Cracking the Creativity Code with The Artists Way

Have you ever felt shackled by your own beliefs, unable to tap into your innate creativity? It's time to break those boundaries. This episode sheds light on my personal journey of unlocking creativity through an enlightening tool, the book 'The Artist's Way'. It was key to my transformation, helping me shatter limiting beliefs and delve deep into my creative capabilities.

This episode isn't just about my story; it's an invitation for you to explore your creative potential. Walk with me through 'The Artist's Way' and let's unlock the magic within.

Find your creativity with The Artists Way

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Receptive Impact Podcast. I'm your host, nina Elise. Hello and welcome back to the Receptive Impact Podcast. I am sitting here late in the afternoon on a Tuesday and I have been having one of those entrepreneur days If anyone is an entrepreneur, they know what I'm talking about where you wake up and you're like wait, what am I supposed to work on today? And you're just not feeling super motivated and you're kind of just puttering around and you might take a nap or you might eat and just distract yourself and you're not feeling super creative. And it's made me really reflect back on the days that I did feel really creative and where I felt super in flow. And this is what I really want to dive into in this episode today is creativity and, more specifically, a tool or a book that I have used. I've actually gone through I'm on my second time around going through this book and it's helped me so much in tapping into my own creativity.

Speaker 1: 1:03

And so my intention at the beginning of 2023 was to be able to play more and to tap more into my creativity. And the reasoning behind this was because I felt like I had a lot of limiting belief systems about how I viewed myself and what I was capable of, and you know, I grew up my mother's an artist. I have so many friends that are like these incredible artists and I'm just like how can they do that? How can they paint, how can they draw, how can they create all of these like funny, creative cartoons? And it just has always blown my mind how it seems so natural for them and I'm like, wow, I paint something and it looks like a blob or I just I judge myself for it and I'm like I don't. I don't really feel like I'm creative, and that was a belief system that I had about myself and I really wanted to change that, and so the way that I decided to go about this was to go through a book called the Artist's Way.

Speaker 1: 2:01

So if anyone is familiar with this, it's basically a 12 week. I don't want to call it a course, it's a book, but it's something that you go through for 12 weeks and every week is a different chapter and there are different journal prompts and different things for you to read that touch on different topics about limiting beliefs around finances and creativity and abundance, and just things that you can look at within yourself about. Do I have grace for myself, do I have compassion towards myself and why do I have these blocks to my creativity? And so this book is so incredible for not just the artist who has, or musician or whatever who has has, some sort of block at the moment, it's literally for anyone. And I feel like every single person should read this at least once in their lifetime because it is so incredibly eye-opening and it takes you to like the depths of your soul and helps you look at all of these like forgotten parts of yourself and you get to dive into like why you view yourself the way that you do or where your blocks may be hidden, and it's just incredibly enlightening. And so I really want to go into this book and how it's really helped me and how I feel like it has helped me open up more in my own creativity and tap into that and remove a lot of my own belief systems.

Speaker 1: 3:29

And, like I said at the beginning, I've actually I'm going through the book twice. I went through it earlier this year and I'm going through it a second time, but I'm kind of going at my own pace and doing it in a different way. But basically this is a 12-week course and every morning you get up before you do anything else and you write three pages of just free handwriting. And the book provides journal prompts, based on each chapter and what the theme is for each chapter, of what you're diving into and what limiting beliefs might be blocking you from your creativity. And it's something that, like, is best done in the morning because your mind is fresh, you're not filling it with anything yet, and so you do this before you even look in your phone.

Speaker 1: 4:12

And for anyone who's like, oh my gosh, I can't commit to writing three pages every single morning, like there are mornings I would get up and I only had time to write for like five or 10 or 15 minutes. There are days where I have literally just sat there and written for like two hours, and I'm not kidding when I say that, because sometimes things come up and you're just sitting there in shock like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that I have this limiting belief about myself, and it just is constantly blowing your mind and lifting up all of these veils that you had that were preventing you from tapping into this innate talent and creativity within yourself that is so unique to you, and this is why I am such a big advocate of this book, the Artist's Way, because it is like almost like the spiritual experience of being able to connect more deeply with yourself and you get to be more honest about who you are and where you're at and your identity and how that is in relation to your creativity and your career, and why you do certain things and why you don't do other things, and it taps into like the inner child you and you get to explore like, oh, these are things I did when I was younger and these are things that I really admire and other people, and this is why I support this type of person, because I could never do that when, in reality, it's actually the suppressed artist inside of you that can do it. It just doesn't believe that it can, and so it is like so mind blowing and it's like these shifts that happen over the course of the 12 weeks that really open your eyes up to different ways of living and creating and just being, and so this was something that I was super excited to dive into, that I really, really committed to, and when I say, wake up every single morning and do it like this is the first thing you do in the morning. If anyone knows me, you know that I definitely played around with this and experimented with, like what if I didn't do this in the morning? I tried to do this at night and it's similar in the sense that like, yeah, you can write and you can go deep, but it's just not as fresh as if you were to do it in the morning. I just found that I was more likely to do it when I first got up in the morning and I was more motivated to do it then.

Speaker 1: 6:26

I definitely do this type of writing if I'm feeling blocked or stuck or I have like some sort of emotional wave that I'm not able to process or I'm feeling like, oh, this is coming up for me but I don't really know what it means, and then I just start writing it out, and I just write it all out and it's just like the answer just appears to me and it's so incredibly magical. Just to kind of give you guys a little bit of a background, like I said, I never really saw myself as this creative person and I know people have told me like, oh, you're so creative, nina, and I feel like that's something that I have really tapped into, more so this year because I just started doing things. I just started doing things and I removed the judgment from them, and partially that is because I'm just a very tenacious person. I'm very determined. If I set my mind to do something, I'm going to do it.

Speaker 1: 7:15

But the artist's way was this guidebook that really prompted me to say, ok, like what is something new you're going to do today? Ok, go buy some paint brushes, go paint, go do this. And so it really prompted me to go out and try different things or do different things that I was like scared to do, because I was like, oh well, this is a waste of my time, this is a waste of my money because I'm going to paint something and it's going to look stupid and what am I going to do with this? So there were a lot of doubts and fears and was very cynical towards a lot of what was presented in the book. But I did it anyways and I was just so incredibly pleasantly surprised by what came out of me and the way that I painted and the way that I was able to do branding, like I did my own branding for my website with my human design business, and just feeling like, wow, this is so cool, like I actually have access to this and I was the only one that was blocking there, and so there were just so many limiting beliefs that I wasn't aware of, and I think a large part of that is I was just comparing myself to everyone and being like, well, they're a natural, or they went to school for this and yeah, maybe they did and they have the technical skill of it.

Speaker 1: 8:25

But, quite honestly, the more that I really tap into creativity and I say that not just from like, oh, as an artist painting or drawing, I'm saying as a musician, when I'm writing my songs on my guitar and I'm singing, and when I'm creating things for my human design clients, for new courses or new meditations or anything like that like there's creativity that's in everything that I'm doing and it's showing me that sometimes I actually I would say most of the time it's so much more refreshing to actually not have that technical background, because you come at whatever you're creating with this pure innocence that's not tainted by oh, this is how it needs to be done, or this is the exact way it needs to be done, and you're coming from a place of purity and a pure creativity and I'm finding that that is actually like so much more beautiful. Sometimes when you really look at it from that perspective, it's much more unique. Instead of trying to be like, oh, I'm going to play the guitar with this technique, it's like, oh, I'm just allowing what's coming up to come up and I'm going to do something that's different, and I don't even realize that it's different. And so that's what I really love about the for anyone who is exploring their creativity, because I feel like there's so much uniqueness that can be birthed into the world when someone is approaching it as, like a newbie or someone who is fresh, that hasn't been conditioned by these rules or the technicalities of how to do things, and so that's something that I kind of learned, like near the tail end of like going through this course with the artist way, and it actually removed a lot of pressure for me to go and try new and different things.

Speaker 1: 10:12

So this book like really taught me that I can actually listen and trust my thoughts and these ideas that are popping into my mind, and I've always been like a very visual person. Like sometimes I'll just get these visuals that just pop into my mind about an idea and I don't necessarily do anything with it, but I've always kind of written it off and I'm like, oh, what do I do with this? Or it'll take too much energy to try to create this or whatever. But after going through this course, I'm learning that this is actually a really strong gift for me to have these visuals in my mind, and that these are actually downloads coming from a source, or God, or the creative field, or the quantum field or whatever you want to call it. And it's up to me if I want to do something with them or not. And I think that's really incredible because when I look at it from that perspective, I'm like I can actually create so much stuff. I can actually be tapped into, you know, these ideas and these thoughts and actually do something with them.

Speaker 1: 11:07

And Going through this course it helped strengthen that confidence and that belief in myself of like, wow, this might actually be something of value. And what if I played with this? And yeah, I might like quote unquote fail or do something that looks stupid or like doesn't look like anything else, but that is just the part of learning anything or doing anything. So I think that's just a typical process, and if you can get past that and let go of the judgments of all of that, then you'll actually be creating some pretty incredible things, even if that voice in the back of your head is like this is so weird, like who does this? But most often, it is your weirdness and your uniqueness that the world just adores and loves.

Speaker 1: 11:49

And so this book really encourages you to try different things, and that's what I really loved about it, because they're like, again, things that you don't really think about, like cooking or painting or drawing, or even putting together a social media post or a video or writing poetry, and I think this is what I think a lot of people get caught up on. They're like oh, I create something and I need to share it. Like there are so many things that I have created that I have not shared with anyone and I will most likely never share with anyone, because they're stupid or they're ugly or they're actually really amazing, but they feel really sacred and personal to me, and so I don't feel the need to share those thoughts or I don't feel the need to share that art, but again, it's more of like going into and being willing to create those things and allowing what is coming up to come up, because everyone has access to this, and it was something that I was seeing so many people like be so creative, and I'm like how is that fair that they can have constant access to this? And, honestly, it wasn't until I did a three day Vipassana where I spent three days in silence, and after I did that it was almost like the floodgates opened even more for me and I just had these massive downloads about oh my gosh, I have access to my creativity, to this infinite field at any time. And it's just my resistance to it and my lack of belief that I actually have access to it and it's this old belief system of me wanting to stay safe and wanting to stay in this comfortable place of not tapping into that creativity because there's a fear of my identity changing or something shifting or changing if I actually act on these creative urges and I actually do something with them. Like, I was able to explore a lot of these limiting beliefs that were coming up, especially when I was in that three day Vipassana, so that by the time I came out of that, it was just like wow, there was such a clear channel for me and it became so clear to me that, like wow, everyone really, really does have access to their creativity at all times.

Speaker 1: 13:52

So once you get past these traumas and these old belief systems and these learning belief systems and blocks that you have towards creativity or you know within yourself, and then once you start to clear out the clutter of consuming content and it doesn't matter if you're listening to a podcast or a book and you're like, well, I'm learning and whatever, that's still something that's external and outside of you, that's preventing you from connecting to yourself and tapping into your own creativity. So I would say like stillness is so, so huge for being able to tap into your creativity and getting still and getting quiet, because if you have all this external, outside noise, you're never going to be able to tap into and hear what is going on inside of you. That was something that, going through the artist's way, really, really helped. And there's something that I've been doing, actually, that has been really helpful in like clearing belief systems and things like that.

Speaker 1: 14:43

So like as I write in the morning and say like something comes up and I say I'm going through the chapter on abundance and saying like, oh, what are my actual belief systems towards money or prosperity, or, you know, being able to receive things, and as I'm like free writing all of this. It's kind of like it gives you a prompt in the book and then you write it out right away without actually really thinking about it too much. And then you go back and read it and you're like, oh my gosh, wow, I have these like really negative or like lower vibrational thoughts or belief systems surrounding prosperity or pleasure or receiving, and it's really mind blowing to look at it from that perspective. And so when you go through all of that, it basically shows you a map that gives you this contrast of like wow, this isn't where I want to be. So it provides that contrast of like okay, I had these unconscious belief system that I wasn't aware of, but now I'm aware of them, so what am I going to do with this?

Speaker 1: 15:35

And what I really love about the artist's way is when you journal in the morning and you write down all of these things, at the end you can go back and skim through what you wrote and then you write basically the opposite of whatever, like negative things that you wrote. So, for example, like there are mornings where I've been in an emotional low and I'm just sitting there and I'm like, wow, like I suck and I failed at this and I failed at this in the past and I screwed everything up and like I hate myself and I'm like so angry that I did this and I hurt this person and I will always feel regret about this. And there's so much shame about this and, like you know, just like some of those days where you just dump everything and you're like this is so terrible, but you just get it out and then after that, the exercise with the artist's way is to write affirmations that counteract that. So basically, there's this rewiring that's happening in here. So there's a very psychological component to doing this. It's like you're becoming aware of these subconscious belief systems. So they're out in the open and you know about them, and so, instead of continuing to live from that place, you can begin to start to turn the tides into something more positive. So it provides that contrast of like, instead of sitting there in that unconscious, it's conscious and now you can shift it to something that you do want.

Speaker 1: 16:48

For example, if I said like oh, I failed at this and like I suck, or whatever, I would write out my affirmation as like I am constantly learning and it is safe and okay for me to do things that aren't 100% correct, because I'm learning and growing, or I give myself grace and compassion as I am learning and growing. So you're kind of just putting a spin on that and you are giving yourself grace for what our mind would attach to like something as failing and saying no, I'm actually not failing, this is something that I've learned from, and I'm going to give myself grace for this, and then I'm going to move forward with the lessons, and so you can kind of reframe all of these things and rewrite them in different ways, and the book gives you different prompts as well that will help guide you with all of that. And so this has been incredibly helpful, not just for that. But I've actually added a little bit of my own twist to this. Like when a lot of my unconscious belief systems are coming up to the surface and I'm writing about them, I'll finish writing and I'll do my affirmations and then, based on that, I will do EFT tapping. So, for example, like a belief system will come up and I'll be like, oh my gosh, I have this really intense fear of rejection or abandonment or fear of being seen, and I will do EFT tapping on it.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Normally I do it on my own If I want a little support. I'll just go onto YouTube and look for a tapping video that I can do alongside of that, but since it's so unique to like what I'm journaling about, I will just do it in that moment, and so for me, that's like a huge component of becoming aware of the unconscious belief and then rewiring it even more in that moment as it is coming up, and so there are a lot of different ways that you can work with this from, like a subconscious and a belief perspective, and it has just completely catapulted me and my creativity and the way that I approach things in the way that like my own self inner dialogue about creativity and the way that I do things. And so, for example, this year I created oh my gosh, I don't even know how many new videos for my YouTube channel, and it was like I had so many ideas and it was less about like, oh, this is going to suck, and it was more like no, I actually deeply value myself now because I looked at those limiting belief systems that I had surrounding self value and self worth, and I'm going after and doing things anyways, even though I have these conflicting thoughts or belief systems, and so it's been incredibly empowering for me to tap into that, and so this is something that has really pushed me. The artist way has really pushed me to really get out of my comfort zone and to do things differently and to look at creativity in a much different light. Because, again, it's not just like, oh, I'm a singer, songwriter and I'm a painter, or whatever.

Speaker 1: 19:42

Like no creativity is like can be infused in everything, like it can be in dancing and like, even when I took my improv class this year, if you want to take an acting class, or if you want to write a book, or you want to write poetry, or just like even cooking or baking, something like you're infusing your creativity into whatever it is that you are making. And it could be even as simple as like gardening and how you're arranging your garden and the types of flowers that you're putting in there, or even if you buy a bunch of flowers and how you arrange them in the pot, like there are so many different ways that you can be creative. And we don't look at it from that perspective and we're just like oh, you know, we kind of downplay it and we're like oh, no, this is just something that I like and it's like well, that's where your creativity stems from. It stems from those thoughts about creating something beautiful or creating something different or unique that comes just from you. And so I really again just want to hammer in how incredible the artist way has been for me and how I actually have a bunch of friends that have actually gone through this quite a few times that I wasn't even aware of and it has, like, changed their lives completely. And I'm still continuing to go through this, and this is something that I will do forever, especially when I'm having blocks, because, honestly, like it's one of those things where you have all of these things that live and reside within you and you don't even realize it, and then some catastrophe comes into our life and we're like sabotaging ourselves, or we have a block or whatever, and we don't even realize it's there. And so when you write everything out in your morning pages, this is where things start to come out. This is where the truth starts to come out about why you're sabotaging yourself and why these things happen, and you get to be very radically honest with yourself. And I also want to add in the fact, like there are going to be days where you don't want to do it. Those are the days that I highly recommend doing it, because that is like when the resistance comes up, it normally means there's something big that is wanting to come to the surface to be looked at, and it can feel very uncomfortable, and so it's not just like, oh, I'm going to write for a day or two and I'm going to have everything solved. I'm going to feel creative again.

Speaker 1: 21:55

This is a 12 week course that you commit to. It's in a book and I have this huge notebook that I write and fill up three pages almost every single day. Now that I'm going through my second time around, I probably do my pages like four to six times a week, depending on, like you know, what my time schedule is or, intuitively, what I feel like doing. Sometimes I just want to meditate in the morning and that's all I have time for, and that's totally fine. So, again, this is a 12 week course, and so it's going to be like starting an old engine up, kind of. So you want to give yourself a week or a couple of weeks, or even the first month, to just write, and a lot of it is just knocking the rust off of, off of something and just allowing things to eventually come up, and so that's what I really love about this, and the book talks about how.

Speaker 1: 22:43

So Julia Cameron she's the author she talks about how you can put these pages in an envelope and never look at them ever again. You can burn them, you can shred them, you can do whatever you want. Basically, it's just you're getting everything out of the mind and becoming conscious of what's blocking you or limiting you within yourself, and so you don't have to show these to anybody. I will never show my notes to anybody, and I have probably like three or four huge journals that I will most likely just keep for myself. If I ever decide to write a book, or there are a lot of things that I go in there and if I have something that is going around in my head, I'll write it out and I'll write my goals and stuff in there. So sometimes I go back and I reference things. So that's, personally, why I keep mine.

Speaker 1: 23:29

But honestly, if anyone read my morning pages, they would probably think I was batshit crazy. But I mean, that's the whole point of it. The point of it is to get really, really connected to yourself and really know yourself on a deeper level, and to remove the fear of that and to go into that and be courageous in doing that, because it's not always a fun thing to do. There are so many tears from me doing these pages because of things that I realized about myself, about where I was not fully stepping into my creativity and where I was suppressing my own light and where I was hiding from things because I had my own fears and my own limiting belief systems, and so that can sometimes be a moment of grieving. That happens because there are so many years that you spent not following your dream or doing things that could have been of service to other people or you could have been having more joy in your life, and that's another thing that this book does is it teaches you and guides you to a place of that inner child and tapping into that happiness and being like it's safe to actually do this and feel creative and to actually enjoy the process. And so this book is incredible for helping you tap more into your own creativity, and it can be done in so many different ways, and so that has been my journey with the artist's way and tapping into my creativity.

Speaker 1: 24:53

And it is September and I have been. I started this, I think, in January or February, and it has just completely radically changed me. And I look back at my entire year and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe how much I have accomplished and how creative I have been and how much artwork that I have created and how many songs I have written on my guitar. And I just feel like this whole vortex has completely opened up to me, because it was just a shift in perception and getting very clear and honest about, like these unconscious parts of myself that I was afraid to look at quite honestly. And when you bring things to light, you realize they're not so scary, they're just emotions or their old belief systems or they're like this scared version of like your inner child that just needs to be acknowledged and needs to be loved. And that's what I really love about this it's very gentle, it's not forceful, it takes small steps basically to open you up. That is all that I have to say about the artist's way.

Speaker 1: 25:53

I wonder if anyone else has ever heard of this book or if you have done it before and what your experience has been with it. But feel free to reach out to me. I would love to hear how it has been impactful for you and if you have found this episode helpful or entertaining or inspiring in any way, please share with your friends and your family and let them know about this book because, honestly, this has been such an impactful book in my journey of rediscovering myself, rediscovering my creativity and just honestly really tapping more into loving myself and appreciating myself, because it has removed so much of these limiting beliefs and judgment towards myself about what creativity really is and what it really looks like for me. And so I would love if other people were able to find that within themselves as well and like how much more beautiful the world would be if we were all just really tapping into our creativity and really owning it Like it's so incredibly empowering and liberating.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Thank you, guys, so much for listening to this. I appreciate your support of coming in and listening to a new episode every single two weeks, as always. If you'd like to stay in the loop when new episodes go live, don't forget to sign up for my mailing list on my website, neena-aleasecom. Feel free to reach out to me on my website or social media channels. I would love to hear from you and your thoughts on this episode or any other episodes that I put out there. Thanks again, so much for tuning in, and I will talk to you guys all in the next episode. Bye, vectorfre esc.