The Basic Need for Creativity

Monday, September 3rd, 2012

Carl Jung listed creativity and reflection as a basic human instincts, along with hunger, sexuality, and activity. Growing up in this culture we learn to develop ways of fulfilling our needs related to hunger, sexuality, and activity. Academia teaches analytic thinking and with it mentation – the ability to think about thinking. Yet fostering creativity in and of itself often falls by the wayside. Classes that sponsor creativity are treated as “electives” in public education, and are usually the first to be cut with budget constraints. In elementary school, learning to color within the lines is often “graded” better than spontaneous creative expression. Only a fraction of us (about 10% of the population) – who are predominantly artists and people with deviant behavior patterns – are left handed, and right-brain dominated. Although Gardner theorized that there are seven areas of “creative intelligence,” traditional intelligence tests measure Verbal and Performance IQ. Processing speed is measured but a creativity quotient is not in the mix.

Creative expression is essential to psychological and spiritual well-being. Although creative development is not a priority, a disconnection from creativity is often what brings people into therapy, psychoanalysis, and off on spiritual quests. Creative expression provides a venues for spiritual connection, and a way of deepening our understanding with ourselves. It is a means for engaging in an inner intuitive dialogue, a way of knowing.

So how does one learn to express themselves creatively when it seems like a foreign language? How does creative expression begin to feel authentically energizing? One of the ways is through active, automatic practice. When we do something automatically, it is done without thought. The Abstract Expressionist painters used automatic painting as a gateway to the unconscious. They avoided a logical approach to art and opted instead for movement based upon unthought expression. The “action painters” painted through gesture, with little regard for image or outcome – they stayed true to the process. The record of their experience was more important than the outcome. Action brings understanding.

This automatic creative process also occurs in shamanism when we “feel” our way into something with our bellies rather than using the sequential logic of our minds. We allow the creative process of spirituality  to lead us rather than vice versa. Our connection to something greater – is what informs us – and brings with it a state of deeper knowing. We experience and then draw meaning from the experience.

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