Why Creativity Can Be a Spiritual Act

And how it allows you to live your life in an out-of-the-box way

I recently started a conversation with you about the personal values I have been uncovering. My hope was, and remains, that my experiences connecting with these core values might inspire someone out there to tap into your own, become more conscious about how you might use them to hone in on where to put your focus (both personally and professionally), and maybe give yourself the permission to let go of things (habits, people, stories you tell yourself) that you no longer need.

Zeroing in on my own values and putting them in the forefront of my mind has been a process I’ve been focusing on with the help of my coach (excitingly, I’ve decided to continue working with her for the remainder of the year), and I wanted to spend a few Substacks examining my top values (in this order): connection, creativity, faith (not the God-kind), family, and career.

Today, I want to briefly touch on creativity.

Why creativity is important to me

From the time I was a little kid growing up in those fluorescent 1980s and pairing together a Madonna-style tutu with a Strawberry Shortcake-printed shirt, creativity has run through me like it’s my very blood. I was a theater major and an actor because I got no greater joy than developing a character, playing onstage with fellow actors who also took risks, and living outside of the confines of who I am. As a writer, I’ve learned about myself from the words I put on the page (including in this very Substack), and more recently, I’ve basked in the glory of world-building by way of creating fiction. Creativity is my activism, my self-expression, and my mindset.

Creativity is a muscle

I have definitely noticed when I’ve disconnected from my creativity—such as when I’ve become complacent, unmotivated, or bored. When I don’t actively flex that creativity muscle, it seems to get a little weaker and as a result, I don’t feel as strong in the other parts of my life.

Creativity is my spirituality

It takes me beyond my limits in a way that feels spiritual to me. It gives me something beyond myself and my immediate set of circumstances that allows me to believe in the extraordinary, the otherworldly, and the mystical. When I am actively doing something creative, I feel some mix of liberated and lost—but the kind of lost we seek, the kind of lost that helps us feel found.

Creativity is a way I get my feelings/worries/thoughts out

Beyond just when I am in the creative act itself, if creativity is an active part of my life, it makes the rest of my day feel lighter and more purposeful. My angst is alleviated and that feeling is frequently long-lasting—much in the same way that some runners describe a runner’s high lasting all day. And unlike the grind of processing a problem with myself or someone else, being creative somehow magically works shit out for me in a way that doesn’t require unpacking one particular situation too agressively.

Creativity allows me to define my life in a more out-of-the-box way

Similarly to being queer, which has given me free reign to exist outside of a pre-disposed societal norm—freeing me from antiquated ideas of how I need to show up in the world—being a creative person impacts my thinking pretty much all the time. I get to creatively define my life with intention—in a similar fashion to how I might put a few words together to see how (or if) they work, or how I might paint a particular stroke differently than I had in the past. And during those times when I’m on auto-pilot, being creative lets me pause and ask myself if this is the best way to move forward.

Creativity gives me permission to be a multi-hyphenate

In “The Value of Creativity” by Rod Judkins, MA, the author observes that creative thinkers are often full of contradictions—in the best possible way. He writes, “Eminent psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered that creative people ‘contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.’” He goes onto say, “Psychologists use extroversion and introversion as the most stable personality traits with which to measure people. They can’t do this with creative individuals because they exhibit both traits simultaneously. Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted, sometimes the center of attention, sometimes observers on the fringes.” This resonated so deeply for me and made me realize that creativity itself is a dichotomy I sometimes embody that I frequently enjoy.

Creativity makes more things possible

I appreciated an article published by UNSW Sydney that examined why creativity is so valuable in our lives. In the article, the author, Ben Knight, quoted Emmy award-winnning filmmaker Lynette Wallworth as saying, “Creativity is a thing that sits on the edge of what’s possible. It’s the capacity to imagine something that hasn’t existed before, so to bring something into being. Creativity is all about being uncertain because you are embarking on a journey; you’re embarking on a path in which the track has not been paved.” Since most of us already know that control is just an illusion, leaning into the uncertainty of creativity carries with it an inherent safety, even if we don’t know how a situation or project will turn out.

So what does it mean to be creative?

It’s funny that this question flummoxed me the most. On the most basic and obvious level, creative expression can be any variety of making art: taking a photo, painting a portrait, writing a poem, doing a craft, dancing freely. As a writer, therefore, creativity is very much baked into my day-to-day. But I think creativity is much broader than making (or observing) art. It’s a mindset, a way of looking at the world, a way of looking at ourselves. For me, it shows up in my clothing choices, my relationship dynamic, my daydreams, my problem-solving skills, and my communication techniques. Today alone, even thus far (and it’s still morning), it’s shown up in the bricks we chose for the backyard patio that are being installed today, in the way I packaged this very Substack, and in the route I chose for this weekend’s trip to Toronto. Creativity is also helping me work out a current issue I’m grappling with relating to sitting in discomfort and impatience as I wait to hear back from agents I’m querying (I recently separated from my literary agent as she didn’t represent fiction and that is my current focus).

Regardless of whether creativity is a value that resonates for you as well, there is power and clarity that can come with identifying our values and ensuring we are placing focus on the ones in which we want to invest.

Ultimately, that is an investment in ourselves. So get creative!

I wish you joy and intrigue as you go about recognizing your own values. Now that I’ve discussed both connection and creativity, in the near future I plan on going further into faith, family, and career.

xo,

jazz

P.S. Some of you were interested in seeing the video of my recent talk for Compassion Consortium. Though I published the written transcript last week, for those of you who are interested in watching or listening to it, I’m embedding it below.