Everybody has a creative bone in their body, not just a selected few!
Everybody has a creative bone in their body, not just a selected few!
The other day, I was invited for dinner at a friend’s house. We had a wonderful evening, fantastic food, interspersed with really interesting conversations.
At some point, when I talked about my plans concerning my new website and how I wanted to display my art, my podcast stories, films etc. my friend responded:
‘I don’t have a creative bone in my body.’
This is by no means the first time, I heard exactly those words in response to what I do. As if my creativity highlighted the apparent non existent one in the other person. Which is obviously not true at all and guided by a widely spread misconception. Claiming, that there are only a selected few, which have by accident ingested the creative genius. Tough luck for everyone else! They have to somehow meander through life without this added bonus of exploring ways of being creative, that suit their needs.
The belief of either being gifted with a creative bone in your body or not can do a lot of damage, keeping people away from creative self expression, discovering new layers of themselves, they didn’t know existed.
It makes me really sad, because I feel there is so much untapped potential, which gets lost, in some cases forever. Instead, we put a few selected artists, actors, writers on a pedestal, where they don’t belong in the first place, while abandoning our very own need for creativity.
The truth is, there aren’t a selected few, who get to be creative. In fact, creativity is a basic human birth right and should be treated as such. All children up to a certain age, dive constantly into creative worlds. They play, they invent, the imagine all day long.
Until they don’t anymore. How did that happen? Maybe that would be the far more interesting question to ponder upon.
‘How did I end up, believing, I don’t have a creative bone in my body. And does it serve me still to hang on to that belief?’
Another interesting question to ask might be:
‘How did some people become so invested in their creativity?’
Things are often not as they seem and I for sure don’t feel like I have been magically gifted some sort of a creative bone, others don’t have.
On the contrary, I would say I developed my imagination for example, (many people always comment on), as a survival mechanism. I grew up in an chaotic, dramatic, as well as often toxic environment, where there was very little to no space for my own needs, sorrows and feelings. As a way to cope, I would escape into fantasy worlds as far away from reality as possible.
Theatre, acting and dancing became one of the few safe spaces, where I could express myself emotionally without being shamed and where I felt for once alive. Acting afforded me precious moments of authenticity. As weird as that may sound.
Personally I need to be creative, because it keeps me sane, in an often insane world.
I draw for example, because it makes me feel more relaxed and I improvise, because it makes me feel excited about new possibilities.
In my experience, investing in our own creativity can be a real life saver!
That’s why I decided to offer private, affordable ‘art of improvisation’ lessons, for those who wish to uncover their own creative bone. Improvisation teaches us how to walk into the unknown with curiosity, letting things unfold without forcing them. Expressing ourselves in new ways, while getting to know our own dormant creative potential.
Also, in the very near future, I will be offering life coaching specifically tailored for those people, who like me, had to endure unhealthy, toxic environments for far too long. Most of us had to abandon vital parts of ourselves in order to survive.
Together we will focus on pulling away from unhealthy patterns, as well as coming more into our own, developing self agency. We will engage our creativity to find new, more authentic paths to self expression.