Hello Creative QB’s,

– 3 minute read
– 15 min creative practice

All that clatter and bang in our head is a creative block. It’s the noise that stops us from hearing the sound of creativity. Learning to turn down the background noise, turns up the sound of creativity and teaches us the delights of listening.

Do you have the most amazing conversations with yourself, in your head? Monologs, speeches, thoughts or statements? Do you confirm your point of view; justify your righteousness, convince either yourself or others in your thoughts?

In the shower, the loo, the car, when we go to bed at night, when we wake in the morning. Situations going around and around, taking up our precious headspace mostly because of some wrongly perceived situation. Either someone has wronged us, or we have wronged someone. We all do it. If we stopped to consider all that drama going on in our minds, we could write the complete draft of a novel while washing our hair.

In the cold light of day, those monologues in our mind don’t always fall from our mouths in the same eloquent way we imagine them in our heads. Rarely do they even see the light of day.

All this noise stops us from hearing the sound of creativity. All that clatter and bang in our head is a creative block. Unless we learn to use our creative energy differently, learn to steer it towards creative light, then we will perpetually be in a state of negativity. Negativity is the mastermind of the creative block.

I am the first to put up my hand and admit to creative blocks. Here is a question to ponder. What is worse than a blocked creative who doesn’t know it? The answer is a blocked creative who does, but feels powerless to change.

I have been that very person. During my twenties, not long after I graduated from Uni, I had a paralysing creative block that caused a cycle of self-perpetuating misery, suffering and shocking lack of self-love and confidence. It lasted about five or six years and I kept it hidden from everyone around me, I kept it in my head. I couldn’t hear the call of personal creativity because I was so ‘in my head’, absorbed in my own righteousness and negative patterns. Back then I justified all the reasons for not being my truth. I blocked out the sound of my creative voice until I forgot who I was.

It wasn’t until I was broken that the creative block ended. I realised, I could not live in a constant state of being creativity blocked. Once I recognised this, I started to gain the courage to change. When I changed how I thought, my feeling changed and I started to view life differently. I remember writing in my journal at the time, “What I need is to be a listening post, to hear the sound of creativity”. What I meant by this is, by being receptive and open, only then can I truly listen. You can only do that by quietening the noise in your head.

I have learnt to listen for the sound of creativity. I hear it, and you will too in the following ways;

• As silence. In the quiet of meditation you hear peace.

• As a whisper. You may not hear it at first, but something will spark your curiosity, your interest.

• As a shout out. When an idea lights you up, when you are called into inspired action to create or make.

• As an echo. When you hear a constant call you from the depths of your creative block and suddenly something brand new opens up to you.

• As a bang. When life breaks, in illness, trauma or loss and shouts at you so loudly you have to take notice.

• As love. When you finally hear creativity as your expression of love.

When I can’t hear the sound of creativity, all I hear is negative noise. It sounds like this:

• I’m an amateur and I need more tutoring, I need to be better before I can create

• I can’t do that, its impossible and I have no time

• I am stupid and this is ridiculous, there are so many reasons why I can’t

• I’m just not carefree, I’m just not creative, and it’s just not me

• When the house is clean, and everything is perfect, then I will start

• I can’t do this because my stars are not perfectly aligned right now

• No one is ever going to pay me for this piece of ‘Shit’

• I have a mortgage; I have a family to support

• I’m too different, I’m too important; I’m too boring, I’m too busy, I’m too hungry

• I’m just not good enough

The voice seems real, it stops us, blocks our way and messes with our heads, our relationships and our souls. It stops us from being our true creative selves. It stops us from being happy and healthy in life. It stops us from knowing self-love.

But the voice is not real, it’s not our truth, it tricks us into believing it is. Learning to turn down the background noise, to silence the negative blocks is the purpose of creative practice. There is nothing more delightful than listening; there is nothing more loving than giving to yourself the gift of creativity. In creative practice, you find your truth.

I’ve shared a couple of creative practices on this page that I do regularly. Try them out and share with me how it goes.

Big ♥ Amanda