Creative Lift

In today's episode of Creative Lift, dive with me into the first of the Illuminary's rooms, the Studio. You can think of the Illuminary as an inner creative hideout that is made up of various rooms designed to support your creative thinking process. The Studio is a space for divergent thinking, brainstorming, improvising, and experimenting. In our episode, we'll explore why play matters, no matter what age you are, and how play facilitates your creative flow and momentum.

What kind of environment would work best for you in your internal Studio? What colors, tools, and supplies invite you into a playful state of mind? Your Studio is a place to experiment, even when you have no idea whether a possibility will lead anywhere productive. In this space, making a mess is not only expected, it's celebrated.

Don't miss out on next week's follow-up episode! In this season, we're alternating between an episode like this one, that provides a tour of one of the Illuminary's rooms, followed by an episode like next week's, in which we'll play through a hands-on activity together to get a feel for what actually being in that room might feel like. I encourage you to set some time aside next week to join me in the Studio and stretch your playful thinking skills.

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Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

In Season Eight of Creative Lift, our theme is Creating Space. Today's episode is titled A Room of Your Own: Why Creative Space Matters.

When you think of creative space, what comes to mind? Do you think of your physical creative space? Or does your mind turn to something less easy to define, such as your mental or emotional space?

Maybe right now, you're in a season where you feel you have the just-right amount of creative space. Or maybe you are longing for more physical or metaphorical creative space in your life. No matter where you are, this season invites you to take a deep breath, and to look at creative space in a new way. You'll gain tools that help you apply your creative thinking skills directly to your creative process. We all have those stuck places that come up over and over again. What if your creativity was exactly what you needed to reimagine those challenges and overcome them?

It's likely that in one place or another, you've heard me speak about the Illuminary. This imagined villa houses many rooms, and each room offers a particular thinking environment. The Studio, for instance, provides you an expansive, playful space where you can ideate and dream. Across the hall, the Workshop holds practical tools to help you craft those ideas and dreams into a shape you can share with others.

The Illuminary makes what the invisible—our creative thinking process—visible. By illuminating the shifts we make from one mode of thinking to another, we avoid common creative blocks. By equipping each room with tools that are personalized for our own approach, we learn not only to rely on our strengths, but also create ease in the spaces that are less comfortable for us.

Throughout this season, we'll explore the Illuminary's rooms, discuss the essential mindset required for each, and try out activities that help you experience the feel of each mindset. In today's episode, we'll walk through the Illuminary so that you have a map for where we're headed in this season, and I'll share a few stories about how and why I developed this tool for myself and others.

I'm very excited to share the Illuminary's tools and creative mindsets with you. They've been transformative for me in my creative process, and I have seen them blast through obstinate creative blocks for others, too. My hope through this season is that through these tools, you will find a renewed sense of momentum and joy as you unlock new horizons in your creative process.

Episode Links:

Sign up for Creative Lift tools and resources

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

Much has already been researched, said, and written about the tension between creativity and fear. Even so, I didn't feel this season would be complete without a discussion of creative courage, and why daring is so crucial in the artful life.

Brene Brown writes, "The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time."

What if you didn't have to produce perfect work on the first or the fiftieth attempt? What if the point of the game was being willing to show up, and seeing how that act of daring, especially in the face of a challenge, built your overall courage?

When I think about living the artful life, I can't help but ask myself: why? Why is this approach to living so important to me? After all, as we've noted throughout this series, artful living could also be called "intentional" living. Yes, transforming work into play, and creating moments of delight, and finding the just-right metaphor to express our perspective, experience, or emotion is absolutely worth the effort. Also, approaching life in this way does, in fact, take effort. Or maybe the better way to say that is living artfully takes extra thought. We are invited to pay attention in a way that brings us joy, that connects us to others, and that creates deeper meaning out of our everyday experiences.

In this final episode of the season, Living the Artful Life: Dare Greatly, we'll explore how approaching the artful life with courage can begin with one tiny experiment. My hope is that we may all dare greatly this week, and also allow ourselves to start small.

Episode Links:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

Why is play important in the artful life? In episode 58 of Creative Lift, Living the Artful Life: Permission to Play, we'll chat about some reasons that play may be more important than most of us give it credit for, and how you might give yourself permission to play.

We all know that the amount of energy we have when we approach a task is essential. If we experience our task as a slog, it likely will take more time and what we produce will often be of less quality. When that same task is framed as play, it can become buoyant, which speeds up the work, makes the work fun, and also often creates stronger, more inspired results. From cooking to designing our days, play can unlock our creative energy and give us the momentum we need to move forward.

What possibilities might giving yourself permission to play unlock for you this week?

Visit this link for the show notes.

Episode Links:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

In her book, Present Over Perfect, Shauna Niequist asks, ″What would our lives be like if our days were studded by tiny, completely unproductive, silly, nonstrategic, wild and beautiful five-minute breaks, reminders that our days are for loving and learning and laughing, not for pushing and planning, reminders that it's all about the heart, not about the hustle?″

What would that be like?

Today's episode of Creative Lift, "Living the Artful Life: Design for Delight," builds on the ideas we explored in episode 55: Create Story Moments. We'll look at additional ways to be intentional about savoring moments as part of living an artful life. How, for instance, might we find luxury in small, everyday delights? How might we learn to appreciate the simple things in life?

The invitation in this episode is to design an evening of delight and live it up to the fullest. The best part is that not only will your delight be FUN for you and whomever you include in your experience, but when you tell the story of your delight-filled evening with others, you'll spread joy and happiness to others, too. What I'm learning is this: delight is contagious!

Visit this link for the show notes.

Episode Links:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

What does it mean to "seek the metaphor?" Here's a quote from Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit that puts this hard-to-describe concept into words:

Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember, it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others."

― from The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

What metaphors might elevate your lived experience today and help you see your relationships, actions, and emotions with fresh perspective? What if, instead of saying that you're feeling "okay," today, you described that state of okay as a specific kind of weather? Would it be blue sky with just a cloud or two, maybe one that looks a bit like a four-leaf clover? Or, would it have just finished misting and now a rainbow is cresting across the sky?

When we use metaphor to name our experience, we help ourselves see what might otherwise be invisible. We give ourselves language to understand our experiences more deeply and to communicate more fully with others. In today's episode of Creative Lift, Living the Artful Life: Seek the Metaphor, we'll try out another exercise that invites you to use metaphor to gain perspective.

Visit this link for the show notes.

Episode Links:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

In today's episode, Living the Artful Life: Create Story Moments we'll pay attention to the moments that make up our lives and think about how we might intentionally create opportunities for connection and joy.

To me, living an artful life isn't so much about what I make or do, but more about the way I pay attention. That phrase, pay attention, reminds me that in each moment I have a choice. How will I spend the precious gift of time and focus? Will I make a choice at all?

Paying attention to our stories, and being intentional about creating them, is a meaningful part of living an artful life. Need a practical strategy to get you started? Listen through the end of the episode for a simple starting point.

Visit this link for the show notes.

Episode Links:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

This season, our theme is Living the Artful Life and today's episode is titled, "Listen Deeply."

Listening is something we do all the time, but it's also a powerful tool that is easy to take for granted. What if, instead of filling our calendars with pre-determined goals, we took time to listen for the possibilities first? Listening opens up an invitation for surprise, and can lead to self-discovery as well as discovery about the world and others.

May we all listen deeply this week, and discover something we might not have noticed otherwise.

Visit this link for the show notes.

Episode Links:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

In Season Seven of Creative Lift, our theme is Living the Artful Life. Today's episode is titled, "You've Already Started."

What is the artful life and why might we want to live one? It's important to note that there's a big difference between living perfectly and living artfully. In fact, as we kick off this season, we're giving ourselves permission to let go of the "perfect" life in order to open our hearts to an artful one. Also, we're not starting from scratch. Our lives are already polka-dotted with artful moments. If we pay attention and follow our curiosity, we can connect those dots and see what's been there all along and what's possible next.

Visit this link for the show notes.

EPISODE LINKS:

Find me on Instagram: @naomikinsman

Find Alex on Instagram: @ag.doherty

We're wrapping up Season Six of Creative Lift: Ring in a New Year of Creativity.

If you've found this episode around the time it was published, 2023 has just begun. In this season, we've been exploring what it might mean to frame our new year as a story rather than a slog. What if instead of deadlines and must-dos, you had an unfolding story to follow? What if instead of a list, you had a map to guide your path, giving you plenty of opportunities to chart your own way?

The thing about not controlling everything, though, is that while some surprises are exciting and enjoyable, others present themselves as challenges and unexpected obstacles. As you continue to take your next right step, and follow the creative journey where it leads, opportunities and challenges will arise.

Whether you're facing a challenge or an opportunity, you can ask the same question: What if …?

• What if I tried …
• What if the opposite were true?
• What if I asked for support with …?
• What if the obstacle was the way forward?

If the obstacle is the way forward, work can become play. And while that's fun, it's also more effective. We tend to do everything better when we can access playful, joy-filled energy. In today's episode, Lean Into the What If, we'll explore how to use "What if…?" as a doorway into flow.