BIRTHING
YOUR
CREATIVE
SELF
7 Strategies for
Enhanced Creative
Expression
Azriel Re'Shel
Introduction
We are all intensely creative beings. It is our natural instinct to create and express
our innately human potential. I have never met anyone who doesn’t want to become
more creative, to express their inner vision out in the world and be able to access
vivid inspiration on tap. But, sometimes we go a little off track and our creativity
gets stifled, squashed by others or by life experiences, and little by little we shut
down. The creative urges are still there, but are muffled either by our own critical
voices, by crippling fear, or the memories of creative failures of the past. So, we stop
creating. We shut the door on this vital aspect of ourselves that is there to keep us
alive, happy, fulfilled and excited about life and we slowly drift into a depression of
sorts. And then this becomes our lives. So how do we wake up from this grey onedimensional slumber? We need to get creative! 'Easy for you to say' I hear you
say, but action is the only way to get the magic flowing again. We must turn on the
tap and energise those parts of ourselves we have shut down. Remind them of who
we are.
We are all creative. Each one of us is unique in how we express this creative fire
running through our systems. Recent studies show that creativity is more a muscle
than previously thought. It is not something you are just naturally good at. It can
definitely be practiced and the more you do it, the more skilled and creative you
become.
Here are seven ideas and practices to jump-start you back onto the path of creative
expression. Adapt them to your own needs but most of all play with them. Have fun
being creative!
With love
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
1. Reawaken Your Inner Child
In Hawaii the elders say we have three elements or levels of our consciousness,
the conscious mind or uhane, the unconscious mind or inihipili and the higher self
or aumakua. We receive divine inspiration from the aumakua and the word also
means elders and ancient ones. This inspiration travels to inihipili (also known as
the inner child) and is then fed to uhane by inhipili. A beautiful Hawaiian elder told
me that the Divine resided in the inner child and that we must always prioritise
play! Energy runs both ways between the inner child or subconscious and the
higher inspiration. And this is where creativity comes in.
Your inner child is vital to imagination, playfulness, free expression and the natural
creative impulse. Without nurturing and connecting with your inner child, you will
never be able to reach your creative potential. It will be like a black and white
picture or a silent movie. Connecting with our inner child is healing and fun. It
rekindles that carefree dance of life that flows effortlessly through young children.
We can unlock this fantasy world and dive into our infinite potential when we heal
the pain holding our inner child hostage. It is also important to get our inner child
and subconscious on board, as without him or her, all our creative efforts could be
sabotaged.
My teacher Sri Bhagavan says our subconscious is five million times more
powerful than our conscious mind. So even if your conscious mind is dead set on
writing that book, or starting your global photographic project, if your
subconscious isn’t on board, you’re screwed, as it will override your conscious
intentions.
“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” Henry David Thoreau
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
1. Reawaken Your Inner Child
EXERCISE
Here are two exercises to help you make a connection with your Inner Child. You
can do this through meditation, or alternate writing.
* Meditation: As you are drifting off to sleep at night, lay your hands over your
heart and commit to connecting with your inner child. Take a few deep breaths and
gently relax the body, feel tension flow out of your feet and thoughts drift away.
Bring your awareness to your heart centre and make an intention to connect with
your inner child. Ask for an image of your child to come to mind and completely
trust any communication, sense or feeling that comes to you. If you make a
connection instantly, then begin communicating. Listen to your inner child and start
to form a relationship. If you don’t make a connection to begin with, keep trying
and use your imagination to imagine your inner child and slowly the connection will
come. It’s important to connect-in daily with your inner child, in order to set up
rapport and trust. This is the opportunity to forge a new relationship filled with
unconditional love and support.
*Alternate Writing: Write down a question with your right hand and then pass the
pen to your left hand and allow the answer to flow through. (If you’re left handed
of course you swap this order around). Keep up the conversation between your
hands and remember to be open and not defensive. You could begin by asking
your inner child how they’re feeling. You may discover that at first your inner child
is angry with you, feels abandoned by you, or is aloof and untrusting. The most
important thing is to ensure that your inner child feels heard and understood.
Persist, as healing your connection with your inner child will yield benefits in all
areas of your life. Your inner child is a potent and beautiful part of you that can
give you the keys to finding peace and happiness, as well as fulfilling your dreams.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
2. Nurture Your Relationship with Yourself
“When I am silent, I have thunder hidden inside.” - Rumi
The creative journey is the most amazing adventure you’ll ever embark on, for it
can indeed be the journey into your own soul. Creative expression gives you the
opportunity to understand and know yourself, like nothing else. It requires solitude,
and time spent alone, contemplating the universe, seeing connections, dreaming,
visioning and being at one with the universe.
Your relationship with yourself, how you see yourself, and how you behave with
yourself, is mirrored in your creative expression. If you allow it, creative
expression can be a gift that is here to help you to make sense of yourself and the
world and to find peace within that.
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Sylvia Plath
It is important to nurture a loving, supportive and kind relationship with yourself.
You must become your best friend and your greatest cheerleader. Do not expect
someone else to do it. If you cannot sing your own praises, and be there for
yourself when most needed, no one else will be able to do this for you. Through
your creative practice you can develop a trust in yourself, you can discover your
voice, your talents and your purpose. But this requires great commitment and
courage. This is not a journey for the faint hearted. It calls for strength and passion
and most importantly, compassion. You will need to befriend your inner circle of
negativity and strengthen your self worth, as well as discover the art of
detachment. So, when you sit down to create you will not be derailed by those
critical voices hammering you. The more you write or paint, the more you will feel
yourself grow. You will begin to delight in finding your voice, your message, and
your unique spirit. It is addictive to take an idea and bring it into material reality.
To give form to spirit is a blissful and truly worthwhile endeavour.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
2. Nurture Your Relationship with Yourself
EXERCISE
Meditation
Contemplate what happens when you begin to create something. Noticing voices,
the messages you hear, the bodily sensations, and observe what happens to you.
Get creative and give these voices names like: Cranky Critic, or Polly Perfectionist,
for example, and develop your creative muse, Awesome Artist. Tell Cranky Critic
and Polly Perfectionist you know they’re there to keep you safe and stop you
from making a fool of yourself, but you don’t need them right now and send them
off to a safe place to have dinner together, or on a cruise somewhere. Bring in
your creative muse and get going! When you feel your critical voice or
perfectionism creeping in, remind yourself they are only voices, they are not the
truth. They are that fearful mother who wants to stop her Olympic snowboarding
son from making that big leap. Byron Katie’s work is very helpful here too and will
support you in questioning your beliefs. By all means do not believe what your
mind tells you! The more you praise yourself and keep going, no matter what, the
voices will become quieter. They may never go away, but you will learn how to
deal with them and bypass them, so they don’t derail you. It’s about developing
resilience and a solid belief in your self.
EXERCISE
• It’s important to know what’s holding you back so you can transform that.
Choose from the list below, your personal roadblocks stopping you from being
creative.
Roadblocks to Creative Expression:
Procrastination, fear, self-criticism, believing you’re not good enough, comparing
yourself to others, perfectionism, never finishing a project, inability to start, talking
yourself out of your creative projects, self sabotage, a lack of inspiration, feeling
you have no time to be creative, overwhelmed, clutter, confusion, not knowing
where to start, stuck in your comfort zone, believing you are not creative,
imposter syndrome, fearful of the criticism of others, fear of failure, too much
mental noise and frenetic busyness, resistance.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
2. Nurture Your Relationship with Yourself
EXERCISE Cont'd
• You may have a few unusual roadblocks of your own to add! Now … here’s the
thing. We all deal with these roadblocks! Even after having written hundreds of
pieces over the years, when I sit down to write a new piece I may find one of
these little nasty gremlins coming in greet me.
Authors can find themselves haunted by their own personal ghosts of creative
squashing, even after having written several hugely successful books! So, you’re
not alone. But now that you know your particularly bogeyman, you can turn the
volume down. When it rears its head, you’ll know, ‘aah, this is just my saboteur, my
victim,’ or whatever the case may be … and carry on.
The best antidote to all these crazies is to create! That’s right, keep writing, keep
composing, and you will break through to the other side where the bliss and joy of
creative expression is waiting for you. And don’t worry you won’t get it right
every time but you will begin to create more and more, as you drown out the
haters in your head with glorious, unadulterated creative expression!
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
3. Cultivate Presence
“Do your practice and all is coming.” Sri K Patthabi Jois
This is true of writing, art, music, and any creative discipline. The more you
practice, the better you get, but also the more you experiment, trust and step out
of your comfort zone, the better the result. You get that resounding wave of
creative energy as you reach your edge and transit into the unknown world
where genius awakens.
“Creativity - like human life itself – begins in darkness.” Julia Cameron
Most of us through the traumas of life and the taming of our instincts have drifted
away from our authentic selves. Spiritual practices like yoga, prayer, meditation and
mindfulness encourage us to be real. It helps us to connect with our true feelings
and our deepest selves. Any practice that brings you more deeply into
communication with your purest self, supports you to tap into the yearning of
your soul and the unique creative expression wanting to flow through you. It has
the effect of aligning us with our authentic selves: that inspired place where the
inner child roams freely and self-expression is uninhibited and natural. When the
body, mind and spirit are in harmony, our creativity flows with great clarity.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
3. Cultivate Presence Cont'd
On a more practical level, mindful exercise regimes like yoga or Tai Chi, iron out
the physical toll our creative expression can take on the body. Many artists,
photographers, or musicians stay in the same position for hours on end. A simple
movement practice releases the emotions, stress and contortions of the body
easing repetitive strain and bringing the body and mind back to equilibrium.
The practice of mindfulness long shared by spiritual teachers, especially Buddhist
experts, is increasingly becoming more mainstream and has been shown to greatly
reduce stress, increase wellbeing and happiness and promote innovative thinking
or the thought processes that generate and explore creative ideas. The mindful
synchronisation of breath and movement in mindful movement practices brings
clarity and focus. It also helps us discover our authentic selves.
When we are still, we can hear the universe. We open to the flow of the universe
and to the possibility for Divine Grace to rain down on us. It can help to develop a
spiritual practice or deeper connection with whatever you feel is transcendent.
"Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment, we are timeless." – Julia
Cameron
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
3. Cultivate Presence
EXERCISE • Begin a daily mindful inward practice. All you need do is commit to five minutes
a day.
• Begin by sitting with the spine erect and legs crossed (if this is uncomfortable
you could sit in a chair) and spend a few minutes watching the flow of breath in
and out of the body. Then begin to lengthen the inhale and exhale, noticing the
pause between the breath, introducing a slight hold before the exhale or inhale.
• Enjoy some simple stretches or a basic yoga sequence, such as The Five
Tibetans for a few minutes.
• Relax in Savasana (constructive rest pose, laying on your back, palms upward at
the side of the body) and notice how you feel.
• If you are a keen yogi, as a writer, my favourite go-to asanas to support the
creative process are Down Dog, Rabbit, Wide legged Forward Bend, Shoulder
Stand, and a few sets of Sun Salutes or the Five Tibetans. Inversions refresh my
mind and arm balances help me find my motivation and inner strength to write, and
the conviction that I have something valuable to say.
The Five Tibetan Rites
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced Creative
Expression
4. Creativity takes Courage
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” Erich Fromm
According to Julia Cameron, author of one of the definitive texts on creativity, The
Artist’s Way, the most common impediment to creative expression, is fear. This
thief of joy can stop us in our tracks before we’ve even attempted to express
ourselves.
The fear of exposure, failure, judgement, or not getting it perfect, is crippling for
artists. Even world famous writers or artists fall prey to this fear, and report
suffering from anxiety when attempting a second novel, or new artwork, despite a
history of tremendous success with a previous creative works.
I’ve found the best way to stop fear in its tracks, is to act and to do something
creative. As soon as you start that creative flow, the fear begins to fade. When
you create you are being bold and vulnerable and sharing your inner world with
others. The more you worry about what others will think or if others will judge
you for your ideas, the less you can create. Let the joy of creating take you over
and understand you can never please everyone, but you can always please
yourself! Keep creating no matter what and you will break through your fear and
discover the sublime delight in expressing yourself.
“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” Pablo Picasso
Creative expression is probably the one area of your life where you are given the
freedom to go wild, to transgress your limits, to be different, flamboyant, and
lusciously expressive. So much of life can be spent in a strait jacket with roles,
obligations and responsibilities. Creativity is the one area we can break free from
this. Let your creativity flow freely, and don’t worry about what it looks like, you
can always make changes later, but for now get something out!
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
4. Creativity takes Courage
exercise
• Share something you have created with someone special who loves you. Maybe your
best friend, partner or a family member.
• Join a writing group or creative circle where you will have the opportunity to share your
work and hear feedback from others.
• Take a risk. If you’re a writer, submit a piece to a magazine or enter a writing
competition. If you’re an artist arrange an exhibition or send your work to a gallery. Find
some way of sharing your work.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
5. Working with the Fire of Destruction
You can’t use up creativity, the more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou
At the heart of creativity is the cycle of life. Destruction is an important part of the
process of creation. Take the example of birthing a baby. In this process of becoming
a parent and bringing life into the world, you let go of your previous ideas of
yourself, say as a successful career woman. Your attachment to your body being a
certain way is obliterated, and your ideas about what it would be like to be a parent
are quickly destroyed in the furnace of the reality of having a child.
So it is with any creative project. Sometimes when we let go of the shore,
something deeper emerges. Don’t be afraid of looking deeper and culling what
you’ve created. Be curious, open and adventurous in your expression. You must be
open to letting go of ideas, words, or a certain pathway your creative project was
taking. It’s vital to be open to also trashing creative projects you’ve had lying around
in your mind for decades. Burning the undergrowth of your creativity is always
fruitful.
At one point I had many notebooks full of creative ideas, half written projects, short
bursts of book projects, and a few chapters of other projects. I felt utterly
overwhelmed when I saw the disarray of my creativity. It was like my creative force
was scattered around heaps of disparate ideas. One day I went through all the
creative ideas, pulled out pages that spoke to me and felt they had potential and
collated them all together in one place. I also threw out books of words I’d written. It
was incredibly freeing. I was lifted from the weight of not having to do those
projects, from the guilt and self-berating that was going on in my being somewhere,
for having not birthed these projects. One of the pieces I threw away was a chapter
of really fantastic writing. When I looked back on that chapter, I was amazed I had
written it. But I got rid of it, because I’d been holding onto it for ten years, and in that
holding on, I’d clung to the belief that my creativity was finite. That I had to catch
that mystery wave or it wouldn’t come again.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
5. Working with the Fire of Destruction Cont'd
Burning those inspired words helped me tremendously as it cracked me out of a
poverty mentality around creativity and brought me into alignment with the infinite
abundant world of creative inspiration that is the true nature of the universe and of
each one of us.
Now, before you bin all your fantastic creative bits and pieces, this is not to say we
don’t keep a book of ideas, or succumb to the often chaotic nature of creativity.
Creating is definitely a messy process. There are always going to be those flashes of
inspiration that strike and we want to capture them. But you won’t necessarily run
with all of them. Or you’ll run with that creative project, but by the end of it, the
project will have changed form completely. It’s giving you permission to let go of
what is in the past, and is no longer where you are. We are constantly evolving, and
our consciousness is always shifting. When we hold onto things we get stuck, and our
creative life force can’t flow. It’s important to be able to discern what is good and
keep that, and be able to let go of our words, our paintings, our music, when we need
to, in the absolute faith that something even greater will come.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
5. Working with the Fire of Destruction
EXERCISE
• Weed out the creative projects or ideas that intuitively you know won’t go
anywhere or don’t hold a “wow” for you. Let go of them.
• Create a notebook where you can jot down your inspirations and creative
ideas. While these may not go anywhere, they are fodder for your creativity and
it’s important to begin the flow and to open up to right hemispheric creative
thinking.
• Pick one of your creative ideas that holds a lot of energy for you and commit
to following that idea and seeing where it takes you.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced Creative
Expression
6. Take One Step at a Time
The Harry Potter series took 17 years to create. Michelangelo spent four years
painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Anything worth doing takes time. Set
yourself a goal, such as writing a book or composing a symphony and then let
go of the outcome and go to work. You must have small, achievable goals along
the way or you’ll never get there. Breaking down your project can help. Having
a practice like writing for 5 minutes a day, every day, is a wonderful way of
chipping away at a big project. If you stick to it, before long you’ll have made it.
Get the words on the page, or the colours on the canvas. Remember it’s the small
things that have the biggest impact. The five minutes a day will go much further
to creating your book, than a one-week writing retreat. Always see what’s in
front of you and just do that one thing. You need to shift your focus to the
present and to the one small thing you can do today, instead of seeing the longterm goal. Eventually the creative process will grab you and you’ll love creating
so much that you will gather momentum and this will carry you to the finish line.
I feel fortunate that working as a journalist with writing deadlines has developed
a discipline in my writing. I can’t wait for creative inspiration to strike. I need to
write-on-tap, or I’d have been out of a job a long time ago! It’s important to
develop this kind of relationship with your creativity. You could wait your whole
life for that incredible idea or right time to hit.
Keep on creating, keep the flow of words or paint on the page, and inspiration
will come to meet you. A few years ago I formed a bond with a stray wild cat
who would howl around our house at night and then retreat to the surrounding
acres of natural bush. I began feeding him daily at the same time and place and
after months of edging the bowl closer to the house and sometimes not seeing
him for days, but still keeping up the routine, eventually he came into my home
and even allowed me to pat him. It is much the same with inspiration, it will find
you once you give everything to it and make the commitment to express your
creative gifts. There’s an interesting music between discipline, structure and
unfettered imagination. It’s most important that you don’t stop creating and that
you develop a daily rhythm. If you do happen to miss a day, it’s vital not to beat
yourself up about this, but to notice how you felt missing a day, what caused it
and recommit the following day.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
6. Take One Step at a Time
Exercise
• Take the time now to break down your creative project into small tasks and
create a timeline for achieving the tasks.
• Stuck for a creative idea or opening ... Follow your curiosity and see where it
takes you.
• Write a list of creative prompts, keywords, things that inspire you, sensory
loves and use them as creative prompts. For example, rain on dry earth, people
farewelling each other at airports, the mystery of attraction, butterflies, life's
perspective from the point of view of an old tree, why people lie ...
• Take the plunge and ask a friend or colleague to be an accountability buddy
and work out how they will keep you accountable, for example you could email
them with a chapter every week or two weeks, or you could meet monthly or
bi-weekly and share your progress.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7 Strategies for Enhanced
Creative Expression
7. Living a Creative Life
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein
Everything is creative. To enhance your creativity you can transform everything
into a creative endeavour. Creativity can become the way you live your life. Socalled mundane things are inherently creative, take parenting for example, or
cooking, or the way you run your business, and the way you dress. Creativity
isn’t about painting a beautiful picture, or composing a concerto. It’s a state of
mind, a way of seeing and being in the world.
Every thing can be creative, even cleaning or mowing the lawn. It’s about being
playful and having fun. Watch young children and you will see how in any
circumstance they will create a game or something to amuse themselves. This is
creativity at work.
It’s also important not to pigeon hole yourself creatively and limit yourself to one
creative expression. You may have a gift for writing but that doesn’t mean you
only write books, perhaps your expression is to write messages for photographic
images that become moving artworks, for example. Allow your expression to
evolve and be open to forms of expression you could never have imagined.
Michelangelo was a sculptor and when he was asked to paint the Sistine Chapel
he baulked. Imagine if he’d said no! The world would be poorer today and we’d
be robbed of the exquisite painting that flowed through him.
“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” William Plomer
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
7. Living a Creative Life
EXERCISE
• Transform two mundane tasks today into something creative
• Write down 3 dreams you had as a young child. Think of ways to fulfil or
adapt these dreams now.
• Commit to 5 minutes a day of a creative practice you have never done before,
for example, writing poetry, something artistic, taking a dance class, crocheting,
creating a mosaic
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com
6.
Expressing your uniqueness through your creativity is one of the most beautiful
gifts you can give to the world. It is the most fulfilling and exciting adventure
you could take as it is the journey of excavating your own soul, and sharing your
naked self with the world. Only you see the world the way you do. We each
have something important and meaningful to share with the world in our own
way. I’d love to hear about your creative journey and your ideas about
cultivating greater creativity.
You can get in touch here: [email protected]
Here are some links to articles I’ve written on creativity:
http://upliftconnect.com/turn-anger-into-creativity/
http://upliftconnect.com/yoga-unlocks-creativity/
http://upliftconnect.com/healing-creativity/ www.azrielreshel.com
More about me:
Azriel is a Writer, Yoga Teacher and Healing Facilitator. She writes about
spirituality, women’s issues, and positive human-interest stories. An experienced
journalist, editor and writer, Azriel has worked for the BBC, SBS, ABC and the
Sunday Times. She is a writer and editor for the global positive news media
outlet, UPLIFT Connect. Azriel runs writing courses and workshops, and is
available for mentoring, writing or editing services.
© Azriel Re’Shel www.azrielreshel.com