Creativity - The New Super Power

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” -Sun Tzu

INTENTION

What I intend and desire for everyday creativity is to change my relationship with creativity on a day-to-day basis. A few years ago I was struggling with my career choice and applying my favorite best self to the work that I was doing. I met a spiritual mystic named Dr. Dream who taught me many things, one of which was that the gratitude and compassion for ourselves can truly change our neurochemistry. I learned that everyday practices especially in the form of writing and journaling can truly manifest a new reality for me. In the fall of 2019 studying at Drexel University in creativity and innovation I began to experience the similarities between what Dr. Dream was preaching about having a mindset of gratitude and also what the textbooks were concluding about a creative or growth mindset. The practices I am employing through Everyday Creativity in many ways are attempts to operationalize the research in creativity into ways that are accessible to everyone everywhere (a marriage of a spiritual practice and an academic one).

If you are like many of the people in this world you may not believe that creativity is for you. We all have a story of when we were young most likely 4th or 5th grade and we put our heart into a project. It could have been for music, acting, or maybe a craft. Someone close to us, a teacher or parent told us that our project ‘sucked’ and maybe said something even more derailing. Think about it, I bet deep down you have a story here? This was an important experience because it was one of the first times that our childlike desire to play and have fun was evaluated and judged by someone. This someone was likely important to us and we consciously felt the heartache of our creativity being judged. Likely, if you experienced anything like my story (when I was crushed when little Julie put my valentine card into the recycling paper box) then it was an easy decision to lock up creativity into a vault.

There aren’t many in this world who have skipped out on this heartache. This is a story that is likely one that we all can share. When it is time to let go of this old story or paradigm, we must look inside of ourselves for there is no external validation or anyone in this world that will be able to motivate us except for ourselves! There is only one person that can heal the wound from our 4th grade selves!

BE DELIBERATE

Where we put our attention and focus is where we grow. Change happens when we focus on something…and intend it willingly and consciously. The next 30 days is challenge to put a great deal of focus and awareness to how I am thinking and what I am thinking. The idea of metacognition (the thinking about our thinking) is an approach to learning in which we ask and interpret and place our awareness on what and how we are thinking. To this end, I have created several daily practices that are meant to create systems to collect and guide this journey into creativity. I understand that creativity is very personal and that each of us may have a very different experience with creativity. I truly hope so, and that being said, I believe these practices employed throughout this study are universal ways to encourage and inspire creativity. Even though we are each unique beings, we may practice similar ways of doing things.

What is my motivation - why am I doing this?

• The notion that we, each and every person on the planet is capable of creativity and that maybe people aren’t aware of this fact…I would like to share what the creativity research is saying about how we are all capable and that creativity may even be important for bringing meaning and a healthy lifestyle.

• Powerful forces would maybe prefer to keep people from exploring their creativity - to prevent us from reaching forward to our highest best selves. If there is any truth to this than I feel each of us has an obligation to help and to evangelize the truth.

• Plain old curiosity. Exploring something by doing is one of the best ways to learn. You can’t really learn how to play tennis by reading about it.

Everyday Creativity is literally an attempt to rewire your brain into one that puts acts of creativity at the front.

I look forward to your comments and future posts in which we can engage in how these practices are working or maybe you changed them to better fit your desires.

Let’s get started!!!!