The Challenges of a Creative Individual (Part I):
Your Emotions Are Tools For Creations
(An article for sensitive souls by a sensitive soul)
Extremes of emotions
As artists, creative people, individuals with a strong, vivid imagination — whatever you choose to call yourself — in short: As creators, we have the propensity to get overwhelmed.
By what?
Well, all things really.
But primarily the overwhelming sensations arise from the fields of strong, stormy emotions.
That sounds generic. What does this mean specifically?
Well, it’s simple: Because art is deeply, deeply linked to your essence’s wish (your soul) to reconnect with source (whether you believe in that or not), there has to be a certain capacity to delve into emotional depths that others might not even register on a surface level.
With the ability and natural propensity to delve into these deep emotions, come a lot of feelings and sensations that are unpleasant, to say the least.
And because you are able to experience emotional energies in a heightened state — either positive or negative — you are also able to tap into a field of consciousness that opens up the gates for creative experimentation, expression and creation, for the sake of creation.
When you feel more, and more intensely the ‘good’ as well as the ‘bad’ stuff (your own energies and the energies of other people), you are inevitably subjected to a broader spectrum of experiential reality. You are able to see the intrinsic beauty of a river, a bird, a tree, a daisy protruding the concrete on the side of the lane, and you are able to feel the interconnectedness of all that is. At least to a certain degree… maybe you phrase it differently, but this is what happens, on a purely experiential plane. You are also experiencing the harmful, destructive intentions of others more. And you are able to pick up on subtle dynamics in society — perceiving cultural shifts and subconscious pains more powerfully and therefore more overwhelmingly…
This mode of perception that is embedded in your artistic mind and body, infuses you with the potentiality to create something out of those experiences.
Think about it: If you wouldn’t feel certain emotions, how were you ever able to create something that conveys those emotions?
This doesn’t have to lead into a conviction to make art appreciators feel the same stuff we as artists go through — that would be an unhealthy goal. But it does lead into the wish to help people reconnect with their essence again.
As a creator you have a responsibility. And that responsibility is, in part, to process your emotions honestly, authentically, as well as to inspire others to do the same.
The goal of art is, in my humble opinion, to imitate the divine and to find a thread back to source: Whatever medium you choose to express yourself in/with, find a way to create something life-affirming, something lovingly generous, something love-spirited (in opposition to something mean-spirited — there is enough of that in the world already!)
Creating art means coming back to your innate power.
The extremes of emotional sensations allow for investigating the human psyche through artistic creation. This enables you to point to the shadows of humanity, while producing life-affirming energies.
When you sit down at the piano to improvise, automatically motifs, melodies and harmonies run through your system — wanting to be expressed through the means of making music on the spot: You are connecting with something ‘higher’, something invisible to the human eye, something, dare I say it, divine… The expression of your essence through creative means is an expression of divinity. And with that come a lot of ups and downs — phases of exhaustion and phases of rejuvenation. It is a natural cycle, attached to natural processes in the soma of creative beingness, really.
The infamous state of being in the zone, in the flow, is foundational for creating and nurturing the connection to source. Source, in return, gives you the capability to harness the creational process. This leads you down a path of self-perpetuating constructively intuitive creative output. One work of art informs the other and vice-versa.
It, again, leads to the notion of a cycle.
The cyclical nature of the world
The cyclical, and more specifically the circular nature of everything that occurs on our planet, can be of help, when navigating through phases of creative lows, periods of exhaustion and disconnection from the beauty of the world: Imagine yourself like a tree, rooted in the soil of Gaia, standing strong, no matter what season, what environmental fluctuations, or what civilizational, infrastructural forces you are exposed to.
Despite the pain, you are able to stand there, carrying great wisdom and inner stillness within. Even if you don’t feel that inner stillness, or don’t feel like you have access to that wisdom in certain moments — those elements are all there. If you simply remind yourself that the creative life is a circular process like any other (comparable to the seasons, the cycles of the moon or the rotary motions of a clock’s internal mechanism), you can already increase your level of acceptance, making it easier to navigate through day-to-day endeavors.
‘Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional’.
Wherever the origin of this mantra resides (some say Haruki Murakami, others say the Dalai Lama or Kathleen Catey), it is worthy discussing it here for a moment:
While it’s true to a certain extent, that everyone on this planet experiences pain and pain is a natural part of a human life, it does not come as obvious that suffering would not be an essential part of it.
This mantra depends greatly upon the individual, the situation you find yourself in, and the overall level of sensitivity in regard to external stimuli.
Additionally, the amount and intensity of pain you are subjected to is based on your individual level of sensibility, which is connected to the empathetic sensors of your essence.
If you experience pain, you can choose to observe it. But what if the pain is so intense, so otherworldly-grand and overwhelmingly concentrated (let’s say in a specific area of the body) — should we just denote it as ‘optional suffering’ and observe it?
Well, while observing is a good idea, no matter what, the problem stems from the overwhelming energy that is connected to the sensation: If you just observe it, not judge it and feel the pain to its fullest, this doesn’t mean that you do not potentially pass out from the level of intensity.
It is true, that the suffering part of the equation is in a lot of cases optional, but not in all cases.
And if you happen to have a tendency to suppress your emotions, your feelings or your physical, mental pain, then it might pop up somewhere even stronger.
A good practice can be to not look at mantras like these as absolute truths, but as sparks of opinion meant to inspire, not demotivate… If you find yourself in a low phase of your artistic, human journey, then remember: The mountain can only be climbed when going through some struggles.
This too shall pass.
Hypersensitivity (especially towards external stuff)
Being hypersensitive comes with the advantage of seeing more than meets the eye, of feeling more than there is on the surface level, and of hearing, tasting, experiencing life more in some sense.
And being hypersensitive comes with the challenge of feeling influenced or even stirred by other people’s opinions, comments, remarks — praise and criticism. When you feel low and depressed and someone’s comment about one of your artworks cheers you up immediately, propelling you into a state of inspired creation and keeping you motivated throughout the day or week (or however long), then you are quite probably also sensitive to the opposite:
When someone makes a mean, unconscious comment about something you created, some image you have drawn for instance, then you might easily get pulled down by that negative energy.
You may even feel a wave of depression wash over you. Or you may feel subtle sensations of the all-too-known imposter syndrome creeping up in the back of your mind…
In whatever way your body (and therefore your subconscious) chooses to react to a certain external stimulus, remember: There is more to you than just a body of emotions, or a mind of doubtful thoughts; you are an artist, a creator, for a reason. You want to inspire yourself and you want to inspire the world.
And this is only possible if you feel deeply.
As deep as you can in fact. Imagine you would do what you are doing right now, and you do not love it, but you simply do it, because you feel you have to — as if someone from the outside told you to, as if you were forced to be an artist.
It is your choice, your higher-self’s choice.
You create to inspire, you create to motivate, you create to remind people of their essence — of their wholesomeness and of the interconnectedness of everything that is.
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Much love & blessings,
Your quirky artist-soul,
Michael
Also: Maybe you want to check out second first part of this series:
The Challenges of a Creative Individual Part 2 is on my blog as well — and stay tuned, there is a lot more going to be released!
(Note: I originally published this article on my Medium profile, but I wanted to have it on my own site & I wanted everyone to have free access to it – so here it is – I hope you enjoy my writing! 😌🙏🏼)