can you boost confidence through creativity?
"Women have amazing feminine intuition. It's sweet, playful, sexy, authentic, and our super power. It's a deep down trusted KNOWING.
When not nourished and forgotten, it sounds something like this:
”I don't have a creative bone in my body”, or "I don't have any good ideas." which in turn creates "I don't trust my gut feelings" or my original ideas are not worthy"... "I am not worthy".
This is the beginning of a post by a client for whom I did a branding photoshoot, ArtSea Living studio, a space which provides a safe place for women to explore their creativity.
How true, I thought to myself.
I think whenever we say "I am not [positive adjective]" or "I am [negative adjective]", we limit ourselves.
Labels we stick on ourselves.
Take, for example, a phrase "I am not flexible".
Let's say, you cannot touch your toes, bend yourself into a pretzel, do a handstand, or do other impressive poses that experienced yogis can. By the way, pictured here in a pretzel pose is one of my amazing clients, a yoga goddess named Kesley (you can read about her photoshoot by clicking on the photo).
What would happen if you practiced regularly, say by stretching three times a week, maybe taking a yoga class now and then, or maybe by committing to a regular schedule of yoga classes? If you committed to gaining strength and practicing hand stands (my personal dream), for a period of three months, how would it change you? Do you think stretchability of your muscles would change? Even if after a year of regular yoga classes, if you still can't do a split or touch your toes, do you think you would dare to say about your body "I am not flexible"?
I don't think so.
The same applies to people who say "I am not creative". Sometimes it's easier to slap a label onto ourselves that says "I am not this or that" so we can avoid the vulnerability (aka embarrassment) of having to show up and try ourselves in that thing. By stating "I am not creative" I save myself the embarrassment of creating something that resembles a drawing of a five-year old that people would laugh at.
The crazy thing is that these notions of negative "I ams" and "I am nots" come from very strange places! I used to be the person who described herself as "not creative" or "not talented". I had been drawn to photography for years, but the "I am not creative" label I adopted kept me from trying my hand at it. Do you know where the notion came from?
You see, when I was growing up in the Soviet Union, many of my classmates attended music school where they learned to play piano or violin. I somehow managed to get myself into dance lessons, which I attended four times a week. When my mom asked me if I wanted to learn how to play piano, I told her "How could I possibly fit that into my schedule?" The answer of my ten-year-old self was “no”. As a result, I never learned how to play piano, and I also never became a dancer.
Later on life I started regarding people who knew how to play a musical instrument as "talented" and since I did not learn how to play one, I was not talented, and therefore was not creative.
Do you see how erroneous that thinking is?
Another thing about creativity is that sometimes people think about creativity and art as something reserved for the special few. They think of art as something requiring a degree or diploma that grants you a permission to do it. I was also one of those people! Since I did not have a degree in photography, who was I to practice it and, god forbid, call myself a photographer?!
The truth is (according to me and many others) creativity is something we ALL have access to. It is in our bones, it is our birthright. Just watch how little kids play and you will see that you don't need a piece of paper certifying your creativity for you.
Try saying “I AM creative”, “I have access to the infinite source of inspiration and creativity”, “Creativity is my birthright” and see how it feels in your body.
For me personally, finding photography as my creative outlet gave me more confidence as a person. I feel safe in expressing myself, though I would be lying to you if I said it happened overnight. It has been a process, it still is. (There is also a notion of assigning a lot of my worth to the identity of an artist/creator, but that’s a topic for another story…)
creativity is not reserved for art only.
Creativity is something that we get to practice anywhere in our life, it’s not reserved for creating art only. How you decorate your home, prepare your food, the clothes and accessories you wear and even the way you talk are all forms of expression, CREATIVE expression!
Phrases like "I am not creative" or "I am not flexible" can keep you cozy in the safety of a comfort zone.
They help build a soft padded wall that protects from requests to try something new. It is also a static mindset. "I am not flexible" means that I have been cast into a solid mold and I cannot break free from it.
I believe the LANGUAGE we use greatly affects the perception of our abilities and capabilities, therefore it is best to avoid phrases that cast us into impossibility mode (aka victim mode).
Since we are talking about labels, do you know what most clients tell me about themselves before a photoshoot?
You may have heard it or you may even use it to describe yourself.
I AM NOT PHOTOGENIC.
This phrase means whenever I look at photos of myself, I never like any of them. We don't bother to mention that the photos were taken from the wrong angle, in bad lighting, in a really unflattering pose, by a person who has zero understanding of what’s visually appealing. We just slap a label on ourselves saying "I am not photogenic". As a professional photographer, I can assure you that I can make anyone look photogenic!
If “I am not photogenic” is a label you often use, I invite you to throw it in the garbage. You don’t need it anymore!
One of the reasons a Goddess Photoshoot is an empowering experience for women, is because of the CREATIVE PLAY element inherent in it.
Most of the women I photograph are not professional models. I don’t expect them to know how to pose. To help women look their best I gently guide them through the posing process, suggesting this or that pose, near this tree or holding that leaf.
What happens most of the time is that after we photography for some time, women start listening to their intuition and they start creating poses and ideas themselves! They might be shy at first, I encourage them to follow the hunch and we see where it leads us. Creative play is trying this pose hugging a tree, and then maybe shifting a pose a little bit, and a little more, and the next thing you know, you are climbing the tree, feeling powerful and free, and we create a series of amazing images.
Check out this video, if you are curious to learn more about a Goddess Photoshoot and what you can expect during one.
Removing all the "I am nots" and negative "I ams" from our lives is a way to free ourselves.
It is committing to a growth mindset, trusting and knowing that you can morph yourself into whatever version of yourself you desire. It is knowing that most of the things in life are skills, just like riding a bike or driving a car, that can be learned or cultivated, practiced and honed (creativity is one of them!) And once you have that knowing that you can be anything, how powerful is that?
And to answer the question posed in the title of this story, YES, YOU CAN! Add more creativity to your life and see what impact it has. Good luck!
I hope you enjoyed reading my ramblings inspired by a social media post of a client. What is your experience with creativity? How do you express yourself creatively, how has that changed your life? Let me know in the comments or send me a message, I would love to hear from you!