Too many people operate on autopilot, bored with their lives and feeling restless. Have you become caught in a story that is no longer serving you, in patterns that make you yearn to become more enlivened? You might need to get in touch with your creativity so you can write a new story for yourself that’s more satisfying and fulfilling.
What would your life look like if you broke away from the old ways of operating, from activities that you no longer enjoy but feel you ought to participate in anyway — maybe because people expect you to? What could you experience if you committed to living less robotically, with a greater sense of adventure and creativity?
If you’re not sure what you would like to experience, it may be that for too long, you’ve been cut off from your creativity and imagination. Maybe you’ve told yourself it’s impractical to dream about living a different kind of life, but is it? Could you perhaps start making your way toward a path that you find more fulfilling, one that’s more pleasing to you?
When you are ready to write a new story to bring to life, it can help to get in touch with your creativity, and there are several ways to accomplish that.
Express yourself. Try your hand at some sort of artistic activity. Write a poem or song, paint a picture, make a collage, choreograph a dance, or use some modeling clay to create a sculpture. Don’t focus on the quality of the finished product. Focus on how it feels to express yourself creatively. If it’s uncomfortable, explore why that is. If you feel the need to judge what you create instead of simply enjoying the process, think about ways you could free yourself from that self-judgment.
Try doing everyday activities differently. If you typically take a walk in the evening, choose a different route or go biking instead. If you typically have wine with dinner to relax, do a guided visualization instead two days a week and see how that feels. Visit a place you’ve never been to before, such as an ethnic grocery store, and try a new food. Small acts like these can trigger your creativity and get you thinking about what you else you might want to try and how it feels to break up your routine.
Remember that small changes add up to big ones. If you feel constricted, as if you’re living in a box, maybe you can’t break out of the box completely but can expand it, giving you more freedom of movement. You’re not going to completely change your career or lifestyle as a result of one or two small choices you make that get you out of your rut, but ultimately, small choices do add up to larger ones.
Connecting with how it feels to be creative and adventurous can renew your sense of vitality and open you up to even more ideas about what you might do differently or try for the first time. Give yourself credit for small changes, allowing yourself to feel proud of these accomplishments. You might find that you’re then ready to tackle more changes.
Let vitality cross over from one chapter of your life to another. You might want to look at the chapters in your life — your health, relationships, psychology (your thoughts and feelings), your job/career (or vocation), your relationship to source, and your way of being of service in the world — to see where you feel most or least enlivened. Maybe you lack vitality in all of these areas or in some more than others. Think about if you can bring some of the vitality and sense of curiosity and enthusiasm from one area of your life into another.
Do some exploring. Try some new activities in one chapter of your life and see whether it affects another. Engaging in a new spiritual practice, such as walking a labyrinth or taking a shamanic journey facilitated by recordings of drumming or rattling, might open your eyes to how you could bring more vitality into your job or career.
Cooking a new dish might turn on the faucet of your creativity and adventurousness just enough to get you thinking about how you would like to be more creative in how you give in service to others. Maybe you will volunteer at a soup kitchen or working in a community garden that offers free vegetables, fruits, and herbs to low-income people. Changes in one chapter of life often lead to changes in another.
The changes you make do not have to be major, but you might want to choose ones that will make you feel at least a little awkward or uncomfortable. Getting out of your comfort zone can help you to feel more adventurous and creative overall as you experience that you can do something different, enjoy it, and be inspired to make even more changes.
Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD, is a retired clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, a businessman, and a shamanic practitioner, author, and philanthropist, funding over 60 charities and more than 2,000 past and current Greer scholars. He has taught at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and been on staff at the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. His new book is Go Within to Change Your Life: A Hidden Wisdom Workbook for Personal Transformation. Learn more at CarlGreer.com.
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