Thanks for all the wonderful and supportive comments on my first week as the Creative Edge Coach. Now, you are stuck with me. I’m back!

I received some really compelling and passionate emails about creativity and how does it and how can it fit into our lives. These questions either popped out of the screen at me or were tucked securely between the lines. I am going in between the lines.

Where Is My Creativity Hiding wrote that her greatest creative influence was her mother who proclaimed that she could not even draw a stick person well. Well, there are so many theories on the blight of the stick figure and I firmly believe that stick figures and the people who create them need to be applauded for bringing their creativity out into the world. I might even start a campaign to get stick figures their own reality show.

Almost everything we do has a creative edge to it. Look at the great chefs out there – it might be just a plate of protein and veggies to some but to others it is a masterpiece. Where Is My Creativity Hiding discovered swimming and being one with the water and using your body to take you away from the day’s worries is a creative undertaking. Even washing dishes (which you will never see me do) can be a sort of Zen-like activity that can spring forth lots of creative ideas. We just need to be present and open to the messages that come our way…while we are” being creative” in our day to day life.

Where Is wanted to know if we can”catch up” on long-dormant creativity. I think our creativity comes out when we the artist become ready to accept it. When we stop believing in all the negative self talk and just start by picking up a pencil or a brush, we will see a change. I started to draw again a few months ago and I was somewhat horrified by the first few attempts. I thought I had lost it. I thought I had taken my creative talent and just threw it away. I felt doomed to go through life with so many regrets and all the art I would never make. But I kept at it and slowly but surely it started to come back. And now it is back, but some days it does give me a little attitude.

So let’s try not to think of it as catching up – that feels a little overwhelming and when things go that route, we just might put those dreams of  drawing, being published, or writing children’s books back on the shelf. They don’t belong there and we owe it to ourselves to leave the planet with very little art still in us.

So how would it feel to look at it as a brand new chapter in your life? It is not about what we didn’t do yesterday or 40 years ago. It is about us starting today.

Where IS also wrote, “I longed to both stand at a mountain top and scream, “I can NOT draw!” and also, “I want to be able to draw my thoughts!” I would suggest that you stop saying you can NOT draw and I want to be able to draw to saying: I am artist who draws. It’s that simple. Kick the negative thoughts to the curb and when you draw something that is not working, gently use an eraser and keep going.

“We are not human beings having a creative experience. We are creative beings having a human experience.” (I’ll steal a quote and twist it to make a point any day.)

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