Creativity E1 Claire S4E21

The podcast episode discusses the exploration of creativity in various aspects of life, featuring personal experiences and insights on defining, nurturing, and expressing creativity. Creativity is seen as a diverse force that can be sparked by struggle and emotions, leading to unique processes of creation and expression. The importance of observing life, emotions, and other creators is highlighted, while overcoming creative blocks, such as perfectionism, is encouraged by embracing imperfection and experimenting freely. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Creativity Series on Psychology Inside Out Podcast. In this series, we chat not only with traditional creators, like artists and musicians, but also with everyday people who bring creativity into their daily lives. Let's explore how creativity shows up in all its forms. As you heard in our intro, this is a new series all about creativity, where we've asked both previous guests and new voices to share their creative processes and what creativity really means to them. To kick things off, we thought we would do a fun introduction to introduce the concept by having me, your host Claire, volunteer to be the first example, with Eugenia asking the questions to set the stage for what's to come. Throughout the series, we'll be exploring six main questions and expanding on each one of them to uncover how creativity shapes itself in different people, different fields, and different moments in life. Are you ready, Eugenia? Yes, I think. Let's kick off. How do you define creativity and what does it look for you? Creativity is definitely in many different parts of my life. I realize that sometimes I get very strict in thinking creativity in journaling, painting, or creating something in a physical way. But now I feel like also with my job, I have tried to involve creativity in there as well. And I think this podcast is a really great way for me to kind of keep that creative process going in a structured way and to have a platform for me to explore different sides of myself. Yeah, in something that is just meant for me, myself, and for my own creativity. And looking back, who or what encouraged you to explore ideas, make things, or take risks? I don't know if it was a specific person or moment. I feel like I've always had so many things and feelings inside of me. And I think a lot of the time, creativity is sparked from struggle because those are the times where you feel like you need to release something the most. And creativity is a great way to release that because often there is, I feel like, no other choice. When I really started taking creativity seriously is maybe when I was struggling the most mentally and I felt like I had to release it in some way. So previously, I remember being young and just always looking up to people who were creative and wanting to embody that. So I remember sitting down being like, okay, I want to learn how to draw and looking up how to draw some specific things. But then the actual more creative part, outside of the more technical of wanting things to look good, for me came out of struggle of needing and having so much inside me that I want to express. And wanting to take risks and sitting in that discomfort and creating things to express those feelings that we have inside. And I think also watching more challenging things, looking at more challenging art kind of also made me want to do more. And can you also give us an example? What does your creative process actually look like from idea to finished work? I think there's many different types of creative processes. So, you know, sometimes it's a spark and spur of the moment thing and sometimes it also comes very methodically and structured. So, for example, with the recent episode that we recorded about pigeons, I really, it was just something I realized, oh my gosh, I've had this passion for so long. Why haven't I talked about this? And it just kind of came to me and I just started writing about it and had so many thoughts and so many feelings. And usually I just write everything down and then try to organize it in a way that maybe is somewhat coherent. But usually I have certain phrases or things that I feel like I want to weave in and then I fill in the gaps between all of them. This is also the same a lot for my, I also write movie reviews inspired by Miguel who's also going to come on the creativity series. And sometimes I find it very difficult to write, where I have to sit down and think and really structure it. And sometimes I already have 10 different ideas and I'm just trying to work my way around it. So that's, it's very different for each idea. I think it's a different creative process, but a lot of it is writing a lot of things down. Taking exactly what comes from your head and putting it on a page and then from there working out how that might work out logistically or what goes around it or how you can package it nicely. And do you put notes in your phone or do you have a notebook with you? How exactly are you taking these notes? I mean, my notes apps are crazy. My notes apps are absolutely insane. It's a mess of a million different things. Like half of it is work and a grocery list and then the other half is like some really deep, dark, you know, interpretation of philosophical interpretation of existence. So yeah, my notes app is definitely one of those. I do really appreciate writing things down. I did journal a lot and I find myself journaling a lot when I am in more spaces, like introspective spaces mentally, physical journaling, which I think is really nice. I always do a blank page. I never do the ones with lines because I want to be able to have a little drawing on the side or have something bigger or smaller underlined, circle things, and then I go back to my journals and circle other things. And I would love to go back to my journals and actually maybe create some type of art piece out of that too because you can also – art is never ending. Reuse that, take it, put it into a different form, do something else with it. So I definitely – yeah, writing things down. And a journal always works, a little piece of paper. Take a napkin from somewhere, write something down, make that into art, and then put the idea into art. You can do whatever you want. And then sell it for a million dollars. Exactly, exactly. And actually another kind of creative thing is – so Miguel likes to take photos and when we went to Paris, I got him a Polaroid camera and we had these Polaroid photos and I was already thinking, how can I arrange these and maybe I would take napkins from different places and make them into kind of a collage and kind of to capture moments. I think a lot about art and creativity for me is capturing moments and feelings. So usually if I feel the most, I will create the most. Actually, same, same. I definitely agree. Yeah, but sometimes like, yeah, the moment is gone and then there's already so many other things you want to capture and produce. But then you can also create art from the reflection of the moment. So you can always go – the thing is, art is never ending. If it's about moments and feelings, then you can always do it. Because you don't have feelings about the feelings and about the moments and then you can just come back. So talking about triggers and what sparks creativity, do you have the specific things that bring your creative sparks, like a place, a mood, or a practice? I definitely think because it comes from emotion and moments for me, life is the ultimate inspiration of creativity for me. And in that also people are the most inspiration and creativity for me. And moments in life and experiencing things. And also watching other people create. Watching other people be creative and do things and watching other people's art and even watching art that maybe you don't necessarily like. That can also really trigger creativity, maybe in the other direction instead of being like, oh, I want to do what they do. Say like, no, I could do this much better. Let's do something else. So I think the art of observing is kind of what sparks creativity. Observing yourself, your feelings, introspection, also other things around you. Just sit and look inside yourself and others. And I think that's really what sparks it. But I find also having another body and creativity to bounce things off of also really sparks it. And do you think it comes mostly from the feeling, from inside, let's say, gut feeling or whatever, emotions, or more like cognitively? I think it starts with an emotion and then it can go to cognitive. So this is where like the emotion and the gut is the initial word, the blabble writing in your notes, and then you have the more structural cognitive side to put everything together into something coherent or maybe not coherent if you want to also go there because you can go wherever you want with it. So I think it's really you can do both. You can do nothing. You can do whatever you want. Yeah, explore it. Yes. Perfect. So what about blocking? So what tends to block or kill your creativity and how do you overcome it? For me, I think my biggest block is the like pressure of perfectionism, abandoning projects because I feel like I won't be able to realize them in the specific way I want to. So I abandon the project so I don't even start it because I think I won't achieve it. But then that is a self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm actually not realizing my creative idea because I'm too scared to. Yeah, I think a lot of that comes with these like pressure and traditional art of realism and having things look a certain way and look right, you know, and pleasant. And then you kind of get stuck in that loop and that's usually when it goes to the worst. And maybe how I would overcome that is by just going to the total opposite. You know, you're creating maybe a visual art piece and you get too caught up in making it look perfect and redoing the same 10 things over and over again. Do something left field. Ruin it. Because once you ruined it, then you're not scared of it being perfect anymore because it's already gone. And then you can just enjoy it and just be free with it. Yeah, also don't be so judgmental of what you're doing. Yeah, like give all yourself free play or something like that. Yeah, I think like a big thing, especially when thinking about more traditional and realism art, maybe you don't love abstract art but do it for the freedom of it just to loosen yourself up a bit, you know. It's like if you're doing a traditional dance and you're thinking about all of the structure. No, just shake it out. Do something crazy and then you're not scared to fail in that way. And then you can go back to the structure. I think it's when you get lost in the structural and the cognitive, go back to the gut. Go back to the feeling you had at the beginning. Something more unhinged and crazy and then maybe you'll be less scared of breaking the mold if you've already broken it. Yeah, maybe I can, I want to just add a little bit for me. It's also like this system one and system two from Daniel Kahneman, you know, like thinking fast and slow. And it's also like, yeah, cognitive, gut feeling. Cognitive, gut feeling. For me, I see that it's always like go from one to another, one to another. It jumps really, just in general in life. So maybe if you get stuck in one, you got to go back to the other a little bit and I think the slow state is when you're in both, right? Yeah, yeah. When you're able to access both. Yeah. So it's also like when you have, don't have maybe questions in one, you need to go to the other and then you have, yeah. You don't have answers in one, then you have, yeah. Okay, then let's finish it with what advice would you give to someone who feels creatively stuck? I think watching other people create, just talking to more creative people and just consuming art. Say you can't make art, say you feel like you are stuck, you are blocked, consume it and then you will become a part of it because eventually it will inspire you again in both ways. Maybe you're saying, I want to be inspired, I'm going to watch a movie. Man, that was not a very good movie. Okay, but you know what? I think I could do better than this and I could maybe do this or this is what I would do. So I think consuming other people art, being around other creatives, I think it really helps you see also that other people struggle with that too. And then also as we just discussed, noticing maybe if you're stuck in perfectionism or in structure, going back to something that can break you free of that. Do something crazy, do something unhinged, break that mold and then maybe you feel more free. Thank you. Thank you very much, Claire. I hope our listeners have enjoyed this series. Yeah, I'm really excited and I think there are so many different fields that are unexplored and yeah, thank you to Eugenia for this idea because I think she really saw the creativity that we have in research. You know, what we see there. Yeah, I hope we will bring to this series more people who are creative and you don't think about them as creative maybe on the first glance and it's amazing. So everyone can unlock their own creativity. Yes, because it's really everywhere and in every way. Thanks for tuning in to the Creativity Series on Psychology Inside Out podcast. We hope you are excited to keep exploring your own creative side in whatever form it takes. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and share the show to help us keep growing our creative community. Until next time and keep creating.