The birth of creativity came when humankind got fire. Or so the legend goes about Prometheus, who stole the lightning bolt from Zeus and gave it to humankind. Today we are talking all about creation, creativity, and what it means to be a creator.
Welcome to the modern creative woman. Explain the art and science of creativity. This is the podcast for women who want to elevate their creativity and start applying creative thinking in their everyday lives. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Doctor Amy Backos. I'm a licensed psychologist and a registered and board certified art therapist with almost three decades helping women live their authentic lives at the Modern Creative Woman, we are obsessed with helping you build your creativity and self leadership. Through her conversations and creative insights, I'll provide simple tricks and practices that will help take the mystery out of the creative process so you can start each day feeling empowered, creative, and ready to take on whatever comes your way. Let's get started!
Have you heard about the new Art Therapist Barbie doll? I am personally so excited, and the big reason that it really makes me so happy is how I came to art therapy was just a happenstance. There was so little written about it that I had access to when I was in high school and a psychology teacher. I was in summer school, watched me draw in my notes the whole summer, and as she walked by me one day, she said, have you ever heard of art therapy? Maybe you should look into it. Just a comment that she dropped. And as soon as I heard it, I thought, oh, that's the profession for me. I was really going back and forth with what I might study. I thought for sure I could study English and I could study art. I was getting really curious about psychology and thinking that that could pull things together. But then Art Therapy! I was so excited.
I saw the Barbie doll. Someone forwarded it to me on Instagram and I immediately went out and bought it. I read the back and it described the profession. I thought they did a pretty good job describing what an art therapist is. And then it said, if you like making art and you like helping people, you could be an art therapist too. And it made me so happy. I just burst into tears that now people will know what art therapy is in a different way. Still, so many people when I say I'm an art therapist, say a heart therapist. Oh, do you work at UCSF hospital? And I say no, and I explain what art therapy is. It seems we have a, um. Bit of a name recognition problem, and I think maybe even it is a bit of a misnomer, because it is so much more than just used in a hospital or a rehabilitation center or a school, or therapy works incredibly well for people who are exploring wellness, who want to use their mind in a different way, who want to expand the way they think.
And creativity in itself is a really powerful tool that often gets ignored and neglected. However, here at The Modern Creative Woman, we know that creativity is an incredible art and science that allows us to focus on what's most important to us and use the creative process to see many, many options. It also anchors us in the present moment in an incredibly powerful way. And there's decades of research on the concept of flow, which emerges in the process of making art. I went and saw Prometheus, performed by the San Francisco Symphony this weekend, and it got me really curious about how the Greeks described creativity, and they described creativity as something that poets do because they're making something out of nothing. And they would describe a painter as not making something out of nothing, but rather imitating what the painter saw in nature or looking at a person. And so they had a very limited view of what could be art, that poetry was the only true art. So that sounds like propaganda from a poet. They also talked about the idea that there are laws around creativity that come from nature, and they thought of nature is perfect and really subject to these laws. So an artist can discover or the laws of nature and then start to submit to them, essentially not looking for freedom of expression, but rather discovering what the rules are about beauty and aesthetics. And so now we have a much more nuanced definition of creativity. And the idea that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder has been demonstrated over and over again, especially in the field of neuro aesthetics. What stimulates one person's brain might not please another person.
So today, I want to talk really specifically about how we can create essentially something out of nothing. We create things out of our mind when we are. Making art. When we are knitting, we make a sweater out of string. We make a painting out of some pigments. The idea of creating something out of nothing is a really powerful, compelling way to think about creativity. Let's talk about the concept of creating something out of nothing in the domain of change. How do we change? What are the mechanisms of change in your life? Things come along in our life and we start to evolve and change. It's natural we are not the same person at 16 as we are at 60.
Defining change is an action or an instance of making. Sounds like creativity, huh? It's becoming different. It could also be replacing something with something else that's new and better. That sounds like personal growth. It can also be substituting one thing for another. And that makes me think of doing little experiments in our life, just trying something new. It could be choosing what you want your tomorrow to look like, selecting your future very consciously creating it out of your mind. It also fits very well with psychology that things aren't just happening to us, we are observing. We are the context of our lives. In acceptance and commitment therapy, we talk about acting consciously and choosing actions that are in line with our values that move us towards a value based life, one that's uniquely about your values and what's important to you.
I started thinking about all the ways that we could describe creativity building, actualizing, magic, miracles, manifesting, blessing, externalizing. The idea of creating and change can be looked at in a variety of different ways. In particular, in psychology, we talk about externalizing our emotions and in our therapy, it's about taking our inner experience and putting something on the outside that reflects our inner experience. It's never exactly our inner experience. But make a painting about my emotions. You're not experiencing my emotions. I am externalizing them. It's not the same thing. The painting is a representation. Psychology is also talked about moments of insight, the aha moments. And this goes back 100 years and thinking about what Freud has written. The aha moment is insight. It doesn't mean it's change, it's just insight. But once we have this insight, change becomes possible. In the more positive psychology of things, there is post-traumatic growth. 1s That after traumatic experiences, when we're able to successfully navigate those emotions, we can experience a new way of thinking, feeling, and appreciate ourselves and learn from what we've gone through. Cognitive behavioral therapy would talk about behavioral expression in Act. We would talk about value based behavior. This is a phrase I love. It's a very behavioral way of describing the little by little steps we make towards change, successive approximation towards the goal. I love that successive approximation towards the goal. At a hospital, we might define change as someone no longer meeting diagnostic criteria that their symptoms have lowered such that they no longer have a diagnosis or their diagnosis is being managed.
Now, creating something that is not just. Thinking positive thoughts about life, or we can't make things happen by thinking of them. That's an illusion from childhood. Magical thinking to believe that we cause external events just from a thought creation and change doesn't mean it comes only from meditating on something. It's just not a one dimensional concept. It's not just wishing or thinking or imagining. Creating isn't just thinking about our emotions. Creating is putting them down somewhere in dance, in poetry, painting, clay, knitting. It really requires clarity, some focused attention, a daily commitment. Certainly it requires action and patience. Creation is slow, takes time, and it takes our persistence. And we think about creating from nothing. Now we can create little literal objects knitting, drawing, painting, clay, a delicious meal, a batch of cookies we can also create in words. We can create a feeling of kindness by speaking with kindness. We can write. We can make money. We can fall in love. We can meditate. We can pray. Those are all creating a state from our words, our focused attention. And of course, we can cultivate joy. We can create a feeling of happiness for no reason. And that comes from making meaning, acting on our purpose, learning to love our bodies.
What is your favorite way to create art? Kindness. Falling in love. Meditating. Creating joy and happiness. Now we can also create something that we don't like out of nothing. We can complain or gossip. We can use really unkind words. We can yell. Sometimes people create things they don't like by focusing only on the external and ignoring the needs of their inner life, people can create uncomfortable feelings in themselves and others. By judging blaming others, we can create sad feelings by calling up sad memories. We create ill health. By not moving. We can believe that someone else will fix our problems. And so we don't take action and we create stuckness. I have five steps about creating that. I've identified from thinking about art therapy and creativity, and reading the literature about how we change.
The first step is to be conscious and admit what it is that we want to create. We might want to create a happy home or a painting. We might want to create something that our family might not approve of, or we imagine our family might not approve of. But being consciously aware of our desires and really admitting to ourselves what we want is the first step doesn't mean you have to go for it, but it's being conscious and admitting what we want.
The second step is deciding and really committing. We have to end our uncertainty and confusion and make a decision about what we want to do in this part of the process. I like to focus on values and their unique and personal for everyone. What's most important to you might not be what's most important to me, it's just deciding what's most important. Is it your health, your family? Your creative process? Your work? Your spirituality? There's no right or wrong. It's just what you decide.
The third step is about getting ready for action and taking action. All of the research suggests that we have to be prepared to take action, that many people fail to have success because they don't prepare, and preparation could mean a lot of different things. It could be meditating on what it is that you want and how you want to do it. It could be making lists or a business plan, and it could also be reflecting on why it is that you want to change. Once we get started, we can move to the next step. But the point is we have to start. We have to start before we're ready. If you have jumped into a relationship, you weren't necessarily ready. If you got married or had a child or took a new job or moved across the country. My guess is you weren't really perfectly ready. You decided it was the best move with the information that you had and the feelings that you had. So once we start, it requires some flexibility.
So the fourth step is really about recalibration and persistence. The idea of recalibrating means that we're willing to evaluate the choice and be flexible in how we reach our goals. Once we've decided what we want, we can use creativity to choose from one of the probably thousands of paths that we could use to get there. Persistence means moving through the valley of despair and into informed optimism. Inside the membership I teach a lot about the emotional stages of change and how to persist when we reach that valley of despair on change. And the first step is really reflection and celebration. So reflecting on what we've accomplished, it really helps to keep a journal to document what we're doing and also to celebrate each step of the way. All the research and all the people I know who are successful, they just celebrate.
In the process of creation, we will no doubt experience ambivalence and fear. Being able to tolerate ambivalence and move towards your values anyway is what allows us to succeed. When we get stuck, when we move into that valley of despair, when we're trying to change, it's essential that we've identified our values. Why is this important to me? Why am I registered in school? Why did I move across the country? Why did I decide to make this big leap in a relationship? Why does this matter? When things get hard, your values make it clear why you're doing what you're doing. Another really important aspect of ambivalence and fear is considering your relationship to yourself and others. And it's being realistic. There will be sacrifice when you decide you want to make a change, or you want to make a artistic process. If I'm painting, it takes a lot of time and I can feel really upset at my painting. Sometimes I will get really irritated that it's not coming out the way I want. And then I remember, oh yeah, this is gonna come out how it comes out. I'm just going to keep painting. And it's a great lesson in learning to manage frustration.
So being able to deal with your own ambivalence like, I want this, I don't want this, I want to go to graduate school, but I don't want to sacrifice my income. And all this time that's okay as normal. And we choose which one we're willing to sacrifice so we can sacrifice going to school, or we can sacrifice the time and money it takes to go to school. It's essential that we're realistic about it, and it will give us the fuel we need to kind of look forward and make sure that we're moving towards our values. Using your creativity to celebrate. It makes it so much more fun. So first, why celebrate? The research shows that moments of celebration really make us pause and be mindful, and this in turn boosts our wellbeing. Celebrating is good for us. The research also shows that when we stop and savor the good stuff. We are essentially creating a buffer, and it's like buffering ourselves against negative or unwanted experiences, internal or external, and it helps us build resilience. So if you want to move forward with more resilience, to be able to handle whatever life throws your way, really being creative in your celebrations is one way to do that. There's also research showing that mini celebrations can pump up our positive emotions, and having a more positive mindset makes it easier for us to manage daily challenges that ultimately can cause a lot of built up stress. So a mini celebration of your life every morning is worth the two seconds it takes to cheers yourself. To just say thank you to take your coffee outside for a moment.
There are a lot of things that I've heard and even said in the past that are real celebration stoppers. Have you ever heard got a work before you come play or eat your dinner before your dessert? When we ask what's next and we move right on to the next thing without stopping and acknowledging what we've accomplished so far, that's a real downer for a positive moods. I've heard people say I'll sleep when I'm dead, as if they just had to keep going. I've heard people tell me, just be grateful for what you have. It's a way to stop being ambitious and looking forward. Don't do too much. Don't be too much. And perhaps you've heard some variation of people saying, well, who do you think you are? So now I want to talk about creativity in actual celebration. First it's just noticing what is going well. Pause right now and answer that question what is going well in your life? It's really important that we keep wanting and desiring and appreciating the things that we have that are going well. What do you like? What have you achieved? The next way to celebrate is to move out of routine, to get out of your autopilot, to just go on pause, do something somewhere else. And Dissanayake talks about making special. Choosing things to feel and experience specialness, and she writes about costume as making special, special food. We have birthday cake in my house on birthdays. Just say idea. It's different than another day by what we wear, what we eat, where we go. And another way that you can celebrate very simply, is to just commemorate each moment. You can light a candle for your coffee in the morning. I like to do that. You can sing a song. Cook yourself a special meal. High five yourself in the mirror. You can smile because you smile now you can be celebrating whatever is happen.
Now there is preponderance of research about celebration that includes gratitude. It gives us better sleep, better immunity. Gratitude gives us higher self-esteem. It can decrease our stress, of course, but it also lowers blood pressure and it can lower anxiety and depression symptoms. Gratitude strengthens our relationships and increases optimism and optimism and hope. Is it the opposite end of depression? It's really protecting and buffering ourselves against a low mood. If you are interested in building your gratitude, you can download the 21 Day Gratitude Journal from the Modern Creative Woman website. If you sign up for the monthly digital newsletter, I'll send you a link to the Gratitude Journal as well. It's really important practice to have appreciation in gratitude on a daily basis. So what are you going to celebrate today? It really matters that you take a time to celebrate every single day. There's no need to wait. And I have one more piece that I want to share with you. And if you're inside the membership, you're already familiar with this. And this is how we make successful change using creativity. And there is a five part formula that I've pulled together from the research. One is write it down. There's some amazing studies showing that people who write down their goals and dreams are more likely to achieve them 70%, more likely just by writing them down. Next, you can pair your habits. I think of them as habit friends. When you brush your teeth, you could also high-five yourself in the mirror like Mel Robbins does.
When you have your coffee, you could do your gratitudes, so you start building in your new habits along with your existing habits. If you're trying to find time to draw and paint, add it to something that you already do next location, location, location. And I learned about this when I was getting my doctorate. State dependent learning. If you study in a certain way and you take the test in that same certain way, you're more likely to have increased recall. So, for example, if the test is written in pen, then you would want to study and take notes in pen. If the test is on the computer you could study and read on the computer. You can do this as well for yourself. Relaxation. Maybe every time you enter the kitchen you take a deep breath. Stand tall. Ah, the kitchen becomes a relaxing place. Next pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. Add something enjoyable and fun as we're trying to create new habits, or we are trying to embark on some new creative endeavor a new painting, a business project. If we pair it with something enjoyable, we're more likely to stick with it. It's sort of the idea of like giving a child and Eminem every time they do something that's closer to the goal, we can do it. It works on us as well. And finally, keep in mind, slow and steady, little by little we make progress. 20 minutes. Is just 1% of your day. Surely you can find 20 minutes to make the change.
I want to encourage you to think about creativity broadly. It's creative thinking. It's creative expression. It's creating your environment, your mindset. Creating your meal. Your outfit. A doodle on your paper. Think about how you can move towards change in a way that feels positive and interesting, and includes celebration for what you've accomplished. Do you celebrate this week and let me know what you're celebrating? You can find me on Instagram and you can DM me there. I'll see you in the next episode. Have a wonderful rest of your week! Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out when some men and I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level and want you to know you have options inside the membership, and if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call.
My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Backus. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Creative women.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.