How Do You Create?

How do you create? We don’t all create the same way. At soul level, you have a unique organizing principle. Knowing this about yourself can simplify and alleviate a lot of the guess work that comes with trying to figure out the best way to do anything.

I was on Facebook the other day and saw a comment from an artist who was struggling with her creative process. She posted her lovely work but mentioned that she had really struggled in making it. She felt she needed to push herself to adopt an intuitive method of creating, but actually described the process as torturous.

This got me thinking about the question of when to push through and when to change course. In my last article I talked about times when it’s good to push through - when you really need to get past resistance and come out victorious on the other side. However, there are times you might be pushing yourself to be something that's out of alignment with your soul. This woman’s situation is a perfect time for a course correction, and I’ll tell you why.

We are all amazing and powerful creators, and this goes far beyond the notion of creating art. We are creating all the time with every project we tackle and every choice we make. Each of us has soul gifts and talents that we are here to share and express.

We also have different styles of creating, and it can be an enormous relief to know and understand how we get things done and make things happen with the greatest ease. We can stop trying to push ourselves to do things in a way that isn’t a fit for our souls.

Learning about my own organizing principle was liberating, and I’m still gleaning the gifts of this knowledge as I allow myself to be Jennifer and do things in a way that works best for me. I discovered that I am very organic in my creation process. I learned this about myself in some ways at the canvas and experienced a huge burst of creative energy and prolific painting when I gave way to this approach. However, learning that this way of creating aligns with who I am at soul level opened doors of possibility in every area of my life and helped me get more done in a big way. It also helped me tune out the inner critic and let go of processes that didn’t work well for me.

Being an organic creator means that it’s best to set intentions, get started, and allow things to unfold. As you get immersed in a process the steps reveal themselves. It’s not the best use of your time to spend a lot of energy making detailed plans and creating convoluted lists (although this way of creating could be perfect for someone with a linear organizing principle).

The truth for me was that even the best plans and lists would change dramatically as a project evolved. If I was at step 2 in a creation process, I might have a vision and intention set for where I was going, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what step 8 was going to be. I had to wait until I got a bit closer to that stage and it would unfold… organically.

Growing up in a family with more linear creators, I felt like my way of doing things was scattered and unfocused, and these judgments are what I hear when my inner critic gets activated. I always get my work done, but it comes together in my own way. Now I know I am most productive when I schedule “puttering” or unstructured time into my life. Often, I get more done than I ever imagined when I give myself this kind of space. Embracing this about myself has eliminated a ton of stress and allowed me to relax and trust my own process.

You might think that a description like this applies to all creative types. It's reflected in common notions about artists. This isn’t so. Artists come in all types, and as a result, have very different creative processes. As I was reading the Facebook comment mentioned above, it occurred to me that this artist might not be that organic in her creative style. In this case, a loose, unplanned method of approaching a painting could feel “torturous”. She might need to have a clear image of her destination and work with specific steps one at a time to do her best and most enjoyable creative work. Having this kind of self-knowledge would make it a lot easier to discern if she is just bumping into resistance or pushing herself to be something she’s not.

There is no creative style that is better than another. What’s empowering is to know what your creative style is.

Knowing how you create best is just one small piece of what you learn in a Soul Realignment, but it has been a piece of inner wisdom that I tap into everyday as I embrace my organic style and learn to work with it instead of trying to change it. Knowing who we are gives us freedom. So here’s to liberation, authenticity and empowerment! xo