Creativity: a call to adventure
Creativity is forged in the fire of the unconscious and in the unfathomable depths of the unknown where nothing is predetermined and everything is possible. Their presence is often heralded by the seductive “sparkle” of an idea or image that brings with it feelings of flight and divine brilliance. And yet, of the tens, hundreds, thousands of ideas that spring from our unconscious, very few, if any, come to fruition. As soon as the spark ignites us with the feeling that we can do anything, we find 101 Reasons to scrap the idea, worse yet, trample it on the dustbin of possibilities that could have been our lives. Clearly, not all of our sparks are worth the time and effort it would take to pull them off; not even all of them are viable, but the problem for many of us is that we indiscriminately flush the baby out with the bathwater. Because our creations are truly our babies, born of us, male and female, just as truly as our flesh and blood children.
There are those who do not discard these newborns from the unconscious. There are some who have a reverence for these sparks and accept the risk and passion it takes to bring them to fruition. These are the creators and innovators, the brave warriors of creativity as I like to call them, and they are everywhere in society, some known, many more unknown. They can be found among the people who work under the roof of a homeless shelter, as well as under the stage lights on Broadway. They are writers, artists, scientists, inventors, gardeners, entrepreneurs, and just plain people who go about their days and continue their activities and relationships with an energy that comes from living life the way you want to. Their appearance may be nondescript or they may, by the age of sixty or seventy, wear a ponytail or long gray braids; They may wear wild, bright colors and lots of makeup or they may never take their jeans and sneakers off. Although diversity is the calling card of creators, there are more similarities than can be seen with the naked eye. The similarities are not, for the most part, tangible, but they are powerfully shared.
After more than thirty years of mentoring people on the creative journey and interviewing creative people in all walks of life, from writers, painters, and dancers to teachers, doctors, physicists, mathematicians, and innovators, I have distilled the characteristics of the successful creators for these five
The successful creators are:
1. Passionate about their work
2. Risk takers
3. Technical experts in their trade
4. Comfortable with failure, don’t see failure as failure, and know how to get the job done
5. Appreciate your uniqueness
Of these five characteristics, passion is the main engine. In fact, it’s safe to say that passion=creativity and creativity=passion. Unsurprisingly then, creativity cannot be taught. Creativity is experiential. It must be unleashed. That’s where the risk comes in.
As a creativity coach, I see myself as the blood sister of the white rabbit; my task is to guide those I advise “down the rabbit hole” and into their own personal Wonderland, which is a metaphor for the cosmic landscape of the creative unconscious. But unlike the white rabbit, I can’t fall without looking back because most of my clients won’t follow me. Falling down the long, dark rabbit hole into the unknown is scary. Which is another way of saying the creative journey is scary. Creativity demands time in the dark psychic mud of the unconscious. Creativity requires risk and passion and a belief in the power of the unknown. Chaos is an integral part of the process. Because in the chaos lies the new and unexpected order, waiting to be revealed in all its magnificence. This is difficult terrain to travel alone.
Je n’ai pas. I had several guides along the way and I understand their importance in my success. That’s why I see myself as more than just a writing coach. I perceive myself as a guide, leading others home to the creative unconscious. I believe in this passionately, because I believe that exploring, owning, and reveling in this realm is the birthright of everyone on the creative journey. But if this is true, why is it so difficult? Why do so many of us cling to the edge of the rabbit hole for dear life? Even when we start to slide, we hold on (metaphorically!) until our knees and fingertips are raw and bleeding, and the amazing thing is that when we finally fall, when the doors of our creative unconscious open, we wonder Why were we afraid of the trip?