I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way, things I had no words for. This quote from Georgia O'Keeffe starts off our episode today all about the art and science of dealing with ambiguity. Plus why you need passion projects and how to make everyday connections.
Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman, where we explore the power of creativity through neuro aesthetics, art therapy and innovative thinking. I'm Dr. Amy Backos, your hostess and creativity expert, bringing you the art and science of creativity through our conversations and creative insights. I'll provide simple tricks and practices that demystify the creative process so you can live a more authentic and expressive life. Let's get started.
If you're new here, welcome. And if you're a long time listener, welcome back. I am so thankful to have you on this audio creativity journey with me. I am sitting in San Francisco watching it hail, and I'm looking across the bay and seeing that it is blue sky and sunshine over in Oakland. Sometimes that's how it is. It has been an amazing month here at the Modern Creative Woman, and we've been focused on how to build our relationship with our thoughts in a way that allows us the most possible freedom to choose on any given day, how we can feel and what we want to do. Changing our relationship to our thoughts is one really fast, simple way to engage more fully in the present moment and not be swayed so much by emotion, but be pulled by values and what's really important to us.
I want to talk today about three creative actions that you can take to build a different, more loving relationship with your thought and allow you to feel good in whatever is happening. So first, I want to start with how we can apply creativity to ambiguity. Ambiguity is really just the quality of being open to more than one interpretation. Or you might call it an in exactness, and it can tend to make us feel very uncomfortable. Now ambiguity creates wonderful dramatic suspense. If we're watching a film or reading a book, we want to know what happens. It's a real page turner. We get to the end of a chapter and we need to know what happens next.
Now, a vague ending in a series leaves us wanting to stay and watch the next episode, but ambiguity can also bring up a freeze response and lead us to inaction. We can often just get really uncomfortable when we don't know what's going to happen. And it makes sense. We've, as a species, relied on being able to predict the future. We really do like to predict what's going to happen. One of my favorite quotes comes from Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince, and the Little Prince is asking when his friend will arrive and he says, please tell me when you'll be here, and please be on time. I need to know when to be appropriately excited for your arrival.
Certainty gives us a sense of security. However, we all know that there really is not a lot of certainty in life. However, our minds want to convince us that if things go the way we want, everything will be fine. But when we use more of our creative thinking, we can start to become much more comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. We can start to observe our not knowing. As an opportunity to explore more. Think more. Write more. Make art. It allows us to discover other possibilities when we want or need to control a situation so much that we think others are wrong, their beliefs are wrong. What they're saying is wrong, how they're approaching a situation is wrong. That kind of control strategy leads us down a pretty dark path where we are unable to make contact with the present moment and instead were thinking about what it should be. We're in our head, not in our life.
You can begin to change your relationship with ambiguity by starting to recognize everyday ambiguity. We just don't know what traffic will be like now. Most of the time it's fine. We know our routes. We don't know if the lights will be on tomorrow. Most of the time they are, but there is an awful lot of faith and trust that things will be predictable. By calling our attention to what is that we almost don't even notice anymore. We can really increase our gratitude and start to be able to handle ambiguity a little bit more. I think creative women are very willing to embrace the unknown, to feel uncomfortable, take risks while they're pursuing their goals. They look for new insights when things are unclear. A creative mind won't rush to the solution. A creative mind is comfortable with the ambiguity and allowing that space to be there. We don't have to close the door so quickly and make a decision so quickly.
This is a little bit different than when I talk to women who have trouble making decisions. They want to leave that door open forever, not make a choice. I'm talking about leaving the door open long enough to allow ambiguity. A little room to flex and stretch. I've shared this example a lot with my students and inside the membership as well, that I often feel kind of bad when I'm writing. I'll have negative thoughts, I'll have worries about what people might say, and over time I started to tolerate those feelings. Okay, you can just be here, be uncomfortable. I'll keep writing. And eventually I stopped feeling so bad or so worried and so in my head about what I was doing. And through that process, I could make greater contact with the present moment. And of course, I think that improved my writing quite a lot.
f you imagine some things that you've already accomplished that took time and effort and you graduated school or you graduated college, maybe you moved to a new place to canoe job, started a business, took a risk, ended a relationship, started a relationship, decided to take a year off, whatever it is that took some time and effort. Imagine what it was like before you accomplished or decided or took the next step on that instance. How did you feel? You probably felt a little bit of pressure. There might have been some ambiguity. You were ready to move, but then you started thinking of. Maybe some drawbacks of moving, some stress that might happen during the process. Maybe you had a lot of tension that you really wanted to be in a relationship. And there's so much tension and ambiguity not knowing what would happen. If you reflect on your thoughts at that time, you can gain a little peep inside your mind to how you deal with ambiguity. If you just jot down a particular memory and then your thoughts and your feelings leading up to it, you can start to create your own formula for how did you get what you needed? What strategies did you use that worked or didn't work? Did you need to get more information or skills? Did you just need to wind up your courage? Your formula also includes those action steps that you took and how do you feel about your accomplishment now? You probably don't think about it too much anymore, but at the time it could have been pretty stressful.
And if you want to sort your personal formula out a little bit more, taught yourself a note of what advice you would give your past self on dealing with this tension and ambiguity before things became more solidified or certain, or you made a decision. Remember, ambiguity is part of life, and we're really only pretending when we think that everything is certain. Next, I'd like to talk about why you should prioritize your passion projects. Now, of course, creative women are driven by passion and curiosity, and part of that includes pursuing projects that really align with your values, your interests. And maybe they go along with some of your bigger goals, but maybe not. We need to be willing to invest our time and energy and resources into projects that inspire us. And I'm talking about the projects that are really about the process. They're inherently meaningful and rewarding. They're fun. They don't necessarily create a clear path to accomplishing a goal. Talking about things like knitting, baking. Being in nature. Running. Doing calligraphy. Sewing. Journaling.
If you think about three things that you just love to do, they give you a good feeling. You just enjoy them. How do you feel about it? Now, I've always loved knitting, and I've gone through periods of time where I thought, this is so obtuse and I didn't know anyone who knit for a while. And I thought, I wonder if people are judging me. Is this something that I shouldn't be doing? Is this the epitome of uncool and a terrible way to spend my time? No, of course not. Those are my thoughts in my 20s, when I didn't even know any knitters. So at that time I felt a little funny doing it in public. And I would just knit at home. Or maybe at the library. But I love knitting. It gives me time to reflect and contemplate. I love the repetition of it. So what judgments come up for you when you think about your passion projects? Is it frivolous? Not necessary. Is it selfish? Doesn't move you forward? I pad lots of things that I judged myself for doing that were just fun and a big one seemed to be. Am I wasting my time? This isn't getting me anywhere, when in fact those creative or fun interludes. Were exactly what I needed to give me motivation and courage and enthusiasm for the goals that I was pursuing at the time.
Passion projects are necessary. They're important, and they fuel your success at work and in your personal life. If you have some neglected projects, I really want to encourage you to pull them out. Take a cooking class. Pull out your knitting. Get back to what you love. Even 20 minutes a week will help you. You'll start to see that this kind of time well spent. Gives you fuel in incredible ways. And finally, I want to talk about how you can use everyday connections for inspiration. And I think as creative women, we need to actively seek out inspiration from really diverse sources. Of course, I think art is very inspiring, but so is nature and literature and science spirituality. Honestly, everyday experiences can fuel us. 1s I love literature and I still even have occasional thoughts about judgment. Judging myself for the genre that I love to read. I love women authored detective books, I love them. I've always loved them. Since I was reading Trixie Belden as a kid starting in third grade. Does it advance me in my career? Not so much. Does it give me a lot of pleasure? Absolutely. I am always reading a couple books, and one of them at least, is a woman author detective novel.
Now, creative women really stay curious and observant, and we can be constantly on the lookout for new ideas and perspectives that can inform our work. Enrich our lives. I started thinking about how do we kind of figure these out? How do we make. Random moments, a little more special. And again I started thinking about is there a formula that I have that I've relied on, and can we create our own formulas? So if you think about a couple of positive experiences that you've had, maybe in the last year, it could be really small, enjoyable moments or maybe some significant big moments have happened for you. And have a look at two different moments of your life that you really enjoyed and felt good about, and start to generate a list of how these are similar and they might be similar situations, or they might be similar feelings. You had a moment of making contact in the present moment while you are walking in nature, and then you also have a happy memory of talking with a friend. Were you fully made contact with the present moment? And in both of those you felt safe, cared for, supported? You can reflect on the situations, your feelings, your thoughts, your reactions, how present were you? And when you have a look at two diverse examples in your own life, you can start to make connections about your own experiences.
If there is some feeling involved in both of them that you want to recreate, you can recreate that and ask yourself, well, how can I feel connected and supported and loved right now? I can go in nature, I can call my friend, what else can I do? And this is the way that we start to craft our own personal formula for creativity. I want to leave you with an affirmation. I'll give you two. One is I am more and more comfortable with ambiguity. I am more and more comfortable with ambiguity. And when that one seems to work for you, then you can amp it up a little bit and say, I am comfortable with ambiguity. I am safe with ambiguity.
Let me know what you think about all these creative ideas and ways to make contact with the present moment. Have a gentle relationship with your thoughts and move towards that kind of thinking that's open to ambiguity, that embraces your passion projects, lets go of any kind of guilt or judgment about the things that you just really love to do, and finally, start to make your formula for everyday connections that give you pleasure. What kind of enjoyment will you find?
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 Backos. 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.