If you want to wake up your creative voice, wake up earlier.
We are all creative beings. We all have within us a deep intelligence, a guiding force that wants wants to express itself, through us, in the world. It wants to design and create. It wants to say something, to make something. It wants to be heard and seen.
When we are children, this creative voice is loud and powerful. We play, paint, draw, sing, dance, and tell stories. We are curious about everything and nothing seems impossible.*
As we get older, we become aware of and involved in the social order. We are given or take on more responsibilities. We become more active and begin to have goals and aspirations, as well as the fear and internal resistance that come with these. Something or someone vying for our attention and dictating our schedule. Unless we are dedicated to nurturing it and giving it room to express itself, our creative voice loses priority in our lives.
If it is important to us, and it should be important to us, we can get our creative voice back. We can find it again. Our creative voice is selfish, however, as it does not share time and attention with other things well. It needs room to grow and express itself, free from other distractions. It needs alone time with us.
For this reason, if we truly want to grow into our creative potential, we will have to wake up early (or go to bed late), before the rest of our life is awake (or after it is asleep). We have to set time aside so that we can listen to the voice inside us, without distraction, and put our ideas on paper, on canvas, onto an instrument, or whatever medium we are drawn to. If we make this a daily practice, it will begin to shape and guide us into the creative beings we were always meant to be.
*To be fair, to my preschooler, some things seem quite impossible, but these are usually things like napping, getting ready, and eating food she doesn’t like.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
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