Leading a Creative Midlife

I want to lead a creative life. I want to have a regular creative practice.

One of my biggest fears in life is being misunderstood. I’m reminded of this every time I over-explain a story or situation to someone. Why am I trying to clarify each detail? Why am I so worried that my story is unclear? The answer: I don’t want to be misunderstood. Not when I tell stories and thoughtfully deliver the point or punchline. And not when I’m doing something that demonstrates who am I, what I believe, or what my intentions are.

Putting aside the obvious deeper issue that this demonstrates of never feeling “good enough” (clearly something I need to work on), there is also the indisputable fact that this fear of being misunderstood stunts my creativity.

I want to lead a creative life. I want to have a regular creative practice. I want time in my day to shut off my brain, quiet my overly-articulate life where I literally narrate what I’m doing as I do it (I’ve been known to tell my partner that I’m going to the bathroom when we’re both home, doing nothing much. Instead of just going upstairs to the bathroom! Why???), and get lost in a creative activity. I want to let go. Worrying that what I create could be misunderstood by others keeps me from fully letting go. It keeps me from creating with zero expectations. It adds pressure.

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Creative practice where we do let go puts us into flow— an enchanting space where distractions don’t exist, maybe for hours on end if you’ve got that kind of time. Or maybe for 30 minutes if that’s what you’ve got.

Being in flow gives us permission to be messy, and silly, and weird, and not cool, and potentially fail by way of a wonky ceramic mug or an unidentifiable self portrait.

Being in flow is being in a place of serenity where we lose a lot—we lose ourselves to the practice, lose self-consciousness, and lose track of time. In it we get to be imaginative and honest and attentive.

Flow is intrinsically rewarding because it’s not about getting a rating, a grade, or a cookie.

But when we let fear in, it keeps us from flow.

When I write work that I hope to publish, my fear pops up and my creativity stops short. There’s rarely a time when I am not fighting myself to let go, to not be afraid of being misunderstood.

But when I write or doodle or collage or anything else creative with no intention of “doing something with it”, that fear vanishes. I’m lost in the fun of it. My mind is relaxed. All distraction is gone and I’m practically meditating.

And this is the goal. This is the place that invites us to nurture our own mental and emotional health. To care for our well-being. To play.

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As I’ve been working on this next iteration of Revel+ Verve, I have people in my life who have expressed concern. Concern that they won’t be able to support me in my new endeavor because they could never just sign up for a class to “be creative”. According to them, they don’t possess a single creative bone and they worry that they will make a fool of themselves.

Last week I took an art as exploration class. The point of the class was to let go, create doodles and marker drawings with no regard for the outcome. The teacher ensured this by making us close our eyes and not lift the marker from the paper as we did the exercises. Let’s just say my self portrait looked like a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

I sat next to a lovely woman named Ethel. Ethel was friendly and sweet and smiled a lot. Ethel also cheated. She repeatedly produced drawings that were balanced and anatomically correct. Ethel struggled with the idea of making something that would look wrong.

Ethel missed the point.

I do understand our very human tendency to behave this way. But my hope is that this piece you’re reading right now (something I wrote with the intention to publish and have actively tried to let go of my fear of being misunderstood) can be a reminder that being creative does not have to be for anyone but yourself.

oof, side note: I just deleted a sentence where I explained to you all the ways in which I could potentially be misunderstood in this piece. ::sigh::

Anyway, what fears stunt your creativity? What keeps you from drawing a picture or making a collage or writing a poem?

Creativity is for all of us and in all of us. It opens us up.

There is agency in leading a creative life, in incorporating creative practices into your daily or weekly routine, even if you can’t draw a stick figure, don’t know the first thing about poetry, feel stupid cutting up pieces of paper and using a glue stick to make a collage, or will never do anything with that origami flower you made out of a Chinese restaurant menu you found in the junk drawer.

Creative practice changes things. It bring us deeper into ourselves and helps us see more clearly who we are and what we want.

I hope you’re open to it.

I write and share without a paywall. If you enjoyed this, I’d be honored to receive a coffee from you—it fuels my writing!