Like I do most days, I’m thinking about what it means to be truly creative.

And I don’t think you can answer that question without including a deep investigation of creative flow. I’m always exploring the question of what IS creative flow? Why is it important? What stops it and blocks it? And what allows it to keep moving?

Creative flow is really another name for our life force energy and we ALL want a better relationship with THAT part of our selves.

Plus we need a much more robust connection with both our creativity AND life force energy as we try and navigate the social, political and environmental hellscape we are all wending our way through on our way to creating a new, better, more just, more equitable, more humane and more loving world.

To be clear, what gets in the way of our creative flow is all of our internal psychological bullshit. And our internal bullshit isn’t even OURS as much as it is a reflection of the patriarchal mindset we have all swallowed whole because there wasn’t anything else on the menu.

So here’s a couple of the inner bullshit messages that I see come up on a regular basis for most folks when they try to be more creative.

1.) Anything I create has to be pretty, beautiful or pleasing to other people or it’s not worth doing.

Oh boy… this is one of those beliefs that shuts down creative flow faster than you can say “Where’s the nearest art store?”

And since I work primarily with women, I can’t help but notice how it also dovetails quite seamlessly with misogynistic messages about what it means to be a “good” woman.

In my intuitive painting classes I make it VERY clear that painting intuitively means learning to value the creative process OVER any kind of end product.

But even with that level of permission and support to create simply for the sake of being creative so many of my students are STILL worried about how their painting will be perceived by some invisible audience. Even though ninety nine percent of their paintings will only be seen by their partners, best friend and therapist.

And that inner audience will only be happy if the art you are making follows certain proscribed guidelines and is conventionally attractive. Which means it can’t be REAL. It can’t be jarring or messy. Or controversial. Or provocative in any way. Or simply TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE. It can’t shake things up. It has to make that inner viewer feel safe and comfortable. It has to be NICE.

Which is all the things we are taught to be as women in order to stay safe and acceptable in the patriarchal world we live in.

But all that concern with being nice and sweet and pleasant puts a HUGE kibosh on our creative flow.

Because true creativity THRIVES on authenticity, challenging assumptions and breaking out of whatever box the world tries to put it in.

2.) I can’t realistically draw a (fill in the blank) at a Renaissance masters level , or I don’t have a PhD education so I can’t possibly know enough to write about (x,y or z). So I shouldn’t even try. In other words, you talk yourself out of creating ANYTHING because you convince yourself you don’t have the talent, skill or expertise to express your creative visions.

This is something that is SO HARD for people to get through their thick skulls heads, but creativity and technique are two RADICALLY different things.

They aren’t even REMOTELY connected. And in fact, oftentimes a high level of practiced ability can actually get in the WAY of your creative flow.

When we think about examples of true creative freedom the first thing that comes to mind are children. Until they are indoctrinated by the patriarchal mindset that DOES tell us to not even BOTHER trying to express ourselves creatively unless we have developed a degree of proficiency in some art form or another, they playfully and joyously express themselves in all KINDS of creative mediums without ANY TRAINING AT ALL!

What a Shockeroo!!!!

Adults constantly forget that creativity is all about MAKING SHIT UP. It’s that willingness to play and experiment and invent things without following some stupid rule written by a dead, rich, white man from the 16th century that truly facilitates create flow.

It’s forgetting that the first rule of creativity is that there are no rules to creativity.

And it’s remembering that our capacity to BE creative is the most precious human resource that we have and that we need to fight like hell to make sure no one ever takes that away from us.

So FUCK the patriarchy. Let your creative flow FLOW! And don’t be afraid to express yourself and remake the world in the way that only YOU can!