Why You Don’t Feel Creative

It is easy to feel uninspired in life because of the stress that comes with survival, but there are steps we can take to increase our creative energy.

There have been long periods of my life where I haven't felt very creative which is especially challenging when you consider yourself a creative person. I struggled with this for many years and I have recently realized what was causing this struggle.

Numb

I think it is tempting to numb yourself of your emotions when you go through tough times. I feel like this is very common, especially amongst people who are sensitive. The problem with this is that you end up blocking out both negative and positive feelings.

The only way to feel creative and inspired is to be vulnerable to your emotions, you have to allow them to flow through you without resisting the experience. I'm not saying it will be easy to do but it is necessary if you want to stay creative.

One effective way to be more in tune with your emotions is journaling, it gives you an opportunity to think through how you feel and it makes it easier to be honest. Talking to other people about your emotions can be tricky but writing them down to yourself makes it easier.

I started journaling a couple of years ago and it has transformed my creative life in a very tangible way. It has made me more aware of what I truly desire and what patterns I need to change if I want a happier life.

Value

Another common reason people don't feel creative is because they don't value their own internal experience enough. You may think that who you are as a person is bland and normal, therefore it isn't worth exploring.

This is a huge mistake because what seems normal to you might be amazing to someone else. Your favorite musicians don't create beautiful music by pretending to be someone else, they create music by looking inwards and sharing their emotions.

It isn't about the physical nature of what your life is like, it is about the internal experience that you have. You can create beautiful art about the feelings you get from what would normally be considered a mundane activity. 

For example, you can make a beautiful piece of art based on the warmth you feel when drinking a hot cup of coffee. You wouldn't express this by literally drawing the cup of coffee, you dig deep and focus on the feeling it gives you and then represent it in a way that captures that emotion.

One great example of this is Calvin and Hobbes, the comic book takes place in a somewhat mundane town but the writer and artist captures the feeling of a childlike imagination through his stories. Calvin doesn't literally have a living tiger plushie, but he feels like he does. 

Where to Start

To fix these two problems I recommend that you start writing about your day to day experiences in either a journal or sketchbook. It can be as simple as “Im drinking coffee right now and I love the energy it gives me”, this sounds trivial but by treating it with value you will start to see the significance of it.

Life really isnt about taking big vacations, going to parties or buying a bunch of things. Life is about the small day to day moments, its the smell of fresh air and the feeling it brings.