by Mihaela Ivan Holtz
Creativity requires you to stay present and connected with all that you are – your talents, skills, and vision, as well as your feelings, thoughts, and inspiration. Your most private experiences and aspects of your internal life all come together and, one creative moment at a time, they become your art.
As an artist, you know what it’s like when you merge with your art. You and your art flow together and become one. It almost feels like magic. You enter into a state of creative bliss and experience a true connection both to your powers of creativity and to all that you are.
Of course, in the midst of these moments of creative bliss, there are moments of the creative mess. You feel like you don’t know what to do or how to do it. Everything feels like an experiment and you keep making mistakes and repeatedly trying something new.
When you have the strength and courage to navigate the messy creative moments, you can eventually find your way back to creative bliss. It takes a lot to move through the creative challenges and into creative flow, however.
To get through the challenging moments that are part of any artistic career, you need to know how to stay present and connected throughout the whole process of making art or preparing for a performance. You need to be present in the face of all the wonderful creative experiences and you need to stay connected even in moments of frustration and confusion.
This process of staying connected to your art in both the good times and the bad times – and everything in between – is called developing creative intimacy™.
Creative intimacy™ is vital as it allows you to make powerful art that is authentic and uniquely you.
As important as creativity intimacy™ is, it’s not easy to maintain such a state. It requires you to stay present and connected throughout your creative process – including your own limitations, your fears and doubts, and your relationship to the unknown.
So How Can You Help Yourself Build and Preserve Your Creative Intimacy, Despite All the Challenges?
As paradoxical as it sounds, you need to become more comfortable with what challenges you.