Three years ago, I was going through my own need of creative flow. I found myself in an art shop in London, my eyes were glazing over at a rainbow array of water colors and I had no recollection as to why I was in there in the first place. The multifaceted emotions surfaced, beginning with a sense of embarrassment with myself being in there yet trying to take the process seriously at the same time. If there was a God up there, I knew I would shame it as I began saying my Jewish confessions. For whatever I was about to create in the overpriced scrapbook I was about to buy, my water colors in one hand and paint brush in the other, I was feeling proud. I continued to proceed on my journey to creative flow.

I found myself back in my studio, glazing over at the third page, deep in emotion. With my tobacco remnants spewed over the wooden desk, alongside sat comfortably my feelings; just as effortlessly destructive. I looked in front of me, the beauty within the pain that I had projectile-purged from my broken engagement the weeks before. I look back now, and the art represented nothing of the sort. My painting unraveled a glimmering story of hope and the power of my creative flow that always burnt inside me.

Creativity is not about being an artist, I urge this to those who are intimidated by this or who might say they are not creative at all. Creativity is a discovery process to passion, freedom and feeling copiously joyful to experiences in their daily life. It took years to find my mission. Seven years of living a life that did not agree with me, discovering it did not honor my creative side that begged to witness that painting. My creative flow was what I chose to surrender to in that given moment, but coming into my third decade on this planet, I can see how I am changing my criteria. I have seen just enough to know it is about detachment and relying on my independence more and more. With this, I support and admire where I am at more than ever. I see how I can apply my talents by watering my own soil. I can create a more lavish garden in my own mind that chooses what I heal in my life rather than heal another’s. It is about keeping my own garden illuminated when it needs and cradle it when I feel so. If I did feel a lack of flow, be it in a creative field or not, I knew I was out of alignment due to my own doing. Creativity is fluid, it grasps hold of what it needs to and when we give it space to breathe, and when we force, it feels suffocated. I have always been rebellious, following rules was difficult since I was a teenager. I knew that I needed to let go of so much bullshit around me. For me, creativity was the way to find freedom within my rebellion and accept to love myself for it. If I detached, this would mean without observing, waiting or expecting anything from the experience.

To let go of my inner rebellion and the stubbornness, was to understand that it existed and knowing that it was only myself that I was fighting with. I focused more on joy and what I wished to create as an outlet of all the memorabilia. I became more grounded, more focused as I noticed all of this was a microcosm of all that I wished for. Wishing for the closeness that I had taught to reach into myself that was once neglected by me in the years before.

We can have as high expectations on ourselves as we may push for, but a harsh truth we may come to along the journey of creative expression is that nothing in nature blooms all year round. Once we let go of expectation of ourselves, to fit into another box or to please another person, we see that these are not natural ways of being. We discover it is exhausting. If we wish to live in a more gentle way, it is about acknowledging the safety that comes with listening to our bodies when they scream at us. When our bodies yell for help, perhaps it is time to be more loving and gentle towards them. Once we do slow down, then come into the knowledge of what our limits are and respect these limits.

My limits were accepting that it is OK to step back from all that no longer worked for me. Whether it was sitting within glass corporate buildings or within the comforts of a spiritual community. Within unhappy relationships or long hikes from the people that judged me. I accepted this was OK and I did not wish to go into a psycho-analysis to deal with whether my inner wound had to be worked on or not. I have read the books, been to therapy, done healing therapies and still found myself back here. I feel liberated and in power because expression taught me more who I am, right now. It is not about who or what I wish to attract into my life. This is the most grounded, authentic lesson I could ever wish upon myself or another human being.