The Fear of Creativity

From Aisha Alfa, Alfa Life Coaching:

I have never described myself as a “creative” person. I didn’t grow up with great painting skills, amazing drawing ability or an eye for design. In fact I was always jealous of those who could create beautiful pieces of art.

I started to develop a fear of creativity! What if it wasn’t beautiful? What if I was really crappy at it? What if everyone laughed at my attempts? What if, what if...

Then one day I realized that everyone can be creative! And furthermore that the act of being creative is beautiful in itself so there was no need to be fearful. I didn’t have to be the BEST at creating things (and in reality, who’s to say one creative thing is better than another anyway!??!) I just really wanted to try, act, do, play and enjoy the process.

So, last year I decided to actively become more creative and here are a few things I tried that I wanted to share:

1. Writing EVERY MORNING for 3 months - I would wake up every morning and write three pages of....whatever was in my brain. Sometimes it would make sense, other times it was all jumbled. Sometimes it was like my heart was pouring out emotion, pain, joy, anger, love, sadness and other times it was very superficial. I found this outlet was a great transitional activity to get me over the fear of being creative that day.
   
2. Dance in different styles - We all have our favourite dance moves, but dancing in different styles lets your brain be creative in trying to re-create moves you’ve seen but never done. It made me feel beautiful to pretend to my own version of ballet, I felt sexy when I did Salsa dancing (alone or in pairs) and moved to the beat.
   
3. Paint Parties (wine optional!) - I called over a friend and we opened up a bottle of vino and started painting a small canvas together. Every 10 mins or so we would do a ¼ turn of the canvas so we were working on a different part—adding, shading, changing what each other had done; then we moved onto a big canvas each—we chose what our inspiration would be and began painting!!! We sipped wine, pumped the tunes and got down with our creative selves.
   

This is a short list, but a moving one! Engaging in creativity has allowed different parts of me to emerge and flourish! I surprised myself with my final painting (it’s amazing!!!), my body
thanked me for moving it in new, creative ways, and my brain loved being able to be free and just spill out onto a page every morning!

So I encourage you to commit to one act of creativity every week or month and enjoy every single moment!