I’m not very good at painting or drawing, so I always assumed I wasn’t “creative”. I thought of art and creativity as being synonymous, and since I wasn’t much of an artist, at least not in the traditional sense of the word, I assumed I wasn’t very creative. When I was a kid, I liked sewing, baking and making things that were more 3D like wood carvings and paper mache but I my painting and drawing skills weren’t nearly as good as my mom and my sisters, so I shrugged it all off, assumed I wasn’t very creative and decided academics were my place to shine!
As I’ve been moving through my healing journey following burnout and a rough menopause transition, I’m discovering that, not only am I actually quite creative, I LOVE to create! For example, as much as I’ve been tripping over myself at times in the process of finding my voice in this newsletter series, I LOVE it when I finally get out of my own way and allow the message to come THROUGH me. As I mentioned before, I will often struggle at first as I try to write the words from my mind, but once I am able to surrender and allow myself to receive the message, it’s becoming more and more fun! I really enjoy playing with ways to translate the energy of what I’m talking about into an image I make on canva, and I’m having a blast making the weekly “podcast” where I start “riffing” on what I’ve just finished writing about, in a way that feels increasingly fun and natural to me.
One thing that I find really interesting is how much healing I’ve experienced through creative expression. As I was saying in last week’s podcast, we teach best what we most need to learn, and when I write newsletters, create courses or put together talks for speaking engagements, I’m always writing/creating/speaking about topics that feel really relevant for me. Ideas and concepts I’m learning or teaching myself become more embodied and integrated through creating something for others.
A really great example of this was the creation of my second course Coming Home to Ourselves at Midlife. I was having a ROUGH time, trying to get my bearings during the roughest part of my menopause transition, and my psychic told me that Spirit said it was time to create my next course. I looked at her in disbelief and said “Are you kidding me!?! I’m barely sleeping, I’m so anxious I feel like a human tuning fork and I’m debating whether or not I want to stay on the planet, and you’re telling me I’m supposed to create my next course?!?! WTF!?!?”
I sat with this crazy idea for a week or two, then I decided to sit down and start riffing on the few things I was doing that did seem to be working and go from there. I was amazed how the simple act of creating something, from my heart, in service to others had an incredibly healing effect. I felt the words begin to come through me, rather than from me. I would sit back in amazement after recording a video and think “what great advice! I’ve never thought about it like that before!”. I was beginning to teach myself to channel – to allow the words to come through me rather than from me.
As I continue to deepen on this unfolding journey of growth and transformation, I’ve noticed a couple of things that help me in tapping into my creative expression. First of all, I find I’m more likely to tap into my creative flow when I ensure that I’m getting enough “down time”. If I’m really busy, it’s much harder for me to tap into my creativity. This makes sense because the default mode network of our brains (DMN) is the part of our brains that activates when we are not focused on the outside world. It’s the area of our brain that’s responsible for daydreaming, mental time travel, novel ideas, interpreting social interactions and processing emotions. It helps us build a cohesive sense of who we are and our place in the world. I think of it as the feminine energy part of our brains – the receptive, interconnected, big picture part of our brains.
The opposite, and equally important, part of our brain is the central executive network (CEN). The part of our brain responsible for conscious, goal directed thought. It’s responsible for working memory, complex problem solving, decision making, planning and taking action in the world. I think of this as the more masculine energy part of our brain – the more directed, goal driven, action oriented part of our brains.
It’s easy to see that BOTH parts of our brain are important in getting anything done. If we only engaged the DMN, we’d spend all our time daydreaming and never take action on our ideas. When we only engage our CEN, we can often end up on a hamster wheel – running around, spending so much time being busy and taking action that we can completely lose sight of why we’re taking action in the first place.
The challenge is that we live in a world that values directed, logical, goal directed energy more than it values slowing down, seeing the big picture and connecting the dots on seemingly unrelated ideas. Our creativity and our ability to make any kind of meaningful positive change in our lives stems from our ability to tap into the DMN, where we can see possibilities we couldn’t see when we were hyperfocused on taking action.
The second thing I’ve noticed that helps me tap into my creativity is working with my body and its cycles. We live in a world that’s built primarily around linear time – go, go, go all the time! But our body’s energy, particularly as women, isn’t linear. It’s cyclic. Each month during our reproductive years we move through a cycle that mirrors the seasons our Great Mother moves through. The beginning of our cycle has a lot of spring energy and is often a good time to start new things. We may notice that we have a lot more energy and feel a lot more social in the first half of our cycle, similar to the energy of the Earth in spring and summer. It’s a more outward, social, creative energy. In the second half of our cycle, we begin to move inwards, just as the energy of the fall is more of an inward moving energy as the days get shorter, the leaves fall from the trees and the temperature drops. Finally, around the time of our period is like winter, and is meant to be a time of internal focus. Of “coming home” to ourselves and resting. Releasing what no longer serves us, composting it and planting seeds for the next cycle of growth. This is a great time for journaling, reflecting and setting intentions.
I’m now post menopausal and no longer have a monthly cycle. I do track the cycles of the moon but I primarily build my life around the cycles of the Earth. I do make sure that I am building rest into my days, weeks and months as well, but I look to Mama Gaia for the big picture view of how my energy will likely be flowing throughout the year.
As I write this, the summer solstice is a few days away. I’m feeling a burst of creative energy and have written 3 newsletters this week! I can also sense that my body will soon be asking me to move into summer, daydreaming mode. For the past several years, I’ve had a creative burst of energy during the spring – building my website, creating courses, giving talks, writing this newsletter series – they have all been “born” during the spring, when I tend to feel the most creative and have the most energy to invest in my creations. Over the summer, I tend to feel a huge pull towards daydreaming. To put down the computer and spend most of my spare time outside. Moving my body and letting my mind out to play. So much of what has now come into form over the past few years was conceived in the daydreaming/mind wandering of summer.
In the fall, I tend to feel a shift inwards and often use this time to synthesize the ideas I’ve had over the summer and begin to organize them and/or put something tangible out into the world that has kind of a “harvest” energy – where ideas/concepts from spring and summer come together into something tangible that I can put out into the world. Finally, in winter, I am learning to really slow down and allow myself to integrate. I will often spend my evenings in the sweet, dark, quiet night of winter with the light from our tree and the warmth of the fireplace. Journaling. Processing. Integrating. Planting seeds for what I will create in the coming spring. And the cycle continues. I’ve been doing this for the past four years and each year as I deepen into the wisdom of working WITH the cycles of the year, instead of forcing myself to be “on” all the time. In doing so, I’m bringing to life increasingly embodied creations, and learning to have more and more fun in the process!
What about you? What are you being called to create? Does your mind enjoy being given a chance to “go out to play”? In what ways do you notice a change in your energy as you move through your monthly cycle? The cycles of the moon? The seasons of the year?
As this series draws to a close, with next week being the final newsletter in this 13 week series, I encourage you to make time over the summer to slow down and let your mind wander. Set down the phone and let your thoughts out to play. I promise you, it’s worth it.
Sending you so much love sister,
Until next week,
Shana
* I understand that these newsletters and audio messages offered by Dr. Shana Johnston are designed to help me tap into my own inner wisdom and find my own answers. I understand the information presented by Dr. Johnston is based on a combination of her personal experience and current medical knowledge in a constantly evolving field where a variety of different opinions exist. I understand that the ideas and information presented should not act as a substitute for the individualized advice of my qualified and licensed healthcare practitioner. In reading/listening to the material presented, I agree to accept full responsibility for my interpretation of any content I consume, and thereby release Dr. Shana Johnston from any liability related to the information and ideas presented in any of her offerings.