It’s akin to seeking shelter in a check-list or a format or arbitrary criteria. Anything to grant myself the safety and respite that the process seems to be denying me - indisputable clarity and arrival. The aha-moment where everything just falls into place.

This precision I manufacture, is a lie of course, but I don’t beat myself up about it. There is no shame, really. After all, I am human - an organism made to predict for the sake of my survival. And as if that is not enough, most of the systems we participate in - from school to work and beyond - measure us not on our ability to move through a process, but on how adept we are at conjuring up results with minimal waste of resources.

So I receive this reflex with grace and when I am ready, I help myself to come out of gripping for safety and back into dialogue with the friction that is being served to me.

Extending the aha-moment

Yes, we have been taught to covet the pinnacles of a process - showered with unyielding demands for productivity - but when we listen closely to the rhythm of life and creation there is another lesson. One that fits into the nature of life, much neater than artificial certainty - and is both more human and more demanding.

We love to talk about the breakthroughs and the big shifts. But in reality we accumulate our insight and our growth with grit and honesty. Micro moments - tiny flecks of insight - that turn into macro changes and bold statements and creations. Not flashes of clarity or momentary portals at all, but passages of understanding that grow and settle within over time.

Most of us will have sighed and asked ‘when will I get there?’. That question alone, makes the prospect of stepping out of the narrow search of lightbulbs, and accepting continuity and persistence as ingredients, quite daunting.

But there is also liberty in letting our understanding stretch across the entirety of a process - or even life. It widens the scope of our curiosity, not just in time, but in attributes.

When we stop looking exclusively for magical moments of elated clarity, we can start noticing and interacting with so much more. Yes, it can manifest as integrity and answers or enthusiastic inquiry, yet it can just as easily arrive as resistance, as chafing, as an ask to admit the difficult truths and face what we are avoiding.

It can also allow us to take the burden of coming up with greatness off our own backs - putting us into dialogue with the ideas and the feedback that already exists. Freeing ourselves from the need to be master - turning us into a humble steward.

And the question isn’t anymore if you are making space for strokes of genius, but if you are listening for the persistent nudges that are always there and letting them guide you.

A practice to practice

It can be tempting to make this dialogue about learning, but this is not a practice in sense-making and searching for lessons. The beautiful thing about taking a creative and cyclical approach to life and how we create, is that it does not perceive waste. Nor does it get entangled in efficiency.

Instead we are asked to be with and harness the process - and interact with the sentiments, conflicts and assets that arise and fluctuate within it. Knowing that it is the conversation with change and repeated action that brings us forward - not the absence of it.

Many of us will carry within this expectation to be even and constant. But this is not our nature. Forcing ourselves into rigidity and premature decisions, translates into tension and stagnation in our bodies and in our creations.

When we open ourselves to view each feeling, every friction and each small nudge as essential fuel, rather than distraction - we welcome the opportunity for insight to reveal itself to us, rather than us conceiving of it.

If we want to lead from our essence, rather than our fear - to let our ability to create beyond even our own imagination come to play - there is much to be said for our ability to be gentle and inquisitive rather than harsh and judgemental. And there is equal necessity for our capacity to approach the stickiness and complexities in ourselves and in our relationships, without contracting into defensiveness or hiding.

Starting to practice this doesn’t need to be advanced. You can find opportunities to converse in the dissonance already happening in your life. The places that ruffle your emotions. The emotions that trigger friction. The friction that invites you to ask more questions.

It can be as simple as a conversation you have been procrastinating - or avoiding. A person - or a place within yourself - where you feel a need for more information. Where you want to go from constriction to heart opening, from conflicted to (at least) neutral - from labelling to curious.

Can you allow yourself to lean into a conversation you have been putting off having? Without rush and with intention and self-compassion:

• What do you need before having the conversation? Consider what preparation or reassurance you get to give yourself to step into it open.

• What can you do to support yourself during the conversation? Frame how you might support yourself to stay curious and explorative, and not resort to judgement. Perhaps prepare go-to questions or statements you can use without needing to revert to habitual retorts in the moment - or consider tools or structures that you can resort to for support.

• What do you need after such a conversation? Define how you care for any emotions that may arise - anything on the spectrum from reactive and contracting to relieved and celebratory - how do you make room for them?

Perhaps now, we exhale and rest in knowing - good is not how precise you are, but in how you dare to meet the mess - over and over. Not just in one moment.

This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

- Alongside being a devoted student and practitioner, Michelle is a teacher, guide and mentor known for her grounding presence and steady counsel. Her work is centered around supporting people in navigating personal, spiritual and seasonal evolutions by guiding them back home to the innate wisdom of their body through breathwork, movement, meditation and body focussed inquiry & coaching.

- Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here:

And I am not referring to the closeted parts of our process - the quiet contemplation or the stare into the darkness - but rather the stagnation in our artistry. That impulse to never let our art breathe and interact and fall apart (or spring to life) before the eyes of somebody else…or maybe even our own eyes.

That part is kind of sticky territory. Because it doesn’t just ask us to expose our vulnerability outwardly, but to admit it - to ourselves. It demands us to take to the stage, not when we are done and confident, but with our insecurities and desires and bids for love tangled up in our hands for all to see.

Paradoxically, it seems that leaning into that human fragility - which we are so ferociously taught to avoid - and experiencing the nuance that we fear, can be the way to finally dislodge our stuckness. Both in creation and otherwise.

There was a moment during last year when I feared I had completely lost my ability to focus. Everything was trying to hook me in. Yet, I could never last more than two seconds before I moved on to the next thing.

On my screen were the same sentence structures with different topics. Voices that harnessed my fears and proceeded to hand me efficient solutions. Glorified consumption hauls blowing up harmful ideals. It all felt made to grab my attention and capitalize on me. Instead, all it did was deflate and disengage me.

It was only when I dove head first into romantic fantasy (on audio) that I realised there was absolutely nothing wrong with my attention span. After listening to more than one 6-book series - where each book was at least 20 hours - I found myself exhaling. Looking around through a new lens, I could see that what I was missing wasn’t ability, it was something to attract my interest and draw on my motivation - realness.

But I also got to asking why. Why did it seem increasingly difficult to stay with something? And I could go on a rant about the soullessness of AI creations, but what really interests me is why we think we need it at all?

I’m under no illusion to hold complete or even right answers. Even so, what I keep seeing is this.

When the world around us (or inside us for that matter) is messy - and it does feel exceptionally so right now - our instinct is often to simplify, reduce and predict. We sort the world into binary structures. Good and bad. Clear and unclear - attaching value to each. Instead of cultivating our capacity to hold complexity, expand our range and let nuance exist, we try to control and bend things to fit our view and limit our emotional fluctuations.

This may feel safe and contained. Sadly it also makes our output increasingly monotonous and cookie-cutter. Because in choosing this strategy we limit our exposure to the full span of our potential - both on a human relational level and a creative one.

Some irony, that instead of helping us evolve, come together and solve problems in new ways, the very act that shields us from the volatile and helps us preserve an illusion of stability, often keeps us cemented in the same dilemmas we are trying to escape. Because whether we are looking for more soul, realness or unity in the world - or to get out of our creative rut - narrowing our experience, in the end only distances us from the change we so dearly crave.

Momentum through friction

Moving past the macro and into the intimacy of having an idea and executing it - where does that leave us? Well… bringing our original ideas to life and into the limelight can be subject to much of the same dynamics. We tend to suffocate our creative process with our search for safety or our resistance to meet ourselves where we are.

I say this as a humble observation. We all visit this place.

Personally I fear making myself visible so often that it seems a set destination in my creative cycle. At one time it was because I was badly burnt by the all-consuming hustle. And doing anything at all felt like force. And force felt like death. Naturally I stayed as still and small as I could.

At another time, I avoided it because being invisible was really safe and agreeable. But at some point… it also became too stifling. And would I rather be safely unexpressed or risk rejection in feeling like all parts of me could breathe?

There are many thoughts and reflexes that stop us in our track that are both obstacles and nourishment to our creation.

The point is, we will all seek to reduce friction for different reasons and in a variety of ways. And sometimes we may even settle for the cookie-cutter things and be pleased with them.

Yet there is no escaping that the real, raw and authentic things we can build don’t emerge from suppression, they take shape through interaction.

We are set in motion, not by perfect circumstances or perfect clarity, but by approaching the emotions we try to evade. Letting the layers emerge and feed our process and allowing the inner fluctuations to become outer momentum.

Essentially, It’s a complex stickiness. But it’s part of the creative process.

Stuckness as an opportunity?

Creativity tends to be oversold as flowy and fun. In reality it’s a conversation that we have with ourselves. And all the nuances of life. A way of operating and meeting reality.

Sometimes it stops at the sensation and conversation in our inner terrain.
Sometimes it helps us process, digest and alchemise our experiences.
And sometimes (but not all times) that becomes something we might share with the world.

It is (often) boring, and gritty and mundane, firmly placing us in this moment in time. But if we are willing to interact with it - that strange, crude pulse that courses through us. It can propel us to use that raw material we’re offered - not to go deeper into hiding, but towards birthing what feels true. Both in our own essence, and in our service to the world around us. To actually give shape to our creations.

Director Chloé Zhao recently said: ”The most important thing of being an artist is learning to be vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to be seen, for who we are, not who we ought to be. And to give ourselves fully to the world, even the parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of, that we are afraid of, that are imperfect. So the people that we speak to - they can also learn to see themselves and fully accept themselves.”

I think that whether we call ourselves artists or not, matters little. We can approach our creativity as a craft, an art or a way of being (or all of them) - irrespectively, it is a stance that stands in stark contrast to the world.

We live in a society that idealises clarity and polish - and quite frankly one that has confused those very things with simplicity and singular paths. Of course it does - that upholds the idea of security and predictability.

What we often fail to see is that the things that touch us and move us and connect us are rarely singular. Things that feel clear are those that show that they can contain the range of our emotions rather than subdue them. They interact with nuance and fluctuations and encourage us to move courageously across the full span of our inner and outer worlds - being curious rather than defensive.

Accepting this, we may even feel called to love our stuckness and view it as a signal. Knowing that there is nothing wrong with us and what we are creating, but that there is a chance to acknowledge that we have become disjointed from ourselves and our process.

The reality is, whatever the world may look like. Wherever we happen to be in our cycle of creation. If we want to give ourselves to others vulnerably and honestly - and share our creations with the world - we must first dare to experience ourselves fully.

A practice to practice

The very art that lays the foundation for us to create our own art is that of sensing and making room for our own nuance (first).

The world gifts us many distractions and triggers. Reasons to just graze the surface of anything we touch. Masses of information, invitations and intricate objects, that call for our attention and invite us to consume, to flee or to fixate into abandon.

It may increase our speed…and even our reach, but it also costs us. We pay with our lacking ability to integrate and enact our knowledge. We pay with our inability to understand ourselves. With our fleeting impact. With our loss of connection and depth - and awareness of ourselves and of others.

Or even with our loss of discernment and ownership for our inner world. And with being stuck in undesired places.

There is so much more vibrancy to our feelings and sensations than we give ourselves space to experience.

Connecting this to our creativity and our craft is not formulaic, it is deeply personal. But there are ways to get to know ourselves again - or deepen our connection. To start expanding our ability to hold emotion and evolve our interoception. Little mundane - almost boring - steps that ask for nothing but your willingness to pay attention and be curious.

Really. It only takes some small and powerful steps to start practicing presence and feel our feelings:

• Notice a sensation. When next you are feeling willing to connect. You can be still or in movement, at home or elsewhere - so long as you are feeling open to explore what is happening right now.

  • What are you feeling?

• Whatever you are feeling - notice one more sensation. Don’t hyperfixate. Don’t start meaning-making and interpreting. Notice what is there. Be curious about it.

  • What is the physical quality of your sensation?

  • Where are you feeling it?

  • How is it moving through you?

  • What else can you notice?
    

• What else can you notice? Don’t rush to judge. Allow yourself to be gentle in your curiosity. Allow yourself to let go of whatever was your first answer.

  • What is happening in there?

  • What would it be like to just let it pass through?

Go a layer deeper. Do it again. And one more time.

This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

- Oren is an organizational psychologist and somatic executive coach who teaches his signature methodology to leaders seeking to integrate cutting-edge neuroscience with depth and humanity, helping them step into healthy, sustained performance, and an alive expression of leadership at work and in life.

Shani Persson - Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here:

Whatever we do, it’s too late and too slow. There’s always something better to be. Someone else that was superior. But busyness is a badge of honour. And we’d rather wear it, than our disorientation and loss of meaning.

And so, we keep going. Carry out tasks and feel guilty about the time we’re not spending with the people we care about. Being with the people we care about, while thinking about the jobs that aren’t getting done. And around it goes. Each day a little further away from our flavour and closer to our edge.

In the relentless pursuit for performance and perfection, we excel at being fractured and dispersed - to be everywhere but in ourselves and in the present. But do we know what it feels like to be whole? To act and create and relate in a way that engages the fullness of our being?

Like most of us, I grew up steeped in the religion of productivity. Putting on a pedestal the reliable output, giving reverence to working hard, worshipping the constant. I watched mothers self-abandon and fathers dissociate. Plowed through days and rushed through the highs, all in deep disconnect from my body.

It was uncompromising, and I guess…so was I.

So when burnout finally happened - in my early 20ies - I worked through it, like all the rest. I had become a master of overriding my signals. Shrugged my shoulders at my unruly body and labelled myself weak - a problem to fix. Continued pushing.

I poured myself into the fulfilment of others, advocating the space for wellbeing and including the ‘whole human’ in the work-place. All the while, leaving my own suffering unkempt, my hustle and determination fierce…and my creativity, stifled to a tiny ember.

The dissonance was deafening. As was the bone deep exhaustion.

But there is only so much contrast one can hold before pain and ache and mental decay becomes reality. And on one particular day, there was no hustling my way out any more. That gap stared me square in the face and demanded with certainty that I ‘step off whatever treadmill I was on’.

Full of doubt - I surrendered.

My body sighed. My brain muted. ‘At last, the rest I have been asking for’ they said.

And finally, I had nowhere left to go, but back into my body.

A taste of separation

In many ways, this world teaches us to settle for scraps of ourselves. Each body, a machine, distinct from its unique soul blueprint - an object of inconvenience that we may optimize and whip into shape. Every achievement, an intellectual exercise separate from the body that carries it.

We strive for success at the cost of self-neglect and opt for comfortable survival over colourful living. We agree to squeeze into the narrowness of ideals and express only single facets of our identity.

Yet, this is not what we were built for. These are cultural (or other) expectations and cues that we internalise. Or an absence of tools and understanding that we tolerate. Things which often put a wedge between us and ourselves, and lead us to give more space to external demands and socially acceptable paths, than we do to our own voice and life-force.

In practice, it means that instead of treating ourselves like the complex and beautiful eco-system that we are, we relate to ourselves as fragments and compartments with little to no interconnectedness - leaving us in isolation from life and its innate rhythm.

As bad as it sounds, it is a natural choice. Even a smart one. Because it helps us create safety in what might otherwise feel volatile or insecure and gives us control of our experience. Yet as essential as safety is, when it replaces savouring our inner and outer life, with all the nuance that it offers, we are losing - individually and collectively. Health, relationships, empathy, creativity all wither in the face of this deep segregation. And whether we like to acknowledge it or not, there is a way of being safe without giving in to the monotony that our guaranteed productivity requires.

If we dare choose connection over distance, listening over predicting, movement over rejection, we can start to battle that humming of emptiness and depletion. In committing to our senses, our attunement and the relationship between all of our elements, we can finally begin renouncing the idea of our emotional spectrum, our unique abilities and creative power being a currency or a burden - and reclaim them as the life-giving essence that they are. A door to our wholeness.

Welcoming seasons

There are of course many paths to venture down, but one that seems to continuously emerge is nature. Intentionally approaching the estrangement from cyclicality and the lack of conversation we have with our physical body.

In this world of efficiency that always puts our brain at the helm, it is convenient to ignore the fact that we naturally move and create in waves. Each cycle of breath, a microcosm of activation and downregulation. Each season in nature giving new perspective - an expansion, a release, a blossoming, a death - an opportunity to experience a different part of our being.

Integrating the body into our processes - welcoming it as an essential part of our quality of living and ability to create - urges a shift. It asks us to change how we hold ourselves, how we organise life, how we move towards our dreams.

Because if we want to be truly regenerative - sustain our evolution, our wellbeing and our creativity - we cannot live in one season alone. Speaking to the fullness of our power and potential means we can’t coerce our body and bend it to our will as we are accustomed. Nor force it to smoothen its edges for our convenience. We must let go of the idea that the pinnacle of development looks like absence of hardship or eternal energy - and welcome the richness of our human palette.

Giving room to that, means placing our senses and emotions at the centre and letting thoughts and intellectualisation follow. An inversion of what we are used to. Our innate intelligence over rationalisation. Body before mind.

It seems a difficult truth to digest - that we are us in many states. In distress or anger. In enthusiasm or joy. In the greatest bursts of insight or the depth of confusion. In the high of success and in the pits of failure. These are all representations of our nuance, part of our human experience - which intertwine and interact to (finally) make up our entirety.

And when we can be present and attuned to this full spectrum that we contain - and we invite movement, fluctuation, flexibility - maybe that…is when we can finally experience what it is to be whole?

A practice to practice

Coming into this can feel confronting and daunting. Like we need to collect masses of knowledge and facts before we start this new interaction.

However, there are simple ways to start - to open curiosity instead of check-lists. Rather than rigidly picking a method and sticking to it, invert the question. Beginning doesn’t need formulas like “If I do this I will feel good” or “When I follow this process I will be more creative”, it just needs a little bit of space for conversation.

Getting carried away is easy. The idea of productivity and our desire to create and innovate is often surrounded by narratives of optimisation and big, immediate, transformation. Lured by intellectually driven formulas that override much of our senses and instincts, we idealise thought and “light-bulb moments”, over iteration, experimentation and gradual discovery. And neglect the beauty of letting the body - and our attunement to it - guide our path.

When we recognise that we are cyclical and everchanging beings, we might also accept that inner harmony that lasts or creativity that evolves and returns, is a question that has many answers throughout the seasons of our life. And because not everything is accessible to us all the time, we get to simply keep asking and listening in the way that feels (and works best for us).

To start exploring, the most accessible thing you can do might be:

• Create a moment to meet yourself with curiosity. Can be no more than a few breaths or a couple of minutes. Pay attention to any emotions, resistance or stories that arise in response to this moment.

  • How might you set your ego aside?

  • What would it look like to welcome any answers with neutrality and without judgment?

  • What questions and doubts are arising that you could be curious about?

• Ask yourself questions about your current state. Notice any flow or stagnation. Bring your awareness to any pain, comfort or relief that exists in your body.

  • How am I feeling?

  • What is possible at this moment? What isn’t?

  • What do I need?
    

• Circle one small action to meet your current state. Instead of making a big plan or a rational one, find your minimum viable response. Either to preserve what feels good already or to move you towards a desired state of flow and wellbeing. Say no to a meeting, say yes to a walk (or the other way around?). Go to sleep earlier. Call a friend. Nourish your body.

And keep going… keep asking, as often as you can. More often than feels comfortable at first. Keep making choices that centre what your inner guidance directs you towards. Allow for different answers and solutions to emerge.

This creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

Joana Castro - Joana is a modern creative polymath who loves blending disciplines in unexpected ways—science, art, health, food, design. Her life’s work is a canvas made of all of them. Currently allowing her to offer Food Therapy with a base in Traditional Chinese Medicine, while also giving space to music and songwriting in her own practices.

Shani Persson - Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here:

For a long time I’ve been sitting on the fence, feet dangling in the air, thinking ‘wait for things to be different’ and ‘now is not the time’. Yet, the more our familiar reality unravels, waiting seems redundant - if not stupid. Because maybe, just maybe, it is our creativity that will shift reality for the better…rather than our carefully planned strategy?

At home, my drawer has quietly filled with acrylic paint and lino-print equipment reminiscent of hours spent in an art-school cellar as a child. Head folded over colours that would never bend to my will. Without speaking a single word, my hands have made cups and plates and bowls that house all the meals of life. Without reading a single line I have stretched my ability to endure the trials of being human as well as celebrate the beauty of them. It is in creation that the full pallet of me has come out to play. And that I have been able to meet the same in others.

And here I am.

Somewhere in the last centuries our creation became a skill. A gift that some lucky ones learn and possess, and others covet. An ability separate from our human nature that we can harness with structure and technique. Art, a luxury and an addition to otherwise busy lives - rather than the very essence of it.

But put your hands in the soil and you will remember. Or knead a dough or hold a pen for that matter. Creating is not a bonus, it’s innate. And creativity is not something you learn, it is who you are. A mode of operating and of viewing the world that offers you doors otherwise unseen.

No, it is not about the masterpieces or the one-in-a-million ideas. It is the way we enter into conversation and build relationships… with ourselves, with others and all the strange and hap-hazardous raw material that life presents. With curiosity as a constant undertone.

The gift of creativity

This moment in time is a fragile one. And as I write that, I can’t help but think how many people before me have thought that too. But here we are. Rallying in defense of the people and ideals that we love. Clinging to the health of our hearts. Sitting in the dissonance between the repetitive mundane and the structural decay. Moving with waves of feelings…or desperately fending them off.

It is with all this in tow, that we take a seat at the table and attempt to solve the future. A dialogue of egos in deep disarray. Is it any wonder we arrive at more defense than co-creation?

I spent the better part of the last two decades in organisations of various sizes and complexity. Championing our humanity where profits prevailed. My post-pubertal belief in magic pills might be long gone. But the conviction that has seeped into my bones - into my very essence - is that if we want to create a different world, it is not enough that we do different, we must also dare to be different.

And while I never relinquish the possibility of being wrong, I am still firmly convinced of the power of creativity. And the profound opportunities that creative practices offer us, in terms of positive evolution… or in all simplicity, our own contentment.

Operating from creativity is sometimes seen as an abandon into naive dreaming or a complete disregard for emotion, but it is quite the opposite. When surrendering to it, it asks us to reduce our own importance in service of what is being created. Be it beauty, art and tangible items or connection, change and societal impact.

When we function creatively instead of struggling to force creation, we enter into a new kind of relationship, where the intention of creation - what we are making (together) - has greater weight than our own will or preferences. Just imagine, all that is possible when we let go of our need to control and give way to nurturing our capacity to connect instead. Maybe we would find it in our heart to listen past disagreement? Maybe we would be curious enough to witness humanity even when it doesn’t come in our flavour? Maybe we could co-create more beauty than the binary stances we limit ourselves to?

It is exactly that, which creative practice can give us. An opportunity to remove ourselves as the obstacle, to remove the limitation of our own obsessions - while still playing a role - that helps pave way for new kinds of expression. Performances that touch the heart. Solutions that create value. Crafts that evolve as their own essence and that evolve us at the same time.

Through the lens of creativity the question is no longer - how can I make what I want? But how can I serve what wants to be created?

And the focus is no longer our self-interest, but how well we can be in relationship with one another and the value we envisage for each other.

A practice to practice

That nudge and opportunity to take the ego out of the driver’s seat is not done with ease. It’s like asking people to simultaneously face their most primal stories, act with compassion AND let go of control. Certainly a practice to nurture and no magic pill.

If we want to truly serve our ability to (co-)create, it requires cultivating self-awareness and being in dialogue with our inner narratives and patterns, while also giving way for actions beyond self-protection. While also being the steward of a creation of its own nature.

A conceptual dream perhaps. Especially given that many of us spend our life in hustle. In industrial paradigms that encourage saving face and holding tightly to positions. That value predictability more than development and obedience more than fullness of potential

And it may seem even more distant, given the fragile nature of creativity - that when weighed down with the pressures of productivity and linearity, becomes cerebral and constrained. Making the next best idea a mind-game instead of a process of listening and enablement. But our sense of openness and connection, can be enabled and grown. As can our awareness and creative stewardship.

Here it helps to add nuance and perspective. Firstly, it is important to remember that however (and whatever) we choose to create, no process of creation is truly solitary.

It is like a triangulation between (1) ourselves (and let’s face it…our egoic desires), (2) the creative object (or partner) - our aid in the process, be it another person, an instrument or a piece of clay - and (3) the intention, creation (or idea) itself. Where each is essential, but none really matter without the other.

Secondly, we can’t forget that even when deep in this practice we may still feel defensive, angry and in disarray - in fact, that is food for our process. Raw material to digest. We can welcome and feel it all. And then, once we have created enough space in ourselves, we can ask ourselves What am I holding on to? and Who is holding on? And we can take a step out of our checklist and dare turn our focus… to the idea itself.

However, practicing this and deepening the awareness for our creative process can feel incredibly abstract and strange. Starting in our habitual forums can easily feel like a threat to the system.

Which is why, using actual objects and physicality can be particularly a interesting and expanding way to evolve this relational capacity. You’re invited to try.

If you’re curious… here is how you can do it:

• Pick something to create/or do that demands the use of your body (and/or voice). It can be painting, cooking, gardening, dancing, pottery, playing an instrument or dancing…whatever brings you joy and opens your curiosity. Preferably it gives you a clear object to relate to.

• Pay attention to what happens to you as you engage. This is not about perfection or having a goal with the activity, but expanding your awareness and creative mindset.

  • What questions and stories arise?

  • What frustrations do you encounter?

  • What surprises you?

  • What expectations do you hold?
    

• Explore how you can interact with your chosen object. See what senses can be engaged in moving creation forward.

  • How can touch, smell, sound or texture inform you?

  • Is your body understanding things that your mind might not (yet)? Is it pulling you in any direction? And can you follow?

  • Can you allow yourself to lead from a different place?

Play with it, and see what unfolds.

And when you do let us know what your experiences are, we would love to hear about your dances with objects and how it expands your ability to BE in creation.

The creative practice (A practice to practice) was born out of a deeper conversation on the podcast Learning from Trees between:

Sofìa Laria - Sofia is a concert pianist, a piano mentor and researcher, dedicating her life and work to music and how artistic learning can support personal growth and positively impact society. Through her work and perspectives she brings together her love for the arts with insights from psychology and cognitive science.

Shani Persson - Shani is a devout student of life and the nuances and complexities of being human. She is an explorer, space-holder and occasional poet, who dedicates herself to the birth of heart-centered ideas and bold visions. In her work she helps humans connect within to access their creativity - and unique essence.

You can listen to the full episode here: