have you noticed the effects of being creative in your life?

[velvet]

Today I was watching a show on tlc (at a friend's house) called "10 years younger". A woman was on who looked really terrible. She had a permanent frown, her hair was tied back messily, she was slumped over, and she just looked dried, haggard, and old. The host of the show was showing her pictures of herself and asking her to describe who she was at that time. I will never forget one picture, she looked radiant, happy, beautiful, with long, flowing hair. When asked when this picture was taken, I about fell out of my chair when she said it was taken just 5 years ago. He asked her where she was in her life at that time. She said she was being really creative and artistic and was really happy with her life. He asked her what had happened. She said, "I took the safe route and got a job in business to have a steady paycheck." She stopped being creative, and it showed. My god. It would be the best cautionary tale to show those two pictures of her and tell people that is what can happen to you on the inside and outside when you dont live what you love. When you choose safety over a good hunch. When you give up trying and just plod along. It reminded me of a day last week when I was going to a new job, helping out a woman I never met for a few hours. On the way to the job, my back was really hurting and inflamed. I was a bit nervous about it. I didnt notice it, but once I got there and started working with the children, my back pain disappeared. It stayed away the whole day, and didnt return until I was headed home. That's when I realized the pain had been gone all day as I worked, and I marveled at the healing effect of the work that I do. I was wondering if anyone else had similar stories? How did choosing to be creative help you in small or large ways? How did choosing to not be creative affect your life? Have you watched anyone else's life and noticed how being creative or being unwilling to create affected them?

[Unity]

I find that some days I make plans to spend most of the day doing the hobbies that I love, but somehow get sidetracked into ruminating about something that's currently upsetting me. I have found myself wasting days doing nothing but thinking and pacing around. Obviously I end up feeling washed out and headachy.

[claymate]

I definitely notice a difference! I work with polymer clay, ok I'm OBSESSED with polymer clay and when I come home from work and get to clay, it totally relaxes me, even if I just go and piddle around with it rather then make anything. I've only been seriously involved with PC for a couple of years but I've found that I'm more confident about alot of things now than I used to be and I'm much more content in my off time...

[LateBloomer]

claymate. I'm curious...what exactly is polymer clay? What do you do with it? What qualities make it worthy of your obsession?

[joyous1]

I have just discovered landscaping or gardening, not sure what the description is of what I've just done. I took 3 weeks off work to have some time for some personal things going on and landscaped the front yard - it was so easy and fast, it took only a day to dig up the yard, get rid of the sod, put in the bricks, buy the shrubs and plant them and cover with mulch. And it looks fantastic! The time just flew by. And I didn't mind any part of it, even the digging out of the sod. It was all fun and deeply satisfying and absorbing. Same when I did the memorial garden for my two kitties in the back yard. Plus, my back was achey at the end of the day, but nothing compared to how my back hurt at the end of my first day back at work at a desk under fluorescent lights. Hmmm, maybe there's a message there, hey? All my neighbours have commented on my new front yard - one said "that's going to get the house sold right there, its gorgeous!"

[claymate]

Hi Latebloomer. Polymer clay is colored clay that can be cured at a low temperature (home oven, toaster oven, etc) I like it because you can do so much with it! You can make all kinds of things from it, cover stuff with it, paint it, stamp it, sculpt it, etc. I like to cover things and make jewelry, pins, bookmarks, etc. This is the first hobby I ever had that I've stuck with and I think its because I can do so many different things with it. There is always a new technique or project to learn and some of the stuff is so quick and easy, I get instant gratification too! A good website with lots of information is polymerclaycentral.com if you want to know more.

[katchal]

I don't subscribe to the view that only "arty" activities are creative. I'll never have the manual dexterity to excel at playing the piano and the flute or drawing or sewing or handicrafts. I'll probably never successfully paint a picture since I can't even paint my walls without several rolls of masking tape! Those fine motor skills just aren't there. But that doesn't mean I'm not creative. About 100 times a day, I find creative solutions to problems and unusual ways of approaching tasks. I generate dozens of ideas - some even good! - for all kinds of projects at work and home. I disagree that simply spending time doing arts and handicrafts is what make the difference. I think it is much more important to be fully engaged with the world around you - both intellectually and emotionally - to continuously learn new things and to enjoy the challenge of the activities you're doing. For some the engagement is art; for some it's politics; for me it's marketing.

[Turquoise Woman]

I was wondering if anyone else had similar stories? How did choosing to be creative help you in small or large ways? How did choosing to not be creative affect your life?

When I do anything creative, I generally feel elated. However, when I created art, I started to feel increasingly angry about my work right after I completed. I'd have an idea in my head that I couldn't do justice to. Now I just express my feelings and ideas in visual symbols without making anything more of them. I've gone back to playing guitar and singing because I found a folk music group in my area. This gives me incentive to practice and relearn songs I used to play or learn new songs. I get a lot of satisfaction from figuring out what the chords are and how to play them to express the meaning of the song. Then the ability to relax and play and sing in the group is a bonus. When I work out songs, I feel exhilarated and relaxed at the same time. There's no right or wrong, just absorption. And I don't have to do it more than 1 -2 hours at a time. Still, I require work to feel good about myself. Since I've gone through several periods when I wasn't working, I'm keenly aware of the need for interaction and problem solving that I get on the job. When I'm not working, I find it difficult to do hobbies or anything else.

Have you watched anyone else's life and noticed how being creative or being unwilling to create affected them?

My mother started out in a field that didn't suit her strengths, then she had the misfortune of being injured young. While she tried briefly to find work, she has remained bitter and resentful all her life. [/quote]

[Joy]

I totally agree that pursuing your interests is very important. My hobby until recently was photography. I say "until recently", because in the last year and half too much had happened in my life and I hardly find time for it anymore. I started school for my graduate degree for my "proper" life, I have two children with school problems, we moved out of the area where I used to belong to a club, so now I can not find friends with the same interests, I received promotion at work, which I supposed is good, but now I have too many new responsibilities. It is so overwhelming, but I feel as if a part of me is lost. I am too tired at the end of the day to do what I so loved. And I am constantly busy during the weekends. I noticed that it's not just the physical tiredness, it is also the psychological - I am just not there spiritually. I am trying to figure it for myself now how to get back to my former self. But I agree that some people just enjoy other things - programmers can be very engrossed in computers.

[LateBloomer]

When I think about it, I feel that creativity is as natural as breathing in and out for some of us. I often beat myself up for not making the effort to formalize my efforts at being creative by joining a class or designating a time in the day when to write or sing or...what ever. But the thing is that sometimes this tendency just bursts from me without warning. Someone asks me a simple question and I answer in a way that surprises even me...the querant and I blink at each other till we both have to laugh. That's creativity. Adding cumin to your egg salad...why?...I dunno...that's creativity. The ability to show affection to your significant other in ways that keep them fascinated...again, creativity. Life would be just going through the motions with out it: doing things in the same way for ever and ever, Amen. Creativity started with God and is perpetuated through us all. Our children are acts of on going creation. Our lives are acts of creation. I dare you to show me anything that isn't an act of on going creation.

[AthenaCat42]

I think without expressing creativity I would be dead. I mean that seriously. When I'm not doing it, I feel like I'm dying inside, and everything about my life is dull and boring. But when I'm being creative, then everything is vibrant and happy. I express my creativity through designing databases and also used to create Process Improvements when I worked a \"day job\". Finding better, easier, more efficient ways to do things (and calculating the actual dollar cost value of implementing the change) was exciting - I saved my company hundreds of thousands of dollars in one year alone, and helped many of my colleagues enjoy their jobs more. That part of my job was incredibly rewarding. Now I also express my creativity by continuing to design databases, through gardening, and also inventing things (I've got 8 projects under development to patent). I also sometimes have to find very creative ways to communicate ideas to people who may not have been exposed to such ideas before. Each expression of creativity energizes me, clears my head, makes me think, and leads to yet more expressions of creativity - I am always caught up in what problem or need I'm solving right now, and when it's done I feel exhilarated and supremely successful and proud of myself, and then I wonder what more incredible things I can come up with. It feeds on itself and gets ever better and greater. Now I'm totally THRILLED to find that all my \"little projects\" will likely turn into total financial independence for me within the next 5 years. Expressing creativity? Couldn't live without it! (Oh, and though I'm 36, nearly everyone who sees me thinks I'm in my early 20s. )

[audreyh1]

I learned a few years ago that putting time in on creative projects was really the most important thing I could do. I would often suffer a lot of resistance to get started (frustration, uncertainty, fear of bad outcomes, intimidation by a "blank slate") but if I could just get myself to sit down and start sketching out ideas or notes on a plan, explore ideas a little, etc., then I would get into the "flow". Things would just start to come together, momentum would build, before I knew it something magical was happening. FLOW is the key word in here - a state of being in tune and totally absorbed in what you are doing. You lose a sense of time, of ego or separateness. There have been a very wide variety of pursuits that would bring me to that state - they all involved some active process of discovery and/or creative decision making - of pulling something out of thin air - of ending up with something completely unanticipated. I think that flow state is extremely healing - so whatever you need to do to get it on a regular basis - very important for high quality of life. Also, the I get a big "self-worth" boost from spending time in these activities - especially when it results in a "deliverable" - i.e. something I can show or share with others of what I have done. Even if no one else appreciates it, having that end result to show for my efforts gives me immense satisfaction and self-validation. Audrey

[audreyh1]

Hey this is a gem of a thread! Surely more folks have something to contribute? Audrey

[SarahC]

That thing about flow is so true. I suffer a lot from free-floating anxiety, but I find the minute I can get myself immersed in something creative, it all goes away. Playing guitar does that for me. Visual art - collage, textile stuff, dolls, altered books. Writing, sometimes but not as much as it used to; I was working on a novel a while back, got bored with it and kind of kept going on autopilot, more out of a sense of 'got to get these pages written' than anything else, and it kind of lost its impetus. It's got to the stage now where I'm taking myself un-seriously enough again to maybe send out a story for the heck of it, without it being a life-or-death thing, and see what happens. Creativity is essentially the human mind at play. Once you get caught up in comparing yourself with other people, or concentrating on what you 'should' be doing, creativity is dead. (I'm afraid art college rather killed mine, at least in the artistic sense, for some years....)