Creativity As A Celebration Of The Self

This session introduces you to the eighth of the 8 C’s of Internal Family Systems: Creativity, as a way of living—a natural expression of the Self in everyday life. When we lead from Self-energy, creativity isn’t limited to art or performance; it shows up in how we think, relate, solve problems, and move through the world. This session invites you to embrace life itself as a creative act, where each choice, insight, and moment of presence becomes a reflection of your inner wholeness. This track is taken from the course Sitting in the Self: Exploring the 8 C’s of Internal Family Systems.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session,

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable,

You can close down your eyes if you wish and take some slow calm breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth,

And with each breath allow yourself to acknowledge and release any physical,

Mental or energetic blockages along with anything else that may distract you from this session,

For the next few minutes all you need to do is breathe and be here to receive the session.

Now as your body calms and your mind begins to settle,

Take a moment to set an intention for this session,

May this session ground me in presence,

Focus my mind and open me to the clarity,

Guidance and insight this practice holds for me today,

May it bring me closer to embodying my highest self,

Okay well done.

In today's session we're going to be looking at the internal family systems quality of creativity,

Now creativity is interesting,

Creativity can be sort of expressed through poetry,

Through writing,

Through art,

Through dance,

Through movement,

Through design,

Through a whole variety of different sort of forms or styles,

But really creativity is arguably in every moment of existence,

We can be or choose to be creative most all of the time,

Now that might sound a little bit contentious,

Might sound a little bit odd but once you start feeling this sense of self,

You'll start to notice that you feel a little bit more sort of freer,

Creativity is quite hard to pin down but there's a playfulness to this and that's one of the principles of internal family systems,

The idea is that creativity creates a playful permission giving environment,

You're allowing yourself,

You're being open and the idea of this is that creativity is almost a celebration,

It brings together all of the other prior things that we've worked with,

The courage,

The confidence,

The connection,

The compassion,

The clarity,

The curiosity and calmness,

When you've got all of that working together you can be creative because you're there for it,

You're connected,

You're sort of locked in,

You're in this sense of self and you just sort of want to express and just sort of be there,

It's self-led living,

We can sort of look at creativity through different forms and you know I'm a poet,

I'm a writer,

That's how I express myself and I've got courses up and other things and on Insight Timer where you can,

You know,

I teach you how to do poetry as a form of self-healing and expression as well as creative writing and there are plenty other resources here on Insight Timer that will sort of unlock creativity with different aspects,

You know,

Yoga,

Movement,

Dance and free expression but rather than sort of give you a prescriptive creativity because your creativity may be different to mine and I don't want to impose poetry on you right now,

I want to sort of just encourage you to look at life,

Look at the entirety of your life as an opportunity for creativity and creativity isn't just about sort of making a painting,

You can be creative doing anything because creativity can be strict adherence to form or it can be completely abstract,

Free-flowing,

It is natural to you,

One person may love an artist's sort of abstract view and reimaginings whereas another will want,

You know,

Hyper-realistic but what about our own life,

Let's say you're washing the dishes for example,

Stacking the dishwasher,

You could choose to stack it in any which way you like,

You could choose to be super crisp and clear and focused and really make a nice sort of Jenga approach to really making as much fit as possible,

When you are decorating your house or choosing what goes up on your walls that's an act of creativity,

In your job there will be opportunities for you to be creative,

In your life and in your expression and your connection to other people there'll be opportunities for you to be creative,

The way you choose to move and breathe and be is an opportunity for creativity,

Pulling it back another step you are creating this life,

Every step you take,

Every breath you take,

Every course you do like this one is you choosing to instill or add something to your life,

You're creating your life,

It's a performance piece and you're performing it,

And the more you are in a sense of self,

The more you are calm,

Curious,

Clarity,

Compassion,

Connected,

Confident and courageous,

The more you'll feel like you are in a state of creativity,

A state of play,

If you are blessed to have or have had young children in your life,

You will notice that they're always bouncing between creativity,

They're sort of in this sense of self far more,

They're just there for it,

They're alive,

They're focused,

They're present,

Now I'm not going to give you a practice for this session,

Other than for the rest of the day,

Look for opportunities to be creative,

Just look,

Just be open,

Just be there for it,

You know you might be tying your shoe and you think,

Is there an opportunity to be creative here,

You might be cleaning your clothes or choosing what to wear,

You might be driving,

You might be at your desk or in your workplace or doing whatever it is you do for today,

You might be lying in bed,

Wherever you are,

Whatever you're doing,

Through the day,

Just have this sort of awareness of how can I be creative right now,

Is creativity present,

Do I feel creative,

Just bring awareness to creativity and you'll notice that the more you're aware of creativity,

The more you've got that idea in your mind,

The more you're open to it,

The more you will start to embody it,

Embrace it and the more you will fall into a sense of self,

I encourage you to just be in a space that is open to creativity,

Even the way you speak is an opportunity to be creative,

As I'm speaking to you,

I'm just allowing myself these words to flow,

I've got an idea of what I want to talk about but I'm trying to sort of do it with a pace and a cadence that sort of allows you to take in what I'm getting,

Aka I'm trying to be creative in my delivery,

Sending a message to a friend,

Right,

Connecting with someone on social media,

There are many many opportunities throughout the day to be creative,

Now if you are someone who naturally considers themselves to be a creative person,

Like you practice an art form or some sort of creative expression,

I encourage you to do it a bit more,

Do a session,

There is always a reason not to do it,

We seem to sort of put all these blocks in the way of our creativity despite the fact that we love it,

I was talking to my mother the other day,

We were on the way to an art exhibition,

Aka engaging with creativity and she's a painter and she was blocked,

She was putting all of these things,

You know,

Before I have to paint,

I have to do all of these chores and the house isn't clean and she put all these excuses in the way of the thing that she loves doing,

All the while commending me for my courage and my confidence and my curiosity and my ability to just sort of do and go with the flow and we realised when we pulled away all of this sort of stuff,

There was all these barriers that she put in place that was sort of on top of or she'd,

To bring it back to earlier sessions,

She'd pegged all of these other things to her creativity,

But once we got curious,

Once we took some breaths,

Once we stepped back and had some compassion and connection to the process,

We started to see that all of that was just sort of added fodder.

She needs to paint,

Maybe you need to write,

Maybe you need to dance,

Maybe you need to do the thing that you've been delaying,

That you know that sort of brings your soul joy,

You need to move,

Whatever it is,

So I encourage you two practices to end this session and to end this course.

Be open to creativity in your day and if you have a creative practice that you do or you wish you did,

Do your best to get a session in.

So with all that said,

Take another slow calm breath in through the nose and out through the mouth and just open your eyes and return yourself to your body.

Now this is the last session,

So as always,

If you have any questions about creativity or about internal family systems in general,

I invite you to ask them in the classroom,

But before we sign off,

I just want to touch base on the different things that we've done in this course.

Just to give you a bit of a recap and a bit of a send-off so you can sit in the sense of the self.

The idea of this course has been to help you to evoke the sense of self through these different aspects,

Through each day's practice.

We looked at calmness through the practice of breath work,

The idea being that by slowing down the breath,

You calm the body and calm the mind.

From a place of calmness,

You get to sit in the sense of the self.

We looked at curiosity,

The idea that when a strong emotion,

Mood,

Memory,

Thought,

Feeling arises,

We get curious about it,

What's going on here from a bit of a detached perspective.

From there,

We looked at clarity through the lens of mindfulness.

We practice mindfulness by drawing our attention to the sensations of the breath at the nose.

When our mind wanders,

We bring it back lovingly and kindly.

This practice allows us to develop focus as well as awareness of what is arising in our mind.

It gives us clarity to what is arising and thus we can see the sense of self.

From there,

We looked at compassion,

The idea of a loving kindness practice,

Picturing someone in our mind and saying,

May you be free of ill will,

Free of suffering,

Full of loving kindness,

And may you be happy,

And visualizing a connection from your heart space to theirs.

Then we looked at connection,

The idea of holding someone in unconditional positive regard,

Of connecting with them and embracing them,

Yourself connecting with their self,

Seeing the self within another.

From there,

We went to confidence,

The idea of habit building,

Or pegging a behavior,

In this case breath work,

To a behavior that you already do,

Like brushing our teeth.

The idea that as you act,

You'll start to grow confidence because you're acting for yourself,

And that confidence will also grow when you see the results of your actions,

Of the self care.

Then we looked at courage,

The idea of deconstructing fear as the story you make of the sensations,

And reframing it,

And reprocessing it.

And finally,

We looked at creativity,

Of embodying and connecting and expressing ourselves,

Both in the moment and being open to it in every moment.

The whole purpose of this course is to help you to feel the sense of self.

My hope is that at least one of these eight C's has helped you to feel the sense of self,

And thus from that place you can sit and act and take action and just sort of be.

For me,

The main one that I feel that works for me is calm and curiosity.

The breath work combined with curiosity for what's going on in my mind and in myself,

Helps me to sit in this sense of self and presence.

When I combine that with a compassionate meta-based practice,

I find that I'm just grounded and in myself,

And I can act towards my highest sense of self.

I can pursue things that I want to pursue,

My relationships,

My connections with others grow.

Now they're all,

All the eight C's all sort of get intertwined as I'm talking,

I can feel myself wanting to mention them all.

But for me,

I find that the way in is through curiosity and calmness.

For you,

It might be through courage or confidence or creativity or compassion or connection,

Whatever it is.

My hope is that this course has given you a different look at the different ways to get into the sense of self.

And from that sense of self,

You can then act.

Now,

The final thing I want to mention is that this whole course is based on the framework of internal family systems.

And I've not gone into much,

If any depth on the other parts and the aspects and all the things that internal family systems does sort of promote and suggest.

And,

You know,

This course isn't the for that.

The goal of this course was to get you to sit in the sense of self,

Because there is a value beyond internal family systems of just having that sense of self groundedness.

But from the sense of self,

You can then use that space as a sort of a home base to look at the different parts of yourself,

To look at the parts that,

You know,

You've exiled the parts that sort of pop up and sort of seem to take over some time,

You know,

The wounded parts,

The broken parts,

The things that you've labeled as the shadow or the wounded in a child or any of those other sort of things that we sort of look at when we refer to our internal spaces,

You might have labeled them as your moods,

Your emotions,

You know,

Memories that take over triggers,

These sort of things.

If you can sit in the sense of self,

You can introspect on all of those spaces and more from a far better and more effective and safer perspective.

So if any of that is encouraging to you,

And if you're curious about internal family systems,

You can ask stuff from me in the classroom and I will give you my best answer to go in depth about that stuff.

But like I said,

That wasn't the point of this course,

The point of this course was to give you access to that feeling of the sense of self through the eight C's.

And I encourage you as we come to the end of the session,

To just take another slow,

Calm breath in through the nose,

And out through the mouth.

Calm ourselves down,

Get curious,

And feel that sense of confidence that we've done something for ourselves,

Compassion,

You know,

We're wishing ourselves to be free of ill will,

Free of suffering,

Full of love and kindness and being happy.

We've got some clarity hopefully on ourself and on this practice and connection to one another and everyone else in the course.

I hope that this course has brought you value,

I hope that you've felt that sense of self at least once during this course,

And if you have,

That you can get back to that sense of self.

If you have,

My job is done.

Regardless,

I really truly do wish you to be free of ill will,

Free of suffering,

Full of love and kindness,

To be happy.

And I truly,

Truly want to feel,

I truly,

Truly feel connected myself to yourself.

So thank you for joining me,

I'll see you in the next course.

Have a great day.

Namaste.

This track was taken from the course,

Sitting in the Self,

Exploring the eight C's of internal family systems.

It's out now and available on my InsightTimer profile.

I encourage you to check it out.

See you there.