Written by: Jeanne Y. Savelle, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Last month, I introduced some thoughts about my experience with creativity. This month, I’ll share what I’ve learned about creativity as an innate human quality.
I was always in awe of writers, musicians, and artists. They seemed different from someone like me who went to work in an office every day. Or from someone who worked in a hospital or at a construction site. I thought they didn’t suffer from the stresses working people had: bills, daily drudgery, finding time for various appointments, balancing family life, and more.
Artists either didn’t suffer from these concerns, or they didn’t care as much. Instead, they put their art first, living in ways I didn’t understand.
What I didn’t understand was how life works.
All humans suffer from illusions created by faulty thinking. Artists have the same concerns as I do because they have similar thoughts to mine. But they instinctively live from a creative space, while I did not.
My journey to living a creative life began with life coaching. It forced me to question what I believed was true about the world. I started to see I had more control over my life than I thought. My dissatisfaction wasn’t because of someone or something else outside me. I was creating it.
As I searched deeper into ideas about the nature of thought, I began to see life in new ways. I saw for myself that life, and everything in it, is creative, including me.
Try an experiment with me. Stop here for a few minutes. Go outside and sit in your yard, preferably in your bare feet. See, hear, smell, and feel what is going on around you. Close your eyes. Then, come back inside and write down what you experienced.
What colors, animal life, or cloud formations did you see? Did you hear birds, insects, or rustling leaves? Did you smell mowed grass, the dirt in your garden, or the gardenias by the door? How did the grass or the warm sidewalk feel under your bare feet? Was there a breeze or the sun on your skin?
Nature reveals life’s creativity. Every moment is filled with a constantly changing, unique flow of energy. Life’s immense creative force is forever on display, and it lives in you and in me.
In the past, I rarely noticed much of my surroundings as I went about my days. I would drive to work oblivious of life around me, sit inside all day, then return home completely unaware. I wasn’t connecting to life’s creative energy at work or at home.
I had been denying myself the life I was meant to live. I could feel it. I knew something was missing, something that had been missing for years. I had been fully socialized without realizing it.
Watch a young child move in the world. They instinctively engage in each moment with utter delight. They don’t question, judge, or stress themselves about anything. Instead, they play and explore until they don’t want to anymore.
What happens when they get older? What happens to their joy and curiosity?
Society tells them to be quiet, settle down, sit still, behave, study, criticize, complain, judge, compare, worry, fear. Society leads us to create assumptions, beliefs, and limited stories about our lives.
Forty years later, we wonder why our lives seem complicated and unfulfilling. This was me. I didn’t allow myself to question my life until I retired at 62, even though I felt empty most of the time.
Three years later, at 65, I have begun to unravel the mystery of my life.
I thought I had to “do” something about it: actively change my thinking, commit to “self-improvement,” create better habits through “personal- or self-development.”
I did it all. Only later did I learn and experience the truth.
There wasn’t anything to fix or do because I am, and always have been, an integral part of life’s immense creative power. You, and everyone and every living thing, are too.
I only needed to reconnect with my essential nature. By acknowledging and connecting with my innate creativity, I began to unleash it and allow it to express uniquely through me.
Every human being has the same opportunity to tap into their own creative life force and live from that space. Creativity is innate: to me, to you. So, I challenge you to experience your own inner creative potential.
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Jeanne Y. Savelle, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jeanne is a Gentle Guide and Transformation Agent living in the Atlanta, GA, area. After 30 years as an international corporate finance executive, she chucked that life to reinvent herself. She is now a transformational coach guiding older adults to living life through their inner creativity. She is a writer and author, writing about transformation, creativity, retirement, and wine. She's earned certifications from The Retirement Coaches Association, The Life Coach School, and Modern Elder Academy. Her previous life included a Masters in International Management from The Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.
