The healing layers of the creative process
Sep 05, 2024
Unlocking your own unique creativity and learning how to nurture and cultivate it is a powerful addition to the way that you care for yourself and the way that you make lifestyle choices.
Our creativity is unique to us and is part of us whether we have been taught to value and prioritise it or not.
This is often the missing elusive piece for women as they enter life after 40 and realise that despite all their achievements, successes, stuff they've accumulated and dollars in their bank account, something is still missing, and they can’t quite put their finger on it.
They seek the next best treatment, self-care practice, retreat, and guru to help them figure it out, or they obsess over their wardrobe, youthful beauty and their status in order to fill the void.
When in truth, the answer lies within. It lies within our ability to connect with our most authentic selves, to surrender to our imperfect creativity, and to learn to express ourselves fully and freely.
A creative empowerment practice is not about learning to paint or becoming an artist. It is about finding ways to reconnect with your creativity, express yourself and connect with your intuition and inner wisdom so that you may experience more inner peace and calm and feel empowered to make bolder, more soul-aligned choices.
For maximum impact I like to uniquely blend creative and art-making practices together with soul-led wellness and empowerment practices. To create what I call Creative Empowerment Rituals.
These powerful Rituals will set you up to have a nourishing and uplifting creative session that allows you to welcome in and receive soft, gentle, feminine, creative energy to create more balance and support authentic inner connection and expression.
I use mindfulness and mediation practices, creative writing, journaling and I use art-making as the creative activity, because it is easily accessible and their is no prior experience required. Think kids exploring art. Adults can play creatively too. And should play creatively.
The other reason I use art-making is not only because it has been a powerful instrument for me personally but because there is tremendous power in the simplicity of creating something from nothing using just a blank page and your unique creative power.
Today I want to walk you through what I believe are the three key layers of the creative process that lend themselves to powerfully heal, help you discover a sense of inner peace and wisdom and help you to develop a strong relationship with your intuition and inner wisdom.
So layer one looks at how creative empowerment practices help you to naturally and easily cultivate quiet mental space so you can really hear yourself, so you can really embody mindfulness and presence, destress and rebalance your nervous system.
Sometimes, when we force ourselves to meditate or journal because we know it’s good for us, we can lack purpose, meaning and intention, and it can be difficult to stick to and be consistent with. It can make us feel uncomfortable, fidgety and restless as our busy brain tries to take control.
However, when these practices are combined with free creative expression and tactile creative activities, we’re able to bridge the gap and give these mindful wellness practices some purpose and direction.
The second layer involves looking at how creative activities can bring awareness to your subconscious thoughts, feelings, emotions, beliefs and experiences as they naturally bubble up to the surface when your busy brain is immersed in the tactile creative activity. Giving instructions to your hands as you succumb to creative actions, curiosity and creative risks during the creative process.
Bringing awareness to your subconscious in this way allows you to sit with whatever your soul needs to address or bring to your attention. It allows you to process your thoughts, feelings and emotions. To challenge your beliefs. To reframe your experiences. To help you express maybe what is difficult to express with words. To heal and nurture the wounded parts of yourself and to let anything go that no longer serves you so that you can welcome in new uplifting energy.
And the third layer helps you to activate your feminine creative power so that you can bring awareness to the balance of feminine and masculine energy in your life. Empowering you to create a lifestyle that values both masculine, output, busy brain, task-focused doing energy as well as feminine, soft, receiving, creative, calm, slow energy.
We are often conditioned to prioritise masculine energy, to be productive, efficient, always stirring and doing and accomplishing. But the truth is. We need both feminine and masculine energies to truly thrive and feel whole.
Creative empowerment practices help us to reconnect with our creativity and activate our feminine creative power so that we may value and make space for the feminine creative parts of ourselves, which hold essential gifts and magic to experience an expansive life where we are able to boldly claim our soul-aligned life.
Thanks for reading
Take care, Sam x
Sam Horton is a professional artist, passionate about the links between art, creativity and well-being.
Learn more about Holistic art practices for well-being
Sam's Art Studio and Studio Shop are based in Australia on the Sunshine Coast.
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