how to feed the creative urge

Our creative self, like any living thing, needs to be fed. As a plant needs water, light and nutrients, so too our creative self needs to be watered, fed and nurtured and this we can do in a variety of ways:-

• Allow creative thoughts and ideas to come into our mind and take notice of them when this happens.


• Be aware of the myriad ways we may already be allowing our creativity through and this could be through creative cookery, what clothes we choose to put together, how we style our surroundings, house, flat, car, room, what musical tracks we choose to juxtapose on our playlist, how creative we are with our time and resources etc etc etc.

Much of the time we allow our inner critic to come to the fore and fool us that we don’t have the time or resources or talent to be creative. Our job therefore is to talk ourselves up so that the blinkered overly elevated judgments that we impose on ourselves can either be reasoned with or, for the most part, ignored. Yes I am creative, I realise that I use my creativity in my home, my food, my clothes, my music etc. How else can I allow my creativity to come to the fore?

• Jot these thoughts down in some way.


• Talk about ideas with other people and see what bounces off and comes back, be prepared to mould the idea into a slightly new shape.

We can then take the steps to bring our ideas, our musings, our imaginings into the material world by practising our art for the sake of practising it and enjoying the process while in the process as opposed to limiting ourselves in some way perhaps by believing that our creativity can only be measured by some self imposed standard of a successful outcome as in, perhaps, a financially successful way. For example, we can write creatively without necessarily knowing needing to write a book. We can write a song or part of it without having to write an album. We can draw sketches without needing necessarily to transform them into large works of art.

In other words we can enjoy the creative journey and be in the moment or we can crack down on our creative urge and stop before we even begin.

It’s a choice, we have to decide our direction and simply begin.

deja vu

I have a strange feeling that I have dabbled with this blogging business before - password mysteries remain - but let's just treat this is a virgin blog shall we?

I chose my blog page title under the influence of one of the world's most influential photographers, none other than Himself, the great Henri Cartier Bresson. I revere Him because he really learned his art by using the one lens and finding the right time/ place and the "decisive moment" at which to snap the shutter (yes for you youngsters out there that's not just the synthesized sound coming from your digital point and shoot but a mechanism on ye olde film cameras and SLRs in particular that made a sound when the button was pressed and opened and closed the shutter to take the photo).

Now I'm no professional photographer but I am a professional at arm's length photographic portraits and I think I have influenced many a friend and acquaintance along this path.

Hmm, what's this reminiscing all about, just trying to work out what led me here and letting the old digits tap away, tap, tippy tap tap tap.

I will be writing on a variety of topics, life, love, sounds, silence, movement, meditation, laughter, yoga, creativity and as yul brynner would have said in the movie "the king and I" - "et cetera et cetera et cetera".

Well here I am in this pic enjoying a bit of autumn early evening light (a few months ago) and I raise a cup of herbal tea to you - namaste!

http://www.innerstillness.co.uk