A letter from my creative mind to yours
Dear creative mind,
I wonder if you know how magical your creative mind truly is?
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the incredible work you do. Your imagination and sensitivity bring a unique dimension of contrast, depth, texture, colour, and perspective, which is indispensable in significantly impacting the world. Your creative power transforms the invisible into the visible, makes sense of ambiguity, and transmutes pain into beauty.
The problem is, creative minds tend to spend just as much time making self-limiting narratives as they do making art.
Allow me to share a secret: as a fellow creative myself, I too, experience firsthand the profound contrast between the healing, cathartic powers of creativity and the paralyzing anxieties it can cause. My creative mind is not always a peaceful place to be. I, too, have grappled with the shimmering obstacles that divert my attention from my intended path. However, I've discovered that embracing the possibilities of divergent thinking and working with, rather than against, our creative mind is the key to making it a softer and more enriching space.
I want you to know there's no need to tame your creative mind for it is not flawed, wrong or broken— it is an exquisite masterpiece. What you may be fighting against is also what makes you deeply creative: your vivid imagination, sensitive nature and unconventional ways of thinking.
You also don't have to separate or repress your many interests and abilities so that others find you easier to categorize. You only need to work toward understanding yourself — and sometimes, all that takes is a comma. A comma connects, but also separates. A comma organizes a jumble into a list. A comma nudges you to pause and take a breath, even while you're in the middle of things. A comma is an inhalation — and did you know that inhalation shares the same root word as inspiration?
Dear creative mind, you deserve the confidence and ease of inner legibility: the ability to express yourself, to yourself. Self-literacy is not the same as knowing yourself — it's being able to read yourself. If your mind is jumbled and snarly, you might feel frustrated and confused. What if I told you there was nothing wrong with the jumble — you just need to learn how to read it?
Your inner voice is your harshest critic, and it's tempting to try to silence it. It's often when people stop listening to themselves, however, that they feel like they've lost their ability to creatively express themselves.
How brave of you to constantly contradict yourself. It's okay not to make sense; coherence is in your chaos. Embracing the "both,and" proposition demands courage. But no creative soul thrives in an either/or scenario.
You are not here to blend, to conform, to colour inside the lines. It is the sacred duty of artists to transform, transmute, and welcome contradiction as metamorphosis. Artists are shapeshifters and changemakers, both creators and creations— entwined with the fabric of change itself. As artists, our role and responsibility is first and foremost to explore questions, not to provide answers.
If you find yourself wrestling with your creative nature, I offer guidance in breaking free of the cycle of hustle, burnout, and stagnation. I invite you to explore the testimonials of fellow creatives who have embraced their unique paths.
The creative process is inherently messy… and it’s normal. You don’t need to make your creative path more linear, you need to learn how to navigate its twists and turns more steadily— and I’ll be honoured to guide you through on the path of self-(re)discovery.
With gratitude,