You Need a Creative Outlet More Than You Think
Let’s talk creatively
Everyone has their own creative process. Or maybe you think you don’t *heavy sigh*, which honestly probably means this is especially for you.
To create is to connect. To yourself, your memories, your body, or whatever higher power you believe in. God, the universe, instinct, emotion, intuition. Call it whatever you want. Creativity seems to be one of the closest things we have to communion with it.
What’s interesting is that almost every artist, writer, or creator seems to arrive there differently.
Joan Didion started her mornings with Coca-Cola (slay) and almonds. She wrote throughout the day, then had a drink in the evening to “get loose” enough to edit. Toward the end of finishing a novel, she slept in the same room as the manuscript because, as she put it, “somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it.”
Georgia O’Keeffe woke before sunrise, made tea, watched the light come up, painted through the day, then ended her evenings with long drives through the desert.
Rick Rubin talks often about creativity not as forcing ideas into existence, but becoming quiet enough to notice them.
Patti Smith writes about wandering, observing people, collecting objects, sitting in cafés, walking without agenda.
David Lynch compares ideas to fish. The deeper and quieter you go, the bigger the ideas become.
Personally, some of my best writing in college happened after a glass or two of wine, though this was because something was ~forcing~ me to work, the creative process was there nonetheless.
I still haven’t nailed my own creative process down to a science. It changes constantly. Some days I need movement, meditation, music, sunlight, silence. Something that grounds me back into myself before I can create anything meaningful. Other days, creativity arrives effortlessly. Sometimes it appears halfway through dinner with friends or after a martini on a random Tuesday.
Neuroscience actually supports this inconsistency more than people realize.
Studies on neuroplasticity, which, is the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new neural connections, suggest creativity activates multiple systems in the brain at the same time. Emotional processing, memory, sensory perception, motor function, imagination, problem solving. Creative work appears to strengthen cognitive flexibility and improve the brain’s ability to shift between different states and perspectives.
In other words, creativity is not just self-expression. It is brain adaptation.
Researchers have also found that tactile creative activities like pottery, painting, sewing, gardening, cooking, and working with textiles can help regulate the nervous system because they combine movement, sensory engagement, focused attention, and novelty all at once. There’s probably a reason people feel calmer after making something with their hands.
Modern life asks us to consume constantly. Creativity asks us to participate.
Maybe that’s why it feels so healing.
Not because every creative act has to become something successful, profitable, or impressive. But because creating reconnects people to themselves. To slowness. To observation. To beauty. To presence.
Maybe creativity was never reserved for artists.
It’s just part of being human. “We” (Benjals) didn’t consistently reconnect with creativity until very recently. The more we create, the more we realize creativity is less about talent and more about participation. About noticing, experimenting, observing, and allowing yourself to make things without needing them to justify their existence first.
