How to Connect to Your Creative Essence

Please note, the terms creative essence, your truth, inner self, The Sovereign Artist, creative self, true self, etc, all refer to the same thing - the deepest, truest, most authentic version of yourself, your creative self, which happens when your soul is in harmony with the universe and your true creative drive.

Last time, I wrote about the dark time I experienced burnout, losing my creative drive, and the slow process of slowly opening up my soul fire again. This is a danger every artist faces and there are many things you can do not only to discover your true self, your essence, but also to reconnect with what I call The Sovereign Artist within. Even if you are creatively healthy at this moment, these methods are important to remain connected with your true self. As always, these are just ideas and guidance and you may mix and match them as you like or, you may even find your own ways, not listed here, to remain a creative child at heart. Please note, these categories overlap in several ways, for example, “Nature” and “Noticing” are highly correlated, as are “Mediation” and “Solitude.” There are endless ways to make this work with your own personality and predilections.

Here are the methods I have successfully utilized to reconnect and remain connected to The Creative Source of my essence, my true self, The Sovereign Artist within.

“Crash and Burn” Journaling

I journal almost daily and I often utilize a method called “Crash and Burn.” The name is intended to remind me that the quality of what I write doesn’t matter - only that I do it. I don’t recall where I learned of this idea, but I didn’t invent it. The rules for “Crash and Burn” are simple: you start writing and you are not allowed to stop for at least five minutes (although I frequently write for ten or twenty minutes). No editing. And no stopping to think. You are allowed to write, “I can’t think of anything…blah blah, but I still can’t think of anything” but you can’t stop writing (or typing in my case). You must keep the pen or fingers moving. I often “seed” these sessions with something I see in the room, or an idea that pops in my head.. For example, I’ll say, “I’m noticing that my iphone screen has a small crack in it. I recall that crack happened when a lady bumped into me on our last vacation, and she turned out to be a really nice person. In fact, we had drinks with her and talked about…… Anyway, cracks on phones are a bit like scars aren’t they, and we all get scars both mental and physical in this life…..” I just typed that on the fly while working on this article, free form. And you can already see that it’s going in a direction that could quickly get deeply philosophical. So any “seed” can lead you in unusual and deep directions. Many of my Crash and Burn sessions, with much editing, have become the Reflections on my personal Substack blog. However, as I write them, they are not intended to be shared, and simply exist to open the flow between you and your creative source. They are quite similar to the idea of Morning Pages found in seminal book, The Artist’s Way.

Nature

When you immerse yourself in and appreciate nature you are closer to your true Self, especially when you allow yourself the freedom to simply enjoy the small, and the big wonders that are around you every day. I have been inspired on walks in the park, walks through the neighborhood, by sitting in my back yard and listening to the birds, by watching the sun rise, by watching the sun set. Even something as simple as taking out the garbage can be inspiring if you pay attention! As I take the trash to the curb, I’ll see a butterfly flit by, a hummingbird materializes to drink and then disappears again, I listen to the symphony of cicadas. There are so many amazing things all around us! More on this under Noticing below.

Solitude

Artists require solitude. To simply create artwork requires some level of solitude, of course, interruptions are deadly to great work. But solitude is required for creative recharge as well. Sometimes, I just need to go be in silence with my thoughts. Sit with yourself in solitude, without a TV, without a phone and allow the creativity inside you to well up to the surface. Your small self will fade connect with your creative Self will emerge. Boredom has a way of forcing us to be creative. After you practice this for a while, you’ll never be bored again. Bring back daydreaming! More on solitude below in meditation.

Creative Play

This is a huge one. Creatives require play. In many ways, art is play. I allow myself to play as much as I can, to the point that if I feel the stress of work demands overwhelming me, I’ll sometimes blow them all off (temporarily) and simply do what I want instead. I’ve called it Artful Procrastination. Here’s the interesting thing - play points to what your True Essence wants you to do. It points to your true calling. Often, when I allow myself to play, it pays huge dividends down the road. What seems like “wasting time” often, later in your career or business, turns out to be the most important thing you could have done.

Did you know FASO started as a toy project that I did on the weekends when I owned an art gallery? That’s right, the website builder that thousands of artists rely upon today started as play! As did everything I’ve been writing about creativity and art marketing, including this very article you are reading now. Do not ignore the power of play! It blows away discipline every day. (Although discipline is extremely useful for short sprints, but will burn you out long term if you rely only on the force of your willpower, which discipline relies upon). Be aware that what you consider play at one stage of your journey may become draining or required work at another stage, so you may have to change your play activities over time. While creating FASO, all the programing and dreaming up of new features to add was exhilarating play for me, but as the service matured and became relied upon for an ever increasing audience, eventually it became required work and my “play time” now isn’t programming and adding features (though I still do that), but it is other activities.

To illustrate: when I first started coding FASO, it seemed like a waste of time when compared to my gallery director and sales duties, and those very activities are, today, my required “duties.” At that point, writing about creativity and connecting with your creative essence were play for me! But those writings eventually revealed themselves to be important to our commercial endeavors! And, I think, even more important than what we were doing before! The play you do at each level of your work often will eventually reveal itself as being the driving force to take you to a much higher level and more important calling! I can’t wait to see where today’s play time takes me tomorrow!

Meditation

Meditation, what can I say about meditation? Meditation is what brought me back creatively, as well as opened a path to renewed joy. Meditation opened a crack in the dark shell that had encased my soul. Meditation opened the “eye within the I” inside of me.

Mediation is a workout for your mind that also, when you do it long enough, brings creative and spiritual rewards.

It takes time though, and so this is a place discipline is useful in the beginning. Meditation feels weird and boring at first, but once you do it for a few weeks, things start to change and amazing experiences appear. I was fortunate to experience a very intense spiritual experience quite early in my meditative journey (and more intense than most I’ve had since) that hooked me, but it does take time. Meditation is the slowest of these techniques, but also the most powerful (for me).

I highly recommend meditating but also combining it with other techniques I’m listing here. Don’t limit yourself to just one! One easy powerful technique is to meditate outside - it’s a great way to both meditate and connect and notice the sublime qualities of nature.

Self Awareness and Meditative Living

Meditation helps with self awareness. Awareness is another word for consciousness and this consciousness is another word for your true self, your essence, what I’ve been calling The Sovereign Artist Within. Meditative living, on the other hand, is an attempt to be meditative in all daily acts. It is more difficult, in the beginning, than regular sitting meditation, but it gets easier over time.

Some people use the term “mindful.” But that is a misnomer to me. Your mind is what gets in the way of meditative states, with its incessant thinking, and yammering and worrying. You don’t want peace of mind, you want peace from mind.

Being mindful is all the rage.

“Mind full” is the wrong direction.

What you’re going for is “mind empty” and “soul full.”

Soulful.

Live Soulfully, not mindfully.

In a meditative life, you go through tasks observing and noticing but not “thinking” on a logical level. In other words, the internal narrative stops and you become fully present. I keep telling my wife that I want to do the dishes each night because I actually enjoy it now! She thinks I’m joking. But (when I’m living soulfully), the feel of the water, the reflecting light off the dishes, and the drops of water bouncing off the dishes! It’s amazing! She still thinks I’m full of it. And I am! I’m full of something called consciousness (but she thinks it’s something else! lol).

When in a meditative state like this, everything is OK and there’s nothing to worry about, life just flows easily. In fact, it is in these states, and often when washing dishes that I have my most creative ideas!

Noticing

The longer I live, and the more I attempt to create, I believe the following is the essence of art, and the essence of being an artist: simply to notice.

Notice more. Notice beauty. And especially notice what is interesting in small moments that most people miss. What do you notice that most people don't? Every moment presents infinite beauty. Infinite interest. But most of the time, most people miss it all.

So, to be an artist, do this: don't miss it all. Notice it. Cultivate awareness. This is what I am attempting to do in my life: to be aware of the beauty in all of the universe's small moments, so that I may somehow, via my writing, my work, my music or somehow, in my own life, reflect that beauty of creation back at the universe in a small way. And in that small way, be part of creation. I wrote about this more fully in Noticing, The Meaning of Life.

Gratitude

Many wiser souls than me have enlightened us about the power of gratitude. The way I finally brought gratitude regularly into my life is my own form of a “gratitude journal.”

I keep it simple, and I keep the bar super-low so I’ll actually do it. What I do is this: I try to write about something good every day. It doesn't matter what, specifically, but I notice, and record just one good thing. Here are my gratitude in public entries for 2023. Most of the entries are only one or two sentences, small enough to fit in a tweet (I started the practice on Twitter), so it’s not a time consuming practice at all. Surely you can write one sentence about a good moment today.

To give you an idea, here are a few random entries I’ve posted to Twitter lately (the full thread is here):

I look back over each day to uncover at least one (although more than one is fine!) single joyful, inspiring, meaningful, wondrous slice of time where, no matter what other problems or challenges darken my soul, the light of creation reached me.

If one lived for 30,000 days, one could live, and perhaps even remember 30,000 good, inspiring moments in a lifetime. Is that enough? It seems like possibly it would be. 30,000 joyful moments adds up to a joyful life, doesn’t it? I wrote further about this practice here.

Music

Music, like all art, creates magic. Music is inspiring. Music is powerful.

Here’s how the band Rush describes music in Spirit of Radio: Emotional feedback on a timeless wavelength, Bearing a gift beyond price.

Music is always uplifting, but to truly reap the benefits to your creative soul, it helps to occasionally go old school - make listening to music the primary activity.

Remember how we used to sit with a vinyl record and simply listen? Perhaps while we perused the album art? Today, too many of us only play music as a background to our lives, as we scroll our phones and drive. But music, just like your art deserves to be the center of attention from time to time. You can still do that today! Just put on your favorite streaming service, crank it up, and put your phone down, close your eyes, and be transported to another universe, receive the emotional feedback on a time less wavelength bearing a priceless gift.

Music costs even less today than when Rush wrote those lyrics. So you have no excuse. I wrote about one such evening of listening to music, and how it restored my soul, here.

Get Out of Character

Do something you wouldn’t normally do. Get “out of character” and become a full, free, sovereign human being! Shake things up! This can have a profound psychological effect. For me, this was growing my hair out. I’ve always been in business, buttoned up, clean cut, short hair. After my creativity burned out (and partly because of lockdowns and the difficulty of reliably scheduling a haircut) I just threw caution to the wind and grew my hair out until someone referred to me while wearing a Hawaiian shirt as “Hawaiian Jesus.” I would wear a baseball cap to run. I looked like Forest Gump when I ran. Some of you have probably seen my hair in our webinars or on The BoldBrush Show and wondered “who is this hippie?”

It felt good to do something different. If felt free. It felt defiant. It felt like a clean break with the past and a “new me” facing the future, creatively and alive again. Like Samson, I drew strength from this act — not physically, but in my soul, creatively. It was a small act against society’s programming that has led me to see through that programming in all areas.

I didn’t realize all these things at the time, but looking back, I can clearly see my soul was yearning for something different and it started with this small act. Now, three years later since I started growing it, I feel well and on the path to creativity again, and I’m ready to cut my hair (and also, I’ve realized the realities of taking care of long hair, lol. I feel for anyone with long hair. It’s a lot of work.) I’m not saying to grow (or shave) your hair, I’m just saying mix it up. If you are struggling creatively and a crazy urge pops in your mind, perhaps, just perhaps do it!

Hobbies

Those of you who are my age may remember hobbies. Remember how, prior to the internet, we all did things for fun? For the sheer enjoyment of the activity? Before we were expected to “hustle” and “monetize” everything we did? Before we were expected to post everything on social media? Guess what? I still do that. I play guitar, at a relatively accomplished level, for the love of it. After my creative burnout, I rekindled my love of this hobby. And I will never “monetize” it. I will never form a band (other than simply for fun.) I will never turn it into work. Because Rush’s words apply not only to listening to music, but also to creating it: hobbies “bear gifts beyond price.” What hobbies can you undertake to reconnect with The Sovereign Artist Within?

There you have it! Ten simple practices to save your creative soul. Pick a few of your favorites, or invent your own! This list is by no means exhaustive and I’m sure there are countless other things you could do to restore yourself (like travel). Let us know in the comments what things you do to stay connected to The Sovereign Artist Within. I look forward to learning more great ideas from you.

Creatively,

Clint Watson, writer.

PS - I am using the symbol of a fleur-di-lis to represent the deep truth at the center of us all, what I call “The Sovereign Artist.” The Tao which can be named, after all, is not the true Tao, so I’ve opted to use a symbol instead. This symbol reflects what you are in your deepest self - free and sovereign over yourself. The fleur-de-lis stood as a symbol of the king's divinely approved right to rule and, when you connect to this power of the divine, you are granted the power to rule over yourself. The red fleur-di-lis is the famous symbol of the most artistic city in history, Florence which, in latin, means flowering. Through this process you will flower in to your truest, most free, sovereign self. And you will be unstoppable.

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