(And how to reclaim its mind-bending creative potential)
What if you had access to a limitless source of creative inspiration, flow, and pleasure? ✨
It would be so much fun, right?!
Making your art would suddenly feel so much freer, enjoyable, and productive. 🎨
Sound too good to be true?
What if I told you you already had access to this source, but may simply been ignoring it? 🤯
Well, here’s this source, your greatest creative asset: (Drum roll! 🥁)
It’s your body! 🕺
Get more deeply in touch with your body, learn to move more effortlessly, and your whole creative life will open up like a great, unfurling flower.
This is why I tell all my students that their greatest creative gains will likely not come from learning more technique and trying harder…
…but through skillfully learning to move more effortlessly during creative challenges. 🧘♀️
(This is true EVEN IF you have no injuries, and EVEN IF you’re not a performing artist. I’ll explain…)
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Your body is your greatest creative asset because it’s the source and channel through which your creative impulses flow and take form.
Think about it: Can you create anything without using your body?
Of course not. Your pen won’t write itself, your piano won’t play itself, your paintbrush won’t paint itself. 🎸
This is why I tell all my Alexander Technique students, “Your body is your first instrument!”
While this may be obvious intellectually, many artists fail to fully take account of the ways their body helps — or hinders — their creative process.
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There are a lot of reasons for this.
👁️🗨️ Primarily, it’s that we live in a culture based on the Cartesian mind/body split. We value the mind over the body, and thus tend to ignore the body.
👁️🗨️ Another reason is trauma. When you’ve been hurt, a natural response is to suppress or dissociate, both of which take you out of the lived experience of your body.
👁️🗨️ We live in a culture that focuses on the destination more than the journey. The body is all about the journey, so again, we tend to ignore it.
👁️🗨️ Finally, unlike performing artists, many visual or written artists don’t even think of their body as relevant to the creative act, so they simply ignore it.
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The result is that we ignore, suppress, or deny the very means by which our greatest creative inspiration, flow, and pleasure can occur. 😫
🙈 When you ignore your body, you fail to account for the subtle (and not so subtle) muscular tension that interferes with the flow of the body movements necessary for effortless technique and authentic expression.
🙈 When you ignore your body, you fail to account for the tension that causes physical discomfort, pain, and musculo-skeletal injuries.
🙈 When you ignore your body, you fail to pick up on the embodied source of your creative impulses, and are thus forced to rely more on concepts (which often fail to have the full impact of your Soulforce).
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Here’s the takeaway.
If you want to:
Achieve artistic mastery,Create with Soulforce,Unblock your full creative potential…
…then you must become more aware of your body in the creative act. ✨
Specifically, you must become aware of the quality of your body’s movements during moments of creative challenge.
Next time you create, ask yourself:
Am I aware of my body in this moment of creative challenge?If not, what am I focusing on instead?If so, am I getting tighter or freer?What do I need to let go of to allow more ease and awareness of my body?
If this makes a difference for you in your next creative session, let me know in the comments below! 🤩
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Want to unblock your body’s creative potential?
This week I’m offering FREE half-hour lessons to just 4 artists, musicians, or other creatives. Learn my best effortlessness skills, and walk away feeling a surprising level of ease!
Email me at [email protected] to claim your spot.
