If you look between the words you will note there is also a white space inbetween ... and whilst that space serves as a word separation, it also has an intentional meaning equally important to the process of ‘being’ a creative. I refer to this white space as THE CREATIVE SPACE - the space within our self where we integrate, bring all parts of us together to rise.
It is the integration, balance and evolution of creating and creativity.
The Theory
In 1968 a study of 1,600 five year old children was carried out by George Land. They were tested using the same process as NASA for their selection process of innovative engineers and scientists. At five, 98% of the children registered genius levels of creativity.
Retesting the same children at 10 and 15 this level of creative genius dropped alarmingly to 30% by the age of 10 and 12% at aged 15.
This same test that has been used on over 280,000 adults and placed their creative genius level at just 2% …
The conclusion of this study shows that non creative behavior is in fact learnt behavior. That as we grow into adulthood we become separated to a part of who we are as a fully functioning human being.
Through the unlearning of our innate creative genius we disconnected from our natural creative self - separating our Self from life itself. We only need to look at the world around us to see how this is playing out in our daily lives.
We have been living in a logical mindset world for centuries, and, over time this has brought us to the state many of us are now living in today, distracted, disconnected and dis-empowered.
To be a successful creator one can not only be focused on the either / or mentality as this opens us up to the extremities we often see in the creative industry (and the world at large). To succeed we must create the balance by integrating both sides of us, the doing AND the being.
The Doing actions (the ‘creating’ part of Creating Creativity®) - represents the left side of our brain. This part of our brain only sees the representation of things, engaging with what it already knows, contributing to the need for certainty and significance (two of our human needs). It is responsible for working everything out, it likes to take things apart, organise and analyse. It is the logic, technique, knowledge, method of execution, analytic and goal driven part of us; and given too much of our brain space, can become full of to do lists ... it is an important part of our creative process. However, in focusing only on the doing part of being a creative it leaves us no space for innovation, growth and deep connection.
The Being part (the ‘creativity’ part of Creating Creativity®) represents the right side of the brain which meets two more of the six human needs, variety and connection. This part of us sees things holistically, brings into our awareness what is new, opens us up to what’s possible, our aliveness - life, it’s meaning and those deeper connections to our self and the world around us. Most of our emotions such as empathy, compassion, understanding live in this side of our brains hemisphere. The right side opens our minds up to explore what we don’t know and is expansive and expressive in its explorations. It inspires us. However being stuck as right brain dominant we are in danger of becoming dreamers only and never actually realising our creative potential, contributing to the starving artist mindset.
These two parts of our brain covers the innate human needs within in us, however Creating Creativity® also incorporates the spiritual journey - where the final two human needs of growth and contribution are met which are the final two steps that contribute to the movement towards creative fulfillment, sustainable joy v’s momentary pleasure.
This part of us is connected too and contributes to something bigger than our self and is found within the space (represented as the space between the words creating and creativity and what I often refer to as 'the creatives space'.) Here we dive deep into bodies, our heart, soul and spirit to bring all parts of us together. Once connected we can fully engage with both the left and right side of our brains and take purposeful action, set goals for our dreams, organise, analyse and prioritise the action steps that will bring our dreams to reality, all whilst cultivating our creative voice, expanding our creative process and bring a deeper meaning to our world and the world around us through authentic creativity.
In this space we allow our Self to become all, we can be both pragmatic AND a free thinker, we can be both the dreamer AND the action taker, we can be both a human AND a spiritual being, we can fail AND celebrate, we can be getting it wrong AND doing it right, we can move fast AND take it slow. We can be a creative AND an entrepreneur. We can be intelligent AND have no idea of the answer. We can be vulnerable AND strong. We can lead AND follow. We can walk tall AND get up when we fall. We can walk our path AND get lost. We can give our self permission to be where ever we are in any given moment AND still be growing.
We can gift our Self the unknown path of becoming AND enjoy the stretch that shows up as challenges (that are all part and parcel of becoming) whilst analysing and learning from our journey without the anger, blame, rigid thinking, closed mindset and lack of emotional awareness that is part of the left brain logic mindset that keeps us stuck in the constant doing that is killing our creativity.
We can also let go of the shame, feelings of hopelessness and emotional overwhelm, fear, anxiety and inability to take action that arise from being caught up in the negative or shadow aspects of the right side of our brain that stops us as creatives from ever actually doing anything productive with our talent, sharing it with the world, blocking us from evolving and becoming the creative we were always meant to be.
As we reconnect all those parts of us together on the journey to creative fulfillment … and it is a journey, we create awareness of our Self first, and in doing so open up our ability to connect to our authentic creative self, expressing ourselves through the truest form of our creative expression and contribute meaningfully to others lives as authentic creators.