09 Jul What’s your story, morning glory?

Creativity is a divine force that is present in each of us and plays a much bigger role in all our lives than we tend to realise. It is the engine of our mind, the author of our story and responsible for who we call ‘me’. You may not nurture it, you may not notice it, but creativity is the driving force of your life, so it pays to consider what kind of fuel you are putting in your tank.

ASK YOURSELF, WHAT DRIVES YOU?

If you are like most people right now, it’s probably pretty dark stuff. It’s easy to feel the world is getting smaller, more dangerous and more limiting. But is it? Or are we all in agreement that it is? If you accept that we are all masters of our imagination, then doesn’t it pay to think more deliberately about how we expend its precious energy? Are we using it to cast light into the darkness or to carelessly paint over the smallest glimmers of hope that are trying to eek their way out?

The Japanese have a dance called Butoh that is characterised by resistance to fixedness. It rejects conventional thinking about beauty, rhythm and movement in favour of earthy, jerky and asynchronous contortions. For those raised on Western ideals of dance, it’s almost grotesque to watch and you can see why people characterise it as wallowing in the darkness of one’s soul.

Yet, darkness has a different connotation in Japanese than it does in Western Judeo-Christian influenced cultures. We equate darkness as born in sin, whereas to the Japanese it is about entering into the unknown – a perfect metaphor for how we should see our times. We are not being punished and this is not a moral plague. It is an invitation to explore our creativity that at first seems reprehensive, incomprehensible and grotesque, rather than an incredible release from our rigid fixity. It is an opportunity to ascend into the creative unknown.

I DEFINE CREATIVITY AS THE ABILITY TO REFRAME OBSTACLES AS OPPORTUNITIES.

It’s not about wishing bad things away or ignoring them – rather it’s about having the courage to look them dead in the eye and acknowledge that the world has changed and then pose the question, what might be all the ways that unanticipated change might bring unanticipated blessings? Now you’re sending your brain on a quest that has hope. There may be no immediate answers, but by even contemplating the question for one moment we accept it as part of our reality – and the seeds of our new future have begun to take root.

WHEREVER YOU ARE, WHATEVER CHALLENGES YOU ARE FACING, IT WON’T HELP TO WISH THEM AWAY. CHANGE IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY IN LIFE.

It is here to humble you and with humility comes the first embrace of a change as offering you a more meaningful outcome than you have today. What small shifts can you make in your thinking to improve your mental health and your physical health? Even more important, what might be all the ways you can contribute to making someone else’s life richer, happier and more fulfilled? A smile, a thoughtful note or sharing some inspiration that may not seem much – but make all the difference in the world. We can get caught up in measuring the size of our ideas – forgetting about their ability to make a meaningful impact is way more important.

Seize this precious interruption as the excuse you’ve always needed to use your creativity to rebalance your life to making a meaningful contribution to you, your family and your community – stating super small. It’s the opportunity, not the obstacle, you’ve been waiting for.