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CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

Hello, good morning, or afternoon, or evening… whatever time it is where you are! I’m glad you’re here. I think this month I’m going to talk about creativity. I’ve already talked about creativity a bunch, but I feel like there’s a lot of things to say about it. So I’m gonna keep talking about it because so far in the survey that y’all have answered. Some of you have answered.

Most people have said that they’re interested in…

How to be more creative? How do I get inspiration? How do I love myself more? How do I…. Ah what were the other things that yall have said? How do I be more confident in myself? How do I embody my true self? How do I… How do I make friends? How do I… be happy?

So I feel like a lot of the answers to a lot of these questions are kind of similar or along the same vein, or like have threads that go through a lot of them. And I think most of us struggle with the same things. Like I want to be creative. I want to be inspired. I want to be myself. I want to make friends. I want to be happy. And I imagine most of you also do. 

So I recently shared to my my email newsletter that y’all may or may not be on. Hopefully you are. If you’re not I’ll put a link below if you want to sign up for it is free and I share stuff, occasionally. I try to do something at least once a month, but I recently shared on there a really quick blurb about this article that I found a couple months ago, that was kind of like a mini overview of a book that was written by James Webb Young in 1939, and it’s his like technique for producing ideas, which to me is kind of the same as like, how to be creative. It’s a five step technique, five. And I wanted to share some of that with you today because I think it’s really helpful, and I think a lot of us don’t really think about it in this way. So, yeah, I want to share that with you.

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So, if you already saw my email with this little thing in it, you might be like, oh okay, I know what you’re talking about but if you haven’t, I wanted to make a video about it.

So the five steps to produce ideas / 5 steps for being creative.

Step number one is gather your materials and resources, like gather your inspiration, gather stuff. So like if you’re like working on a project that has to do with trees, of course, you know, I’m thinking about trees all the time, then maybe you’ll gather books about trees. Maybe you’ll listen to a podcast about trees. Maybe you’ll take a walk in the forest to be among the trees. Maybe you’ll sketch trees, Maybe you’ll find some books about trees. Maybe you’ll see if there’s like some movies or documentaries about trees just like, gather all the information about whatever it is that you’re wanting to do or work on or like be inspired by. So just  gather all those materials that step one is gather.

Step two is digest the materials. So that means read the book, walk in the woods, listen to that podcast, sketch those trees. You know, I’m just going to keep with this tree theme. That’s step two is like actually digest the material like absorb it and play with it and do some stuff with it. And I think number three is the most important part, most important step.

So the third step is to have unconscious processing, which in other words, is set it down and forget about it and do something else. And I think this is, Both amazing and also really difficult to do sometimes because if we’re like really excited about something we really want to like I want to figure this out and do it. Like I don’t know how to draw this branch perfectly, so I’m just going to try it 5,000 times. Sometimes, the best thing to do instead of like hyper focusing and like forcing and like doing doing doing making it go, go go, sometimes really, the best thing to do is just be like, okay. I’ve like done a bunch of this. I feel like I’m getting frustrated, I feel like I’m getting kinda stuck, so I’m going to set it down. 

And do something else for a little bit, and that little bit can be a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, a few months. Only you know what a little bit is for you and what that works best for you. So, unconscious processing, let your like rational conscious mind, let go of it for a little bit and let your like, subconscious like instinctual primal mind mull it over in the background while you’re doing other things. So like not consciously thinking about it. This is unconscious, this is most important but also the hardest! Do all those things and then just let it go, and don’t do it. Just do nothing about it or just like set it aside for an amount of time. That’s step 3.

Step 4 is actually the aha moment, because while you’re in that do nothing step three, step four will naturally come. The, aha moment is when, like things like somehow like click together while you’re not thinking about it and you’re like, *gasp* I know exactly what to do now, or like, I just had the best idea!!! Your mind, and your brain, your body, like, everything’s always doing stuff behind the scenes even when you’re not really thinking about it. So sometimes, once you give it the space to like, not be stressed about it and just, like, doing something else. That’s when that aha moment comes and you’re like, Ohhhh I have this realization. Oh, now I know what to do. Oh, that tree, it just told me it’s story, The aha moment will come if you’re able to release that like force and do. So that’s step, four. Is that aha moment.

And then step five is when your idea meets reality. So once you have that aha moment, step five is like, okay, now that I know what to do, I’m going to do it, Now that the tree has spoken to me, I’m going to write it’s story. Now that the image of this perfect branch just appeared in my mind, I could now sketch it. When this idea just appeared out of nowhere after mulling over for a while, now I’m going to do something about it. That step five is doing something about it, like, whatever that aha moment was, allows you to get to the space where you could do the thing. 

Yeah, I think in this society was like capitalistic white supremacist colonialist imperialist, like, all of the shitty systems of oppression that like most humans have on them. It kind of makes us think, in this society kind of makes us think that like, we have to force things in order for them to happen. We have to constantly be going doing in order to be like, worthy of making stuff or anything like, this society makes us feel like we’re not good enough and we have to be constantly producing in order to be worth anything and that is not true. 

It in a material way, sometimes feels like it might be true because we live in capitalism, like it…. How do I say this? We live in these systems of oppression, and they make us think that we’re not good enough, and that we have to constantly be forcing and doing and going. But in reality, when we allow ourselves to slow down, and to do what really feels best in our hearts and our bodies and our minds, our souls, but really feels best to us, and what really actually works for us, which includes rest and doing nothing that unconscious processing. Then that’s when we can be our most creative.

When we’re not stressed, when we’re not freaking out, then we can be more of our true selves, which, in my opinion, out true selves are like infinitely creative. That’s like, a part of being a human, is the ability to be creative. So next time you’re feeling stuck and like you really want to do something creative, maybe you just doodle. Just like get a piece of paper and a pen and just do a lot of this and don’t think about it and just be like, what is, what feels good? Let me just scribble a whole bunch and just get some energy out. Like, it doesn’t have to be anything and lets your brain kind of turn off and just be like this feels fun to make shapes.

And see what comes from that. And if it’s nothing, that’s totally cool. You just like rested your brain for a little bit, awesome. And if you have some epiphany that that’s also cool. And you can do something about it if you want, but it’s not necessary for us to be constantly doing stuff all the time. And sometimes the rest and the doing nothing is just as important. So, if you want to be creative, there’s your five steps for how to be creative and produce ideas from James Webb Young from 1939.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE ABOUT THIS 5 STEP TECHNIQUE FOR PRODUCING IDEAS

Okay. Yeah, I think that’s all I have to share today. Thank you for being here. I’m going to add the link to the survey below if you want to tell me what kinds of things you want to hear from me. Yeah, I love you so much. Thank you for being here. It means the world and I couldn’t do any of this without you. So thank you so much. I love you. I hope you get some down time and doing nothing time sometime soon or today or tomorrow also.

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