Secret 2: Honoring Your Inspirations
Creative Style Inventory
1. When did your creative awakening or reawakening occur?
I was always creative, I just didn´t recognise and make time for it. This changed shortly after I started blogging. By getting feedback from people I thought were fabulous, I became more adventurous and proud. I started to feel the need to make things with my hands and move away from consumerism.
2. What talents do you have naturally?
I´m a good talker and teacher, I make people feel at ease and I don´t get nervous very easily. I have a good ear for music and I love to sing. I am a natural leader. I am great at making something out of almost nothing. Friends often ask me for for ideas when they are decorating, looking for a gift or creating something and I always have an idea. Ideas just pop into my head. I´m also great at combining colors and patterns.
3. Which elements draw you toward them?
I love water and swim whenever I get the chance, even when it´s really cold. We have a lot of wood in our home as my husband is a carpenter/cabinet maker and I love the cosy atmosphere it creates.
4. Where and when do you create?
I create at my sewing table, my kitchen table or my coffee table. I put 2 hours aside every day to sew or collage or blog or just be open for ideas which I write down in an ideas diary. I check my timetable the night before and write down a 2 hour appointment for the next day in my calendar for creating. I have 3 hungry teenage sons, a large appartment and a small garden so there is always something that has to be done. If I didn´t put time aside for myself it wouldn´t happen.
5. What activates your creative energy and what drains it?
Going for a walk each day, noticing the weather, the change of seasons and the colors outside, breathing, these things make me feel alive and full of energy. Having a routine to keep my surroundings organised and my family fed and clothed gives me energy because I can create without that nagging voice in my head telling me I should be doing something else. I am the assistant director of a girl´s choir. Working and being around them gives me a lot of energy too. Being tired drains my energy so I try to get enough sleep but I don´t always succeed - I´d rather read blogs and books.
6.Do you use creative rituals?
I have my utensils sorted into activities. All the sewing stuff in one place, a box for collaging materials, my knitting things all in one basket. One ritual is to put away these things after I am finished so I don´t waste time looking for things. Before I go to bed at night I make sure my living space is tidy so I can start the next day with a clean slate.
7. Does nature influence your creativity? How?
As mentioned in answer 5. There are so many inspiring sounds, patters and color combinations in nature, everywhere you look.
8. What has been your greatest creative hurdle so far?
Silencing the voices in my head telling me what I create is not good enough and that I should be doing something more worthwhile with my time. My routine, positive feedback and a partner who is supportive and creative himself really helped.
9.What time of day are you most receptive to inspiration?
I find mid-morning the best because I´m home alone and it´s so quiet.
This year I will be working within an independent group of international language trainers, interpreters and translators - on the 27th of January our new language training center will be opening with courses beginning in Febuary. We also plan to include art, craft and sewing courses aswell as personal development workshops sometime in the future. I will be starting a series of courses and seminars at the end of January to become a motivational trainer for adults and children. And to top it off I will be learning to play the piano so I can incorperate music and singing into my courses aswell.This week I will concentrate on my new work situation and how to use routines and rituals to make this dream come true.
REACH: to get to or get as far as in moving, going, traveling; to come to or arrive in some course of progress, action; to succeed in touching or seizing with an outstretched hand; to stretch or hold out; to extend so as to touch or meet; to establish communication with; to amount to, as in the sum or total; to succeed in making contact with.
2009 is spread in front of me like a new book waiting to be read, like a new journal waiting to be filled. On this fresh, new, exciting first day of the year I say YES! Yes to life, YES to me, YES to all the old things I love and all the new things I know are just around the corner waiting for me to welcome them in, YES to all the things I have learned and have yet to learn. Happy New Year!
