Reigniting Your Creative Spark: Embracing Imagination and Originality in Motherhood

On today's solo episode, let's chat about the elements of creativity that we need to be aware of. If you're a mama who's feeling like she's lost her creative edge (or maybe never had it), this one's for you! 

Please share this episode with a friend if you feel inspired—Raising Wild Hearts is growing with your —thank you!

Finally, we've got some amazing interviews coming up—make sure to subscribe and follow the podcast wherever you listen! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi friends, welcome back to the Racing Wild Hearts podcast. I am so glad you're here, as always, and I'm really glad to be back on this side of the mic. It was a few weeks of a break and it was much needed and it went really fast. And so I said I would be back on February 19th. And here I am, back on February 19th because I wanna do what I say I'm gonna do. But I gotta be honest, everything, everything that could kind of went to a miss or a ride this week Kids off school, people, sick, throwing up, just all the things. I don't have to even like give you the snapshot. If you've got kids, you kinda know how stuff comes up. So, anyway, stuff has been coming up and I'm still here showing up because I'm excited to be back and I wanted to give you guys today just like a little quickie because, yeah, I've got some amazing interviews coming up, but today I wanted to do a solo up because something I've been fascinated with lately is creativity and I've got a little bit of wisdom to share because I've been tracking my creativity habits for a bit now. If you guys listened to the episode with Rachel Camfield on April 3rd, it was titled Finding your Creative. Finding your Creativity Through Embodiment and Authenticity. I can't read my own handwriting. Apparently it's called Finding your Creativity Through Embodiment and Authenticity. I've been really interested in creativity since about then, which was about the time that I restarted this podcast because, hello, this is a creative project. So I'm really like fascinated to become aware and notice my different habits and to share what's worked for me and what hasn't along the way. So I wanna pass along what I've learned to you.

Speaker 1: 1:58

If we look at a child like really I would venture to say mostly like any child they are innately creative in some capacity. It doesn't necessarily mean art or drawing, could be building or problem solving, or, you know, I had a. We had a girl come up to us at the library the other day and introduce herself, because it was during the middle of school day, and she said hi, I wanted to introduce myself. And are you guys, you know, homeschoolers too? And so each child has this innate capacity for their own unique creativity and somewhere along the line I think at least for me I can speak to my experience we lose it as we come into adulthood and maybe we never really had it, since we were like really little little. I think school kind of does a really good job. Traditional school kind of does a really good job at like, kind of, like you know, knocking the creativity out of you. You're not really encouraged to ask questions or start dialogue or creatively problem solve, necessarily. That was my experience. So I think at some point even before adulthood, we get this innate capacity kind of mixed up and we kind of lose it, and some of us, myself included, didn't even know that we still had it. And I'm in the season where I'm coming back into this creative capacity and so I'm really, really excited to dive into this topic with you a little bit. I'm just gonna give you some like things that have worked for me. Take what you want, leave what you don't. Okay.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So creativity, according to Miriam Webster, is the ability to create simple enough, right and the synonyms. And this was the part that I got really interested at, because I love words, I think words, I know words are really really powerful. I mean even me just saying like I think words and changing that to I know words like right Language is so tremendously impactful. So the synonyms for creativity really really got my attention. They are a couple of them are well, a few of them are imaginativeness, originality, innovativeness and ingenuity, and I think these are really I know these are really powerful words. They really really speak to me, at least. They're strong words, they're just like. There's like this palpable feeling of being able to create something that's just yours, right, and that, I mean, might be the most powerful thing in our lives is being able to create what we want to create. And then I would really add to that to creating for the purpose of Helping others. So creating for ourselves, yes, and out of inspiration, but also for service.

Speaker 1: 5:17

And so I think it's really relevant to talk about what gets in the way of creativity, because that's what I've been really noticing this past, like handful of months of like what gets in the way? When am I blocking my own creativity? When do I feel blocked? And here's what I know for sure is that for me, noticing input versus output is absolutely crucial.

Speaker 1: 5:43

So let's break that down. What is input? Input is Netflix, tv, youtube, social media, all the things that magazines, books, podcasts it's all input. Right, where you know, taking information and research, it's all input. Output is writing, speaking, making something, so art, you know, dinner, whatever, output.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So input versus output, and for me, the the first step like and this is universal, guys, really for anything the first step in anything is awareness, or noticing our habits around input versus output. Now I have a tendency to judge myself quite harshly. I probably am my own worst critic. I'm sure some of you can relate to that. And so when we're noticing, we can get in the habit or we can get, yeah, we can get in the habit of noticing without Judgment. So you notice and then you don't take it any step further. Those of you who meditate know what I'm talking about. When you're meditating and a thought comes up, the way that you stay centered and stay focused is to not follow that thought. So I like to say To not pick up the rope. So bottom line here don't pick up the rope of judgment. It's going to get you nowhere, trust me. I've tried Notice full stop, and that's just to become aware of what your habits are on input versus output. So once you've got that down the input versus output noticing Then you can decide. You can choose to turn off the screen. So turn off the social media, put the phone down, go for a walk, make some lunch, right a letter, do something else If we're so inundated with ideas all the time, there's no way that we can tap into that originality, that innovativeness, that ingenuity, that imaginativeness.

Speaker 1: 8:00

They're all, by definition, something that just comes from us. It's not something we got somewhere else. Sure, we can take ideas and mold them or run with them, or we can like ideas are great, inspiration is great. But nothing original comes from somebody else. It comes from within us and our co-creation with the universe. Another amazing episode to go back and listen to with Marie Fellows. We talked about co-parenting with the universe, but also I asked her about co-creation. So, if you think about it, you're co-creating with the universe all the time. And that episode aired on October 2nd with Marielle Fellows and it's called co-parenting with the universe. So that's another one to go back and listen to.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Okay, and then you can set limits around your creativity. So I have what I'm calling a third and a third and a third rule, or the third, third, third, I don't know, I don't really call it anything until now, and now it sounds funny. But so I wrote on my whiteboard next to my desk one third, research, one third, pitching or outreach, and then one third, creation. And so that first one, the research, is input and then the second two are output, and so I'm trying to make a ratio of my work time or my creative time that's not solely focused on the input but actually the majority of it is output. That's been super, super helpful for me and, of course, knowing that it's not going to be perfect, no matter what you do, wah, wah, wah. Okay. So book recommendations for creativity Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and Bird by Burt by Anne Lamott. I really love those two.

Speaker 1: 9:58

And let's wrap it up now. Oh, you know what? One more thing on creativity. I don't know why somebody hasn't and this is related to our kids and even to us. Actually, I don't know why someone hasn't created and please reach out to me if someone has but someone hasn't created an iPad or a device that is only focused on, or the majority focused on, output.

Speaker 1: 10:27

So imagine a tablet for kids. I'm not gonna start this business, but maybe some of you are super entrepreneurial and techy, but I'm not interested in being a tech entrepreneur, not at this juncture. Never say never. But someone please create a flipping iPad-like thing for kids and for grownups that you can just create on it. You can make art, you can print out things, you can do the things and like, maybe I'm just I don't wanna say I'm not techy, it's kind of limiting, I'm not interested in tech, so I don't know but like, maybe you can just turn a regular old iPad into something like that with, like, the right apps, and so if you've really got that down for your kids, I would actually love to hear from you, because we're at the point where we are using a little tech and they'll do some math games and I just recently found an English game that we're gonna try out. So, anyway, if you've really got this nailed, please let me know.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Behind the scenes. Hello at raisingwildheartspodcastcom, I need some help in this area. Okay, all right, as we start to wrap up, I am going to share with you some of the amazing interviews we've got coming up. So we've got an early childhood specialist. We've got a parent coach. We've got an astrology expert and she looks through the lens of kids astrology. So I'm super excited for that. We've got an owner founder of a multimillion dollar business. We've got let's see a former speech pathologist I think I might've gotten that wrong, but a former, you know what? Maybe it was a physical therapist. No, it was speech pathology, former speech pathologist who discovered something called virtual autism, and so much more coming up. I just wanted to give you guys a little glimpse of the interviews that are coming up.

Speaker 1: 12:25

This, I think, will be the last solo episode for a while, and then I will leave you for real with this. The goal of the show right now is growth, and so I came back from a podcasting conference in Orlando and I've realized that, based on my goals and based on my desires of where the show is going, the goal is really growth, and so we've been growing steadily and many of you have been hanging out week after week. Yay for that. And all I ask is, when you listen to an episode that inspires you and you have a friend come to mind or a family member or somebody, please just share it with them or tweet it out. I don't know what you call X now, I'm definitely no idea but send it out on the interwebs in some form or fashion, or just send it directly to a friend, and that is going to be what helps the show right now. So thank you so much for being here, and all those amazing interviews are coming up. So I will talk to you guys next week.