finding the right community to balance out the solitude that is inherent in many people’s creative process is a wonderful practice. We are social creatures, and finding like-minded people who share the same goals and dreams can be a salve when you’re really unsure or life feels out of control, and you don’t know what to do next with your creative endeavors. 

And the thing is, more people are like-minded than you think. It’s amazing how many humans are so unique, yet so similar. So whether that looks like joining a therapy or support group, a book club, or just chatting with your neighbor you haven’t said hi to in a while, start looking for community and see what happens.

If this was helpful and you enjoyed this presentation and you’d like more support on it, John Watkins will be accepting new clients at the end of September you can call the number (832) 559-2622 or schedule online.

Feel free to visit additional resources:

1. Articles on specific topics on our blog.
2. RSVP for one of our free monthly webinars (or view past webinars)
3. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for additional interviews and tips
4. Take another one of our self-test quizzes
5. Schedule a consult and find out how we can support you.