The Power of Creative Expressiveness
Unleash your inner passions, express them and shine!
Last weekend I gave three different lectures on three different topics for three different audiences. The last one was about the ‘Creative Soul’ within everyone, which fitted the diversity of topics I spoke about. Here are some highlights that came out of that last one.
Everybody is creative! Fully. Especially people denying or not believing this, should take notice. The denial itself is a creative story. The body language, with which they seek to avoid being singled out to express something, has everything to do with shame and very little with not being creative. And that shame is based upon made up stories too. Might be religious believes or just imaginations about “What they might think of me, when I …” Actors, dancers, singers all follow training, which often puts most focus on overcoming shame and growing more confident. Techniques often come only second. It takes guts to express yourself. The gain can be enormous.
Even when not artistic, finding ways to make your employees more loyal or happy is an art too. Inventing new ways to make your work much lighter is creativity too. Making your friends laugh, planning a family trip, joining children in a game, pack luggage, writing an application, cook with left overs, finding excuses, buying new clothes, leading a team or meeting are all creative. All choices, all actions contain creativity and express who you are. So why not strengthen that capability and become more impactful?
What does it mean to be Creative Expressive?
(Here I put my take, there’s many variations to this) I’ve been exceptionally creative my whole life. Earning from it, broadening, deepening myself to live it though, took years. Today I feel I’m still growing. To be creative and expressing this into the world in many ways is very fulfilling to me. I can see new possibilities in almost any situation or organization. I can add new ideas to almost any subject (check out the diversity of my posts). I rather try out new things than repeat old successes. On the one hand, this means less of a reputation in certain fields. On the other hand I (can) teach dance, theatre, game design, art, illustration, performance on many levels, train companies, host processes and rituals, offer over 60 different workshops and made money with over 50 different job titles. Yet living this way also has costs.
The Benefits of Being Creative Expressive
What do you get out of being consciously expressive and creative? It may lead to concrete results such as poetry, art, dance or awesome living rooms, beautiful gardens or amazing food, in looks and taste, on the table for guests. You’ll find enhanced capabilities in hearing, seeing, speaking, feeling; basically feel more alive. Yes, with that may come more pain too. Don’t fear it. It is called living and it grows your heart and soul. Use it to shine how rewarding fully living is. Isn’t heartbreak also great material for the best love songs? Recently a much younger friend said, “I wanna grow old like you.” Haha, though it made me feel old, I also know much older people who feel alive and shining. These are people who, like Jane Goodall, show you can become old with astonishing grace and shiny eyes. And when you shine more, you’ll easier meet people who shine too, and or people who’ll invite you for work, parties and other gatherings.
You’ll find self development happening faster and deeper, more (inner) dialogue about things that matter. Empathy for others and the world will grow. You’ll understand others better and be more adaptive to new situations. You’ll become more loving. You’ll be more truly you. Actually the biggest regret of the dying is that they haven’t lived expressing their true self enough. This doesn’t have to happen. I’ve personally been in intensive care with possibly very little time to live and was strangely calm with no regrets. Just missed friends and family around my bed. And finally it may turn into a satisfying living where people pay you to be your best self. That is both a challenge and very rewarding to live up to. My actual income is another story, but living this way makes me feel very rich.
13 things you can do to grow your expression
This is a list created together with a large group of students at the Vrije Hogeschool in Zeist, who enriched this list immensely with their additions.
(Hands) Simple ways to start:
Doing things together with others. If you don’t know how to start alone, go dancing, join a painting course or take music lessons and join a band or choir. You’ll find self expression is normal, healthy, fun and brings new friends.
Do little things. Pay more attention how you arrange the flowers in a vase or food on a plate. Look at your room with the eye of an artist and not just for convenience. Add a small drawing to each note you make, etc. Some doodlers have become world famous artists.
Be more curious. Ask more questions. Research topics on the internet. Take your time to observe other people on the street. How and why do they walk the way they do? Imagine where they’re going or coming from. Read history, philosophy, science fiction, great novels, Taoism, Chaos Theory. Go travel. When you start seeing connections between different fields you may be on to something new.
Express yourself. Indeed. What you feel, try to say it more precise, more emotional, more elegantly, more raw, more metaphorical. Draw it. Sing it. Write about it. Being expressive grows more expressiveness. Being creative, grows creativity.
(Heart) Attitudes to grow:
Guts. Most famous artists broke some rules, broke with tradition, tried something new and did something upsetting. Famous classical songs once upset audience, from Mozart to the Rolling Stones. Without the courage to overcome inner inhabitations, societal conformity and rules, many well known artists would never have created masterpieces. The same goes for inventors, discoverers, leaders, politicians, entrepreneurs, many of whom wouldn’t have made an impact if they stayed within the ‘lines’.
Passion. If it doesn’t have heart for you, let it go. Follow your inner fire, interests, intrigue. Passion gives drive, initiates action and means you might develop the staying power to grow the skills and techniques for what you desire. To be clear, I’m not only talking about art, also about your job, relationships, sports, and everything else you can be passionate about.
Surrender. Become more impulsive. Follow your Intuition. Follow more inner urges. Blurt out on paper, canvas, guitar, stage what comes up and see where it leads. Surrender to what wants to be expressed, even when it feels like you have no control, or don’t understand what it means. Because when you let go of control or mental understanding your full being can speak. Your full being sees, feels, grasps many things beyond what we can comprehend, yet convey deeper meanings to many. Many artists talk about this. Many engaging speakers know it too. The inspiration, the words, the next action just comes and they follow as best as they can. That is (an) art (in itself).
Honesty. Be honest to yourself and others. While creativity seems to allow for lots of imagination and fantasy it also demands truthfulness to self and others. Great art reveals something that is true. It does not aim to please, however pleasing the result. It speaks of a reality that works as an mirror for, certain aspects, of the soul. Creative Expressiveness demands a precision towards what wants to be expressed. People might not be grateful for the truth, but if you want to be creative, you need to accept what really is going on. The art of lying to yourself and others may be creative and expressive too, but in the end only leads to scams, disappointments and self delusions.
Playfulness. Yes, really. Play, and play some more. Don’t take yourself too f#*king seriously. Playing is integral experimentation, iteration (ongoing innovation) in practical circumstances. It’s expressive and it’s how nature invented learning. It’s hand on, immerses you and others fully in the experience and is mostly great fun as well.
(Head) Insights that matter:
Accept that failing is part of it. Dare to fail. Accept that failing is part of this. The picture you create may never live up to what you imagined, yet you have to go for it. Accepting that suffering is what all artists experience. Their ongoing effort to get closer to their imagining is what makes them professional. Understand also that people hear of see the result, not what you imagined in your head. In a way they get to experience the real result, and when they love it, you’ve already become far.
Don’t compare! Not comparing your work to that of others is essential. Bob Dylan may never win a singing competition, yet is one of the biggest singers. Many famous cartoonists draw terrible, turning the way they can’t draw into their personal style. So should you. Turn your weakness (except false notes, and sometimes even those..) into a personal style.
There are no mistakes in artistic expression. What? I know, I just spoke about the need to dare to fail and this seems to contradict that. But there are no mistakes. Everything you do is expression you can learn from. Often mistakes are what gives art character. Your flaws, as above, can become your style. When you are ashamed, of what you see as a mistake, you’ll suffer more and dare less. When you glorify your mistakes they can become the essence of your art, as in Kintsugi. I found it’s even possible in music: false notes can be drivers for discovery when included in the music.
Consider consciously about not thinking about things. Wah? Indeed. Expression works with surrender. Improving expression needs you observing realizing how you are blocking yourself. What thoughts, fears, judgments, strive for control diminish your expression and how can you let them go. And than let the thinking about it go as well. So you can move from self aware danser to be fully in the moment with what comes from within your body. Indeed, this is working on the art of surrender to enhance your creative expressiveness to greater heights.
Conclusion
Thus becoming more creative expressive is hard work too. It has many aspects to it. Being creative diverse as I have been throughout my life I now see perhaps this has been what I have truly been developing: the art to be creative expressive in many fields. To do so I had to understand the essence of creativity, seek the essence of any form of art and try to apply it in my own way, from playing the piano, to sports, to performances, to writing. And I am still leanring, eh, learning. I wish all those interested in a similar path, adventurous and rewarding journeys. Don’t expect to get anywhere, yet get everywhere (enjoy that paradox). The journey itself is the biggest reward. It’s living fully becoming yourself in this world and for this world.
Still somehow believe living you inner truth and with playfulness isn’t for you, then meet your conviction here and address it.
The Hands, Heart and Head Approach is also a central aspect of the Knowmads approach to self and entrepreneurial development.
Thanks also go the audience on my interactive talk on this topic at the Vrije HogeSchool in Zeist, Netherlands, June 2017. Also Interested in a talk or workshop by me for your audience: find me here.
