If you’re an artist, a photographer, an entrepreneur, someone who enjoys creating just for the hell of it, or someone aspiring to be one of the former: then this is for you.

How to do you tap into your creativity…. especially when you’re burnt out, tired, overscheduled, overbooked, depressed, mentally ill, neurospicy, fatigued… the list goes on. How the f*ck are you supposed to find that inner creative that resides within you, when you have a mountain of “buts” in front of you? When there are about 10 different things at any given time, vying for your attention and trying to suck your energy?

If we lean into what we love instead of soldiering toward what we 'should,' our pace quickens, our energy rises, optimism sets in. What we love is nutritious for us.
Julia Cameron

1. Listen

Listen to your heart, to your soul. Close your eyes, take ten deep breaths, and listen to your internal world. If you can meditate: better! If you can’t: breathe, be still, and listen for as long as you can. Ask your internal self what are you curious about? What do you LOVE to do? What are you missing from your life that you feel a pull towards? Spending even just ten long breaths of time listening to your inner world will often illuminate inner desires, needs, wants, and creative whispers that are waiting to get out.

2. Write

Write down your inner world - the loud, the messy, the chaotic, the tired. Julia Cameron (author of the Artist’s Way) advises writing every morning. When I was following her recommendation of stream of consciousness morning pages every day, I was flowing in creative ideas and energy. However - when you are just starting out, finding time to write out your inner world even just once a week can make a big difference. It also helps to have these ideas in paper, to revisit them later when you are feeling stuck - or reflecting on how far you’ve come.

3. Schedule the damn time

Ah, the “but” to stop all creatives in their tracks. “I don’t have time.”

If it is important - we find the time. We have time for social media scrolling, for binging our favourite shows, for checking out and letting our brains consume instead of create. What if you scheduled into your week/month one creative date with yourself. Block it in like a Doctor’s appointment: non-negotiable, gotta show up, time blocked appointment. It could be an hour, a few hours, a whole day (wow the things you could create in a day!) Block in time with yourself to just explore and be curious. Go for a walk and photograph the flowers. Sit by the beach and collect rocks that you like. Make tea and doodle for an hour. Do anything that feels like PLAY - not something you have to do; but something you want to do.

4. Be bored

In a digital age we are inundated with content constantly. Instagram reels, TV, Netflix, Youtube, Facebook… the list goes on. Try turning your phone off for a whole day and see what difference silence makes. Let yourself be bored. Let your attention wander to the way the wind lazily blows through the leaves of the tree outside your window. When you are bored, you are open to new ideas - you are listening to your inner world, and to the creative ideas that want to be heard.

5. Don’t pressure yourself - creativity ebbs & flows

Don’t guilt yourself for not feeling creative. Instead, write, play, stretch, take the pressure off. If we are creative beings inherently, all of our life in itself is art. You don’t need to be actively creating something to be making art. How you live your life, how you love yourself is in itself: art. (cheesy, right?) But it’s true. So revel in the process. Revel in the ebbs, in the flows, and everything in between. We’ve got enough things in life stressing us out and trying to stifle our inner artists: don’t let your own self-sabotage be one of those things. Breathe. Listen. Play.

Blog post photos featuring Luna Yen - pole performer, and creatrix extraordinaire!