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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Offerings
    • Redesign Your Life 2.0
    • Get Creative
    • Personal Coaching
  • Creativity Conversations
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired
  • Newsletter

Is Your Creative Genius Hiding in Plain Sight?

3/1/2021

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There are two words in that question that most people would definitely not describe themselves as having: genius and creative. Are you one of them?

You may be surprised (and of course somewhat skeptical) to know that everyone is born with both these qualities. But they’re hidden from most of us because we think they’re only given to certain individuals who make significant contributions to the world or have achieved a certain degree of celebrity status.

Just. Not. True.

Here’s the paradox: genius and creativity are ubiquitous and yet they appear unique to each individual’s experience of life.

Case in point: we marvel at the amazing ability of children to learn, to experiment, to create, to express themselves to delight in discovering the world around them and how it can be manipulated.

But we all know how early on in their lives - and ours, too - children are talked out of their explorations in seeing the world with fresh eyes. Purportedly in the interest of those who are “older and wiser,” who want to keep them safe or accepted or firmly within the confines of cultural norms, we’ve already come to see ourselves as limited, finite beings by the time we’re seven or eight years old.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you threw off that conditioning and claimed your inherent genius and creativity? We can start by taking tiny steps, noticing how our confidence grows with each “small” effort we make.

There’s no need to figure anything out in order to do this. The only thing you may need to do is allow your thinking to open up and notice just how miraculous you already are.

Of course it’s true that genius and creativity will show up differently for every one of us. Those who are scientists will express those qualities scientifically; educators will demonstrate their ideas within the field of education, politicians in the realm of politics and entrepreneurs in their ability to build a business and run it successfully.

And what if you’re not in any of those categories? If you’re retired, or if you don’t have a professional career or at a crossroads in your life?

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or where you’ve come from. What matters is right now, this moment and being willing to experiment and express what’s inside you.

But you’ve got to have that “itch” for something different, something “fresh,” a desire to experience yourself other than in the ways you’re used to.

It’s worth acknowledging that genius and creativity are simply the willingness to seek the unknown. Maybe you’re bored stiff with yourself. or maybe you’re getting a nudge to try something different in your life, explore that part of your brain and your being that are largely untapped.

We don’t have to harbor unreasonable expectations about the results of any new venture. We can start by paying less attention to the final product and more attention to the process.

As one of my favorite artists said to me recently when I had judged myself into a corner: “be willing to meander, wander…going nowhere, doing nothing…finding that feeling of free association, free connecting.”

That dragon of productivity (as Michelle Cassou has named it) can blow dark smoke into our eyes so that we don’t see what we’re unconsciously doing. And that was exactly what had happened to me.

But once I saw how my thinking had robbed me of the joy of experimenting, instead of judging myself for “allowing” that to happen, I felt such a sweetness of recognition, a compassion that was also an opening to freedom and relaxation.

It reminded me of how you might console a child who has just spilled chocolate milk on their drawing and is in tears. The comfort and reassurance that came through was just like that - loving the innocence and being absolutely convinced of the potential to start over again. And so it was for me: I was able to start again with an openness to whatever was going to appear.

We’re told that we all possess an infinite creative potential. I don’t know about you, but just hearing this sparks an sense of aliveness and possibility and excitement in me.

And that felt sense of what is yet to be as it comes through me is thrilling. When I pay less attention to any thoughts that even hint of “can’t” and start paying more attention to “I wonder what will show up next,” life becomes an adventure with surprising and unpredictably delightful surprises.

It’s a giddy combination of “it’s coming from me” and “it’s coming through me”.  There’s an irresistible lure to keep investigating this puzzle as more and more happy outcomes ensue.

And if we’re able to see them, the possibilities are infinite.

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