Following the Thread: Yogic Views on Creativity
What is your relationship to your creativity? What happens in your body, in your posture, when you ask yourself that question?
Some of us identify strongly with our creativity (if that’s me, maybe I puff out my chest with pride), while others claim, “oh i’m not an artist, I wish I was a creative person, I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.” (cue rounded shoulders, averted gaze, sinking sensation)
The ways that we often talk about creativity imply that we either are born WITH it - that it is a foundational part of who we are - or it’s not.
I’d like to challenge that.
I don’t think that it is a matter of I AM creative, or I am not.
Rather, I find it more useful to frame the question of: am I ENGAGING with creativity regularly, or not?
Modern dance pioneer Martha Graham says:
“There is a vitality, a quickening, a life force that is translated thru you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, or how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly - to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.”
Ms. Graham talks about something really important here in healthily relating to our creativity:
She encourages us to practice regularly (keep the channel open), and to let go of the results of our creative endeavors (don’t worry about how “good” or “valuable” it is).
This is how we nourish the young seeds of creativity.
This sentiment is mirrored in the yoga sutras:
Yoga Sutra 1.12: Abhyasa vairagyabhyam tannirodhah.
Practice (abyasa), regularly, enthusiastically, without attachment to results (vairagya).
And the Bhagavad Gita:
"Without concern for results,
Perform the necessary action;
Surrendering all attachment,
Accomplish life’s highest good.”
These texts encourage us to engage with our practices wholeheartedly, without an expectation of what we will get in return.
Devotion to doing the practice, for the sake of the practice.
Devotion to creating, for the sake of creating.
This is hard! But I truly believe that a commitment to letting go of the fruits of our efforts is the most fulfilling way of relating to creativity. When we are not distracted by thoughts of what will come of our creation, we are more fully committed to the moment by moment process of the creating. This delivers creations imbued with aliveness and vitality - the aliveness and vitality of our wholehearted presence and devotion.
We engage with creativity, just as we engage with friends, strangers, nature and our own emotions. Creativity is like a river that we drink from, float down, bathe in. If we keep the channel clear, we reap the clarity, vitality, and abundance that a creative life brings. Clarissa Pinkola Estes gives life to this metaphor beautifully in the book Women Who Run With the Wolves:
“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. In its original form, the river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox.”
Creativity comes to us with divine perfection. We do not “get better” at being creative, we get better at not censoring our creativity. We become clearer channels for creative energy to move through. We are not creative/not creative. We are channels for creativity. Anyone can learn this. Creative inspiration is all around us, all the time.
Here are some ways I like to clear the channel:
1) Give it voice: sometimes creative impulses like to knock me sideways in the middle of the night, a conversation, a dinner. In those moments, I practice saying “do you mind if I pause for a second and jot something down?” I keep a journal by my bed, in my bag. I record voice memos, make notes, have a conversation about it. Give it voice; acknowledge its presence.
2) Follow the threads: evidence for our creative visions are everywhere. Once you’ve caught a whisper from your creativity, it has the potential to be mirrored in the world around you. Look around. Remember that inspiration flows through the lenses you are wearing. Choose your lenses wisely.
3) Don’t fight the flow: It is great to have structured time to be creative. But be careful of insisting, “my creativity must exist at this time in this specific way.” Instead, can you quiet the mind’s attachments, and listen to how creativity would like to be expressed in that particular moment?
4) Move blockages: Breathwork, asana, journaling, dance, and meditation move stuck energy; moving stuck energy clears the channel.
So basically, if you needed another reason to take care of yourself - how about becoming a clear channel for the divine creativity that wants to work through you - should you just clean up the river, stop judging yourself, and open?
xoxo,
Sami M.