As a blogger, every once in a while I’ll get an email from someone who’s doing one of those “expert round-up” blog posts.
Many bloggers use these round-up style posts as marketing ploys to get everyone involved to push web traffic to their own website. But they look a little like this when they’re done right: fun ways to bring in diverse voices on a given topic.
When I get outreach (like thousands of bloggers online do — it’s not because I’m particularly awesome) the questions that I tend to receive are worded like,
“What is the ONE habit that’s lead you to be where you are today?”
I hate those questions.
Because there’s no way for the answer to be anything other than waaaay oversimplified advice — if you can even call a one-sentence response “advice”!
Clearly, without a doubt, no question about it, there is not a single trick, tip, technique, lifehack or “thing” that everyone can do to attain something like “success” or “happiness.”
These kinds of posts are aspiration-bait.
Instead of providing free counsel to folks on how they might go about their lives, they do more to induce people into anxiety and fear, advertising what they’re lacking and aren’t aware of, encouraging people to self-scan their lives for what they don’t have and their behaviors for what they aren’t doing right.
But I want to challenge myself today to give you a simple answer — for something you might aspire toward – like feeling more creative.
And I’m going to try so it’s not oversimplified, anxiety-inducing aspiration-bait.
(You tell me if I’m off-base.)
Ready?
If you want to be more creative, embody more creativity, express more creativity, or simply feel more creative in your day to day life…
“Every day, do something to nourish yourself.”
The connection between nourishment and creativity is like this: when we’re feeling creative or expressing creativity, we are offering something like words, energy, presence, or deeds that are channeled through us from the infinite and abundant Source of all things in the Universe.
Creativity is not manufactured, it’s channeled.
And when you feel a lack of creative spirit, it’s probably because you’re feeling too over-expended to listen, sense, source, and connect to the infinite creative source that moves around you and through you at all times.
Which means you need to pause and receive.
To replenish and restore.
To rest and recuperate.
Nourishing yourself is how you replenish your own energetic reserves enough to feel capable and confident enough to reconnect to Source. In this way, nourishing yourself is how can re-start the cycle of embodying and expressing creativity again.
So, how can you nourish yourself today?
Your answer may take the form of food and drink, nature or exercise, disconnect or reflection. Your nourishment may be reading or napping, booking a staycation, or plotting a longer adventure abroad.
You may simply guide your mindset today with the lens of nourishment, and invite in feelings and moments of soulful sustenance.
- By turning off technology for a while, you nourish your energy by reclaiming your attention span for yourself.
- By going for a long walk in the woods or along a beach, you nourish your heart by reconnecting to the magic and continual inspiration provided by the natural world.
- By taking a yoga class, you nourish both body and mind and break free from the mental narratives (or samskara) that subconsciously define your perspectives and outlook.
There are no shortage of ways to nourish yourself.
Which is why this one sentence of advice may be worth listening to.
So I’ll say it again.
If there was one thing I’d tell you to do to feel more creative?
Nourish yourself.
