The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. Gail McMeekin
have to begin again and invent a new route. The flood taught her that life is ever-changing, not stagnant. Experimentation and the openness to try new configurations jump-start our awareness and growth.
When I can no longer create anything, I'll be done for.
—COCO CHANEL, FASHION DESIGNER
Scarf designer Joanne Rossman stimulates her creativity by going on silent retreats for four or five days. Fashion designer Sigrid Olsen enjoys a daily hot soak in the tub: “I love water, so I have a bath ritual, lighting candles, aromatherapy, and everything. And that really relaxes me.” Musician Deborah Henson-Conant uses a timer to help with motivation: “I put the timer on for twenty minutes and I say, ‘Okay, you're not inspired, fine, but you're going to do this for twenty minutes.’ And I discover usually that by the end of twenty minutes, I've found my inspiration.” Carmella Yager carries a paintbrush around the house to prompt her to start painting, and to remind herself of her vocation, which is not housework or chores. Business owner and writer Carol Frenier reads what she has written that day before she goes to bed at night, and frequently gets answers or clarity in her dreams. While she is writing she also restricts her reading to books not on her topic. When she wrote Business and the Feminine Principle, for example, she read only novels.
All of these rituals encourage the deepening of your creative potential by anchoring it in daily life. Cathleen Rountree goes one step further when she says, “The creative process is like a lover, and you must treat it as such. You must treat it with respect, with regard, with appreciation, with love, with joy, with gratitude, with fear, with all the complexities of a relationship. And if you are able to give of yourself in the way that it requires, it really becomes a relationship.” This bonding with your creative self entails acknowledgment and the honoring of its wisdom.
Challenge: CREATIVE STYLE INVENTORY
Chronicle the specifics of your own creative style as it unfolds or takes a new twist. Write down ideas or compose a song or invoke another creative tradition to answer the following questions for yourself:
1 When did your creative awakening or reawakening occur?
2 What talents do you have, naturally?
3 Which elements (fire, water, wood, air) draw you toward them?
4 Where and when do you create? Where and when do you wish to create?
5 What activates your creative energy, and what drains it?
6 Do you use creative rituals? Which ones? If not, invent some.
7 Does nature influence your creativity? How?
8 What has been your greatest creative hurdle so far?
9 What time of day are you most receptive to inspiration?
Take note of your insights from these inquiries that illuminating your personal approach, and begin to redesign your life in a way that will maximize your creative potential.
SECRET 3
Following Your Fascinations
It takes courage to follow your fascinations, wherever they may lead. Yet, creativity demands that you trust and stay on the path despite obstacles. The good news is that it's possible.
Taking Courageous Risks
Intuiting New Pathways
Developing Staying Power
Heeding Your Heart
If you can put fear aside, you're unstoppable.
—JANET HAGBERG, WRITER AND ACTIVIST
It's one thing to have an idea, but it's quite another to trust your idea and follow where it leads. Following your fascinations means taking risks and venturing out from the safe harbor to the open seas. In fact, according to Betsy Morscher and Barbara Schindler Jones, authors of Risk-Taking for Women, the original meaning of risk from the Greek is “to sail around a cliff.” All of the women profiled in this book dared to pursue their inspirations into uncharted waters and have useful advice on the topic.
Taking Courageous Risks
There are two kinds of risks: impulsive risks and calculated risks. Impulsive risks unfold in the spur of the moment, unplanned. Often our intuition urges us to try something new and different. A few years ago I impulsively bought a handpainted table, which I enjoy every day. This table has also inspired me to try painting tables myself. No harm done. Often we get creative impulses to throw sand in a painting, print out a story on purple paper, or design a dress out of scarves. These spontaneous risks are part of the innovation process. Yet, sometimes impulsive risks, like being too candid with a client, teaming up with a business partner you hardly know, or taking on an acting role that doesn't suit you, can backfire. The old expression “Look before you leap” has some intelligence to it. Each of us has to learn our own balance between being carefree and careless. As women, many of us have been taught to be too cautious, too nice, and to play it too safe. That overly conservative style may inhibit the emergence of your creative self. To be truly creative, you must be willing to try and fail, and then get over it. You do, however, need to be able to determine which impulsive risks could be dangerous to your wellbeing, so you can make wise choices.
On the other hand, calculated risks are planned out and strategic, selected with forethought and preparation. A calculated risk might be taking a trip to Santa Barbara to see if you really want to live there. Part of the process would include a plan to check out employment/business opportunities in your line of work, meetings with a few realtors to learn about housing prices, and driving around and talking with people to learn more about the pros and cons of the city. Calculated risks propel us forward in a positive manner.
A calculated risk unlocked the potential of stress management consultant and humorist Loretta LaRoche. Divorced in her late thirties, Loretta followed her inner attraction for exercise and dance in her personal post-divorce quest to “go from dumpy to divine.”
And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
—ERICA JONG, WRITER
A single mother with three children, her first job was at a fitness center that hired her to teach people how to put exercise to music, which they thought was extremely cutting-edge. She hung on for a year but couldn't handle the meetings, sexism, and politicking of it all. So she took a risk: “I decided to send some invitations to people I knew to join me in an exercise/dance class at a local Elks Hall. And the only way I could afford to do it was to use a monthly support check from my ex-husband to rent the hall and just pray on bended knee that someone would pay and show up. Seventy-five women came. That was the beginning of my entrepreneurial career.”
Loretta's story is a good example of a planned risk—she didn't hawk everything she owned, she used a specific amount of money. As her business grew, Loretta went on to score investors, open her own fitness center, and add stress and wellness classes to the mix. A nurse colleague of hers encouraged her to risk further and do a daylong stress program using humor. Loretta said to her, “You've got to be crazy—a whole day? What the heck am I going to do? Yeah—I'm funny, but this is a whole other thing.” Loretta always had the gift of humor, but her friend encouraged her to blend humor and its healing properties. So Loretta created what she called “a day in a kindergarten class,” complete with coloring, musical chairs, and research on humor. People kept calling and asking for more.
As she worked with the combination, Loretta realized that stressed people often distort reality, and her humor highlights these distortions. By valuing her observations, Loretta developed a unique approach of teaching her audiences cognitive restructuring—how to change our negative thinking habits. Laughter is a great