“Vulnerability is at the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” – Brené Brown: Listening to shame | TED Talk

In investigating how I wanted this article to plan out, I came across amazing content around the topics of creativity and expression, as well as beautiful ways that describe and explain what creativity and expression can look like and where it essentially stems from. I believe it is an important topic of discussion, and I also feel that there is such a hunger and strong desire to unleash one’s creativity and expression, yet in many of us (me included) something seems to hold us back.

Steven M. Smith, a professor of psychology at the Institute for Applied Creativity at Texas A&M University, says many people believe that only a handful of geniuses are capable of making creative contributions to humanity: "It just isn’t true. Creative thinking is the norm in human beings and can be observed in almost all mental activities.". – Unleashing Creativity | Scientific American

There are so many ways for creativity to manifest, it doesn’t always have to be within an artistic or fashion style of expression, it can be the way someone files and organises things or structures their to-do list that can be creative. It can be an innovative and creative expression of the way they want and desire for things to be.

I remember doing two creative solutions for myself as a child that are not within the classic expressions of creativity that we know within society. I never was the art creator type, as I don’t believe that I can draw or paint to save my life, possibly with practice and true desire I certainly could learn aspects of it, but it is not a strong interest of mine.

I was struggling with one of my horses to get him to understand a movement called a flying change, which basically is having them canter in one direction in a circle, and then literally in the air, hence the term flying, ask them to switch their legs to be able to change into the other direction. This horse could get it right in the one direction, but we could not match up the other way, it became a broken disjointed movement. I discovered in conversation with my sister what I was potentially doing wrong to confuse the horse. As I asked for the horse to change, I was unable to get my pelvis to change from leading with the right side to leading with the left side. I just could not get it to move that way, my body only shifted to the one side. I practiced for hours, drilling the poor horse, until I decided to just create another way that the horse could understand what I wanted from him. So instead of using my pelvis to communicate the command, I took my bum out of the saddle and did a shift in my legs; it took the horse a little while to learn this new command, but we hardly ever had a problem of that creative solution.

My other expression of creativity was an exploration and discovery of how to get into my grandparent’s house to have my gran’s delicious home baked cookies. Essentially, I was breaking into their house, but I never saw it like that, and I never took the cookie without calling my gran from her landline after I got into the house, asking for permission to have a cookie. She was so confused as to how I was calling her from inside the house, as she was sure she had locked it when she left for work. It was during the school time holidays and so boredom sprung into creativity in overcoming the barrier to those cookies It was such a fun game, and I truly was creative with fishing nets, string, and wood to lengthen the stick. There was a whole heap of stuff around the farm at my disposal enabling the creativity.

Professor Steven M. Smith said in the quote above that creative thinking is the norm in human beings and both my examples were expressions of creative thinking.

“It is, at its most basic level, your outer manifestation of an internal thought or emotion.” - Creative Expression: How To Unleash Your Creativity - xMonks

I feel this is such an accurate statement of what expression is. Children are incredibly expressive, with their emotions, their desires and wants, as well as their fears and as we grow up and learn about society and what is acceptable and what is not, we become more controlled in our outer manifestations of expression, the internal thoughts and emotions may still be there, but we don’t let them manifest as openly as we did as children.

There are many reasons for these inhibitions of expression, it can be survival, acceptance, even shame. I will discuss more around shame and its impact on creativity and expression later, but all these things cause us to shape and mold our expression to what we believe to be more pro-survival or a better way to be seen and heard.

Meanwhile the desire for authentic expression is so strong these days; on social media, followers are wanting authenticity, people themselves want to be truly heard and seen, more people are desiring to fully manifest their internal thoughts and emotions.

I mentioned “authentic” in the previous chapter, and I want to dive into a few words that seem to come around creativity and its expression, both from what I have read and through my personal experiences. They are -

“Authentic, Vulnerability, Shame and Safety”

They all seem to go hand in hand; authenticity and vulnerability enable creativity, whereas shame and safety impact on expression and then they inter-relate with each other.

“Authenticity is the foundation of creativity. When we are true to ourselves and express ourselves honestly, we create work that is unique and meaningful. Authenticity allows us to connect with our audience on a deeper level, as they can sense our sincerity and passion in our work." - Exploring the link between authentic self-expression and creativity | by Chicken Dinner Consulting | Medium

To bring about authenticity, we must allow ourselves to be seen, really seen and to be able to do that we also must be willing to be vulnerable –

“Vulnerability is emotional risk, exposure, uncertainty, it is an accurate measure of courage.” - Brené Brown: Listening to shame | TED Talk

I am finding this section hard to write about, in fact this is my second attempt, as I did not really like my first draft. Even my husband noticed that it did not flow as it usually does, and I feel that I became detached and unpersonal. As I have put these words down, I recognise discomfort and concern to be authentic and vulnerable.

As I expressed at the beginning of this article, this topic means a lot to me. Unleashing of creativity and expression is such a deep desire for me and the people that have fully seen me for who I am, absolutely love for it. So, I ask myself, why wouldn’t that be enough to let myself stand up strong and say – “hey guys, this is me!” I find myself battling the fears of shame.

“Shame is the fear of disconnection, is there something about me that if other people know it or see it. That I won’t be worthy of connection?’’ - Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability | TED Talk

I have struggled and still struggle with a dreaded feeling of shame. Brene Brown’s explanation of shame is spot on. All of us growing up, in school, or within our family dynamics, at some points have feared or fear not being worthy of connection. So many people change, mask, and minimise themselves, taking away their creativity and expression just to avoid shame, in the hope that they are found worthy of connection.

Over time I have learnt to surround myself with people that can see me for who I truly am and don’t shame me or let me know that they are not comfortable fulling seeing and hearing the unusual and extravagant things I like to do or talk about. We need to recognise that safety plays a very big role in creativity and expression as well. When we feel safe, we are willing to shed the mask and fully manifest the internal thoughts and emotions. The place that I return to for myself and fully see this full expression of creativity is at events like AfrikaBurn. Where one of their guiding principles is radical self-expression! Just about anything goes, everyone can wear, dress up into as much or as little and just about anything their hearts desire and feel absolutely no shame. I just adore the creativity that comes out, the expressions, the joy, the energy, it is such a beautiful sight to behold. People fully and shamelessly being themselves.Over time I have learnt to surround myself with people that can see me for who I truly am and don’t shame me or let me know that they are not comfortable fulling seeing and hearing the unusual and extravagant things I like to do or talk about. We need to recognise that safety plays a very big role in creativity and expression as well. When we feel safe, we are willing to shed the mask and fully manifest the internal thoughts and emotions. The place that I return to for myself and fully see this full expression of creativity is at events like AfrikaBurn. Where one of their guiding principles is radical self-expression! Just about anything goes, everyone can wear, dress up into as much or as little and just about anything their hearts desire and feel absolutely no shame. I just adore the creativity that comes out, the expressions, the joy, the energy, it is such a beautiful sight to behold. People fully and shamelessly being themselves.

Back in 2022, the first year I joined a nudist camp at AfrikaBurn, I was chatting to a guy, and he told me that he really wanted to walk around the entire main street fully naked and I mentioned why not? He expressed that he was terrified and felt he was completely out of his mind, I just listened and allowed him to be heard without judgement. As he was talking, he got the courage and said he was going to do, I gave him a boost of positivity and said to come share his experience. The next day he came back naked except for shoes and a backpack, looking utterly exhilarated, I asked how it was and he said amazing, everyone just treated me like a normal person.

That statement has stood with me, he went out there, stripped his vulnerability to the absolute core and was treated fully as the beautiful human he is.

In my work of NeuroKinetic Therapy and correction of dysfunctional movement patterns, I find myself getting very creative, very much like figuring out how to get into my grandparent’s house. I do posture analysis, look at movement assessments and history, taking what we know and observe into conjunction with manual muscle testing, and we discover muscle imbalances and movement dysfunctions Then, based off the sources of information available and what we find, we create neuromuscular re-education programs and bring functional anatomy and biomechanics back into full expression and thus performance enhancement.

That’s the technical side of how I approach my work, but I also bring to my clients a safe space where they can unleash creative expression and, in this context, I mean their authenticity and vulnerability. I allow for them to be fully seen and heard in my therapy room, I encourage them to collaborate with me on the creative exploration of what could be impacting them, and I give them the opportunity to fully express themselves.

Have the courage to be vulnerable.

Find safe spaces, friends, groups, and environments to let your creativity be expressed.

Use that vulnerability and courage to go against society norms and fully be you.

Try not to let shame dominate your life.

Let yourself be fully seen and heard for who you are and allow others to show you truly who they are.

I hope this article gives you a clearer idea as to what it means to unleash your creativity and expression. Certainly, for me the related articles on this topic have given me useful information and insight as to why my creativity and expression shuts down and in what ways I will be able to open and express again.

Speaking of creativity, I am going to close this article with a little poem I wrote –

I am beautiful, I am strong, I am kind, I do belong.

Perfect I will never be, nor do I want to be.

It is the oddities of me that shine in the dark nights sky.

Love me, love yourself, love our fellow mankind.

See us, hear us, for we all, are worthy in this universal eye.

Ayla Caldwell - Motivational Speaker, Posture Therapist, NeuroKinetic Therapist, NKT Therapy Training (South Africa)

www.aylacaldwell.com

info@aylacaldwell.com