A Talk About Unlocking Creativity

In this short talk, recorded in nature, I share what has helped us to cultivate a closer connection to our creativity and how we can learn to use anything and everything as a source of inspiration if we so choose. I also speak to the importance of having habits and rituals that support our creative practice and the need to let go of perfection.

Transcript

You know,

I'm so often asked by my friends,

By my clients,

By fellow coaches,

How I managed to stay in such close connection with my creativity and how I get my ideas from my poems and how I really learned to embrace my fully creative self.

And so the purpose of this talk,

Which I'm actually recording live in nature without a plan,

Without a structure,

Without a script,

Is really to share with you my own very personal journey into creativity and creative expression.

And the hope is that it might inspire you to create even more,

To really embrace that part of you too.

And so my journey started actually when I was in a very sad place in my life.

I had just lost my father to pancreatic cancer.

He was my hero.

And I remember flying back here to Switzerland,

Feeling very lost.

We'd also just moved house.

And I started my walk into work.

I was a teacher at the time.

It was freezing cold and I just felt this sense of overwhelm,

You know?

I was asking myself,

How am I gonna manage to get up and teach groups of teenagers when I have so much sadness,

Grief,

Shock,

Anxiety present?

And then I had this kind of message,

I suppose,

Come to me.

It felt like a flash of intuition or,

Yeah,

Something similar to that.

And the message was,

Write it down.

And so I took my phone out and I began with my freezing cold fingertips tapping feelings and stuff into my phone.

And honestly,

Before my eyes,

What I discovered was that these words were becoming poems and that in many cases,

The poetry rhymed.

And it was this feeling of basically allowing a process to happen that turned into be the most cathartic,

Healing and life-changing moment.

And then flash forward,

You know,

Now eight years later,

And I'm writing at least one poem every day.

I have published my first book,

Last October,

The Wild Feminine Spirit.

And most importantly of all,

I feel so free in the expression of my creativity.

And I've learned a few things along the way.

I've learned that,

At least for me anyway,

One of the most important parts of being creative is actually letting go of perfection.

I know damn well that everything I write is not perfect or amazing or intelligent sounding.

And I really don't seek for it to be that way.

For me,

What's important is knowing that I have expressed something that's,

You know,

In my heart,

In my soul,

Conveyed an observation,

Joined some dots together,

Got something out of my system,

Vented an emotion,

And then let go of it.

So there's this process that happens in allowing myself time and space to let these feelings out,

In my case,

Through words.

Of course,

There are many other different ways that you can express your creativity.

And then letting go of it altogether,

Really,

You know?

And yeah,

That is essentially how I manage to continue to have a practice that invites creativity on a daily basis because I'm not attached to the outcome of what I create.

And this,

For me,

Is freeing,

It's empowering,

And it enables me to keep in a flow state in my work.

I'm also sometimes being asked,

Well,

What happens,

You know,

One day you just don't feel like it or you can't think of anything or you're stuck in your head,

You know?

And I have to say that,

You know,

There are a few days when I feel slightly less creative.

Doesn't happen so often.

And even on those days,

What I find to be super useful is just going into observation mode and looking at anything,

Really,

In my environment.

Of course,

Nature is particularly inspiring,

But it doesn't have to be out in nature.

And taking a good look and firstly just noticing,

What can I see?

What can I hear?

Opening my senses.

What can I smell,

Taste,

Perceive?

And it's really that slowing down process into the senses that begins then to generate some synthesis,

You know?

I begin to start making connections then with that which I'm observing and how that is interacting with my emotional world.

And so for me,

The process of writing involves firstly observing outwardly,

Secondly,

Connecting inwardly and observing the impact of that outward observation.

And then allowing those two places to merge and to come through in words.

So yeah,

This is what really,

Really helps me is knowing that actually when I look outside of myself and just look and notice,

Then this will always have some sort of impact on me that I can write about.

And even those days where things feel like really stuck or I'm super busy or I'm,

You know,

Frustrated about something,

I write about that,

You know?

So it feels to me like there is an eternal abundant supply of creative ideas.

And of course,

One of the beautiful things about all of this is that we don't own any of them.

I truly believe that,

You know,

It's more about being open,

Receptive,

Willing to let things be kind of channeled through you really.

And so what I do notice also is that the more clear my energetic field is,

The more curious and open and childlike a place I'm in,

The more the ideas can play through me and then come out in my case through words.

Yeah,

So that has been a big part of my creative journey.

And perhaps I should have introduced myself at the beginning of this talk,

But I guess it's clear enough from my profile.

So my name is Sam Allen.

I'm a creative leadership coach.

I'm a prolific poetess,

And I'm also a tantric practitioner.

I offer tantra journeys,

Which are a combination of coaching sessions and tantra massages.

And actually speaking of creativity,

Tantra is very much concerned with activating the kundalini life force or sensual energy,

Which is located at the base of the spine and moving it all around the body in order to nourish,

Empower and enliven you.

And what I found in my other journey around tantra is that I have an abundance of sensual energy and that this is probably what makes me particularly creative and so when I started to explore tantric expression and not only receiving my own tantra massages,

But then becoming a practitioner and working with clients in this way,

I realised that we have a lot of untapped life force energy that when we consciously tune into it,

We become actually automatically more creative.

So a lot of this is around activation.

A lot of this is around permission.

And the other thing that I want to speak to today is around routines,

Habits and rituals because we can be the most kind of like imaginative and ingenious person in the world and yet when we don't have an established routine in order to harness that creativity,

Then often it can kind of lie dormant in us or we lose an idea or we're not able to actually translate it into something tangible and external.

So something that really supports me actually is that for as many years as I can remember now,

I have a super clear morning routine and you have to obviously find what works for you because I know what I'm going to explain now isn't necessarily practical if you have children and many things you need to do first thing in the morning.

So yeah,

It's something that you,

I believe,

Can do and adapt to your own personal circumstances in a way that fits with your own kind of,

Yeah,

Setup,

Family and way of being.

So I start my morning super early.

I get up at six o'clock.

I have a glass of water and then round about 20 past six,

I venture outside and I find that the mere act of committing to going outside first thing in the morning when it's quiet,

When the world hasn't quite yet fully woken up and me kind of stealing that slice of time,

If you like,

Is super awakening.

And almost as soon as I venture out into the cool air in the morning,

I feel this sense of replenishment,

Rejuvenation and reawakening.

And so that in itself,

As you can imagine,

Is like a super boost to creativity and it means that I'm in a kind of prime state,

If you like,

For receiving ideas and generating inspiration.

So then I have about 30 minutes of a jog.

I'm quite slow,

Actually.

I'm certainly not a talented jogger by any stroke of the imagination.

However,

What that does for me is it wakes up my body.

It makes me,

Again,

Feel connected to myself in a holistic way.

So my energy is moving because I'm moving and that movement starts to create,

Sometimes what feel like very physical spirals of energy.

In fact,

Sometimes I can be mid-jog and suddenly a few lines of a poem will just kind of pop into my head and into my heart and I feel like,

Gosh,

Should I stop now and just tap them into my phone so I don't lose them?

And actually sometimes I do that,

You know?

But it feels like it really does kickstart creativity to begin my day in that way.

And then once I have completed my jog,

I go to sit at a little local bench.

My cat,

Ziggy,

Usually comes to join me.

He likes to be there when I'm creating.

And then I commit to writing something at that point every day.

And nine times out of 10,

Something will come fairly quickly.

I try not to judge the idea.

I try to just go with it.

And somehow,

Within maybe 10,

20 minutes,

It feels like it writes itself.

What I've also learned is that there are repeat themes that come back through the poetry,

That there are repeat rhymes that occur.

And instead of using my head to judge that as being repetitive and monotonous,

And,

You know,

Oh,

I need to do something different,

I just try to accept that actually that's perfect just as it is,

And that sometimes I,

We need to explore themes in different ways,

In slightly different versions,

And that's okay.

And it's just like if you were to do a painting.

I'm not a painter as such,

But,

You know,

We do different drafts of paintings,

Right?

And sometimes artists will explore a different picture from a different angle or a different aspect,

But almost the same thing.

And I realized that that is very similar with my poetry.

It feels particularly appropriate that I am recording this little talk out in nature because the other thing I wanted to say is,

You know,

Never underestimate the healing,

Soothing,

Inspiring,

Incredible power and magic in nature.

I mean,

Each time I come up here into the forest and I hear the birds and I see the trees and I feel that energy of life,

Ah,

I just can't help but be inspired.

And it's another reminder all over again of,

Yeah,

The power of being in nature,

The power of communing with nature.

And I'm actually quite a tactile person,

So even right now I'm just going up to a tree and I'm just putting my hand on the trunk of the tree and feeling the texture.

And feeling the texture of that trunk gives me a sense of safety,

Of coolness,

Of stability,

Of connection,

Of belonging.

And so even that,

You know,

This little moment here right now as I record this message is something that I could really easily turn into a piece of writing because I'm connected to something from the inside out and it's inspiring me.

So these are my reflections this morning from the forest here in Switzerland.

And yeah,

My intention is to record a few talks actually over the coming months and to share them here on Insight Timer.

And if you have any questions that pop up around the themes of creativity,

Creative leadership,

Tantra,

Poetry,

Or anything that resonates with you within my poetry and you'd like to get in contact,

Please feel free to reach out.

More than happy to connect with you and see if I can support you in any way.

And in the meantime,

I have a challenge that I would love to leave you with.

And that challenge is to create something new today.

And I deliberately leave that really open.

It can be anything.

It can be something that seems so small from the outside and yet that step in itself will be an honouring.