Making space for creativity doesn’t have to be scary: tips for using the power of play and community to move you forward
Something I see so many people struggling with is the age-old question of how to make space for creativity in their lives. In this post, I’ll offer some strategies based on my personal experiences as a creative person and my work as a creativity coach.
Hi, I’m Amanda, a creativity coach, posing here with a spooky friend.
Our creativity is our life force, and yet, we don’t always stand at attention, giving that life force what it needs; this is in no small part because our patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist culture doesn’t condition us to treat our creativity as sacred.
It can be especially challenging to make space for creativity when you’re the parent of a young child, or caring for loved ones of other ages. Caregiving gets in the way of creativity — right? In many ways, of course it does. When you’re responsible for someone else’s safety and wellbeing, you can’t just hit “pause” to go follow the muse.
Then again, let’s remember that even when we weren’t caregivers, we often stopped ourselves from following the muse.
All of which is to say, no one experiences the perfect conditions for creativity. So how can we create conditions that work within the fabric of our lives?
Lessons from The 48 Hour Film Project
Back in the day, my improv team JINX and I used to participate something called The 48 Hour Film Project. On Friday, you'd go to a meet-up to get a genre, a character name, a prop, and a line of dialogue. You'd then have 48 hrs to conceptualize, write, film, edit, etc your film. All the other teams would have to integrate the same character, prop, & dialogue as you, expressed through a broad range of genres — one team might do something film noir, another might do a buddy comedy. A few wks later, we'd gather to watch each other's films in a local theater.
It was so much fun, and it landed the lesson for me that constraint has the potential to breed creativity. My friends and I could have taken a week, a month, a year, many years, to create a film together, let alone multiple films. But we accepted the limits of doing it all within a weekend. As a result, we had a ton of fun, and today I can pull up those (imperfect but creative and lovable) films & watch them; if we'd given ourselves unlimited time, I doubt any of them would have actually seen the light of day.
The power of one playful step at a time
Maybe your life and schedule feel incredibly constrained right now. Rather than mastermind a grand solution to eliminate all future stress and instill creative glory in your life on a permanent basis (!), what if you tuned into something you were curious about right now, and gave yourself permission to spend 5 minutes playing with that something?
Yay, succulents! (photo via Unsplash)
5 Minutes of Creative Play
For example, if you’re curious about, say, succulent plants, here are some ways you might play with that curiosity for 5 minutes:
Google “succulent plants” and read about them
Pin pictures of a range of succulent plants to a Pinterest board.
Doodle a succulent plant on your notepad
Journal about your first memory of seeing a succulent plant
Write down 5 questions you’d like to ask a succulent plant expert (or, 5 questions you’d like to ask a succulent plant!)
Open up your music app or your podcast app, search “succulent plants,” and see what comes up.
After 5 minutes, have you fixed your life, forever?
Have you finally found the “right” way to fit creativity into your life, no takesie-backsies?
No…but you probably feel lighter.
You probably feel like you made space for yourself.
You probably have a little more pep in your step in your next meeting, a little more patience and presence with the next person you interact with. A little more hope in your heart.
Birthing your creative vision
What about when there’s something big you feel called to create, that you don’t feel like you have the time or space to create at the moment? In my experience (personally and with clients), this creates a different kind of pain than a more generalized “I’m not making room for creativity in my life” ache — not a better pain or a worse pain, just a pain with a different quality to it.
And yet, even when there is a big calling or vision demanding your attention, you might be amazed at what taking incremental, playful steps might unlock for you.
Notes to Future You
Here’s a specific practice to try:
Imagine you’re writing Future You a sepia-toned letter… (image via Unsplash)
Consider writing notes, or recording voice memos, to the future version of you who’s going to bring this creation into being.
Consider, too, that those notes don’t have to be serious! You can write or speak them in the style of, say, the kinds of wartime letters we hear in Ken Burns documentaries:
“My dearest Me. I write to you from the school parking lot, where I await my spawn’s return. Quickly, before talk turns to My Little Pony, allow me to capture my thoughts on the play I want to write/the business I can’t stop imagining/the feeling that there’s a book in me (fill in the blank).”
When my kid was younger, and I was struggling to fit all the things I wanted to into my life, I created a fictional alter-ego and wrote a comedic blog in her voice. She had it alllll figured out: sunrise yoga, power broker, super mom, sick abs, rockin’ sex life. I see in retrospect that she was a coping mechanism — a playful one, at that — and that creating her helped me get through a stressful period.
Did writing that blog create a feeling of total creative satisfaction?
No — I wanted more. But I felt lighter and I had more fun than I would have had I not created it.
Play nice with yourself — and others
The thing is, nothing will ever create a sense of permanent creative satisfaction; that’s the nature of being creative, which is to say, being alive, and feeling life force move through you: We keep creating things. As Paul Downs said one year at SXSW (Downs is a writer, actor, and co-creator of the TV show Hacks), as creative people, we are always giving ourselves homework. That’s never gonna stop! The homework might ease up for a period; the voice demanding you do the homework might get quieter and louder; but you’re gonna keep coming up with things you feel the need to express, to give birth to, because that is the kind of person you are. (👋 Hi. I’m that kind of person, too.)
Knowing this, how you can you be as kind to yourself as possible, as a creative person?
You deserve a nice pet on the snout, too (photo via Unsplash)
Choose to relate to your creativity playfully, rather than bearing down on it strenuously as a problem to be solved.
Give yourself permission to feed your creativity in small increments, whether it’s the 5-minute practice I shared above, a time-constrained creative project like the 48 Hour Film Fest, or something else that works for you. We tend to think in all or nothing terms - maybe even the headline about “small increments” makes you feel indignant, like, “No, I deserve BIG increments!” Well, sure, you do, and, if the choice is between feeling resentful that you aren’t getting huge swaths of time to be creative, and finding joy and relief in small pockets of creativity… which do you choose?
Play with a creative community. It’s so affirming to be reminded that you are not the only one feeling the way you feel, navigating the kinds of decisions and stuck points you’re navigating - and it’s so joyful to celebrate creative breakthroughs with people who’ve been with you on the journey. I curate an online creative community here at Mighty Forces; for in-person creative connection, I highly recommend looking to see if there’s a Creative Mornings chapter near you. You can also start by inviting a friend to be your “creativity buddy” and checking in periodically to share what you’re each up to and where you might need help.
Get targeted support when needed. Whether that looks like working 1:1 with a creative coach for a period of time (I take on a few 1:1 clients each year - please reach out if you feel so called), or participating in a group experience (I run a biannual creative cohort), sometimes even the most experienced creative people need a little extra support.
Take a nap. Seriously, and with enormous gratitude to Tricia Hersey for spreading this message through her Nap Ministry: in our culture, we can’t remind ourselves enough that it is ok and in fact wonderful to just stop. Lie down. Get cozy under a blanket. Rest, even if it’s for only 5 minutes.
The wisdom of the collective
I’ve shared a lot in this post, and I find myself feeling curious about what additional tips or perspectives those of you reading this may have to share. I invite you to please weigh in, either as a comment below, on social media (tag #mightyforces), or by reaching out to me directly.
How have you found or made time, attention, energy, or mental/emotional space for engaging with your own creativity?
How have you engaged with your creativity while in a season of caring for another?
What is one thing you've learned that you'd love to share with others asking similar questions?
Thanks for reading. You are a mighty force — and together, we are even mightier.
