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Episode #008: Cultivating Creativity with Heather Eberle

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Blog Title: Catching Wonder

Social Media:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/catching_wonder/

About Heather: After years spent cycling through depression and anxiety, Heather realized many of her issues stemmed from blocked creativity, stagnation and un-pursued dreams. This led to the creation of her website, Catching Wonder, where she explores topics that lead to growth, like connection, creativity, nature, and love, cultivating healthy relationships and emotional work. She also delves into the spiritual side of life with topics like faith, intuition, presence, alignment and synchronicity. She strives to inspire each of us to move past our fears and do the important work of achieving our dreams.

Notes from Episode #008: Cultivating Creativity

  • Nurture and build on your creativity to grow personally, to build a business and connect with others in your community.

  • Get out of the way of yourself so you’ll be ready to explore what your creativity can grow into.

  • Channel your creativity so you don’t become the reason you can’t be your best self. Also, avoid withdrawal, jealousy, anxiety, bitterness and depression because it will limit you.

  • Learn to cultivate your creativity personally and professionally.

  • Heather shares a quote from The Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. 

  • We all have talents that need to be expressed and shared. 

  • Creativity is the connection to the spirit within us and the outward expression of that. 

  • It’s a myth that some aren’t born creative. 

  • Kids are so creative (playing blocks, making up imaginary worlds) and it’s fostered when we’re younger. But then we get older and we don’t nurture it anymore, it’s not given the importance it did when we were younger. 

  • We get into our heads when we start getting older that we aren’t creative. Our drawing of a person or thing doesn’t look like others do and so we begin to say we aren’t creative, just because it’s not the norm. We think we don’t have talents or abilities and we put our creativity on a shelf. 

  • People have creativity brewing beneath the surface. People have fear or lack of importance of their creative side.  

  • Creativity isn’t just for artists (musicians, artists), it’s important for any aspect of our lives. You can use it for brainstorming, to fix something, to be parents, use in a relationship, as accountants, problem solving, to learn how to get along, mechanics

  • Why creativity might by blocked:we put it aside for more important things or what we consider more important at the time. We feel like we don’t have original ideas, and we fear being ridiculed. We’re worried about subjecting ourselves to criticism, rejection, getting hurt by others responses, rejection,. It’s hard to be vulnerable and giving up control. These are all perceived risks! But “what if I fail” is really the big reason. It’s easier to let fear stop us than us putting ourselves out there. 

  • “I do think that we need a lot of those basic needs to be met before we can get creative (sleep, eating properly, social interaction, enough exercise) that we really do need but than creativity suffers, but on the flip side, if we’re not using our creativity, at some point all those other things suffer too so it kind of is a circular relationship.” (Heather shares)

  • What happens when we ignore the call to create? If you push creativity aside and don’t use it to follow dreams in the way you want to, Heather shares that other negative emotions come forward: withdrawal, detachment from life, relationships suffer, jealousy of others comes out of those that do what you want to do, bitterness, anger, regret, anxiety, Life can feel flat and dull. Inspiration is missing. You’ll notice you aren’t doing any of the things you previously loved doing (cooking, gardening, fix up furniture, etc etc)

  • Cultivate creativity and use it for successful food blogging: “None of us know what we’re doing. All of us who live creative lives figure it out by doing one thing and doing the next thing and trying another thing; the end result might or might not match what you thought what you wanted the end result to be. Keep evolving and growing. It’s a steady exploration of growth and change.”

  • For Heather, she’s realized the goal is the process and the end result is the bonus.

  • If you want to start a blog and feel blocked or are in the middle of a blog, recognize what thoughts are holding you back.

  • Comparing is trouble – your beginning can’t be compared to someone else’s middle. “It’s important to realize we all start where we start and we all improve along the way and just because you see someone else doing what you want to do and it seems light years ahead of what you could achieve at the moment, that doesn’t mean that with some practice you can’t get there because you can. And you’re worth it. Put aside that time to take creating because it is definitely worth it.” (Heather shares)

  • “Don’t worry about creating something completely original because a lot of times I’ll say to myself why would I do this, someone’s already done it but they’ve never done it the way you would’ve done it. You’re going to do it differently, your recipe will be done differently because it’s yours. You’ll put your own stamp on it.” (Heather shares)

  • Then learn to move past that fear of what other people think. You’re never going to please everyone. Make it a choice to please yourself by doing that creative thing you want to do. Make it a habit. If it’s important enough that you want it part of your life, then do it daily. 

  • Creativity comes from the soul, you need to fill your soul with things you love. Some of the things Heather likes to spend time doing is reading, listening to podcasts/music, visiting museums, being in nature, interacting with other creative people, travel. These spur more creativity in yourself. Pinterest and Instagram can also help you tap into creativity.

  • Interacting with creative people is so important. Just talking back and forth with another creative person will give you so many more ideas about how to be creative. 

  • Traveling makes you pay attention. Sometimes when you’re around the same things, surroundings places each day, you get used to it so traveling makes you slow down, lets your senses heighten, you see things clearer, sharper, brighter, the smells are stronger, the people are interesting because it’s different than what you’re used to. You can mix things up in your daily life too since you can’t travel all the time. Change the coffee shop you visit, mix up your routine, go outside because nature is always changing, go a different route to places you normally go. 

  • Favorite quote by Mary Oliver, “The most regretful people on earth, are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power rested and uprising and gave to it neither power nor time.”

  • “Definitely, the last thing I want to do is regret work or dreams I had that were unpursued.” (Heather shares)

  • “You don’t have to create for anyone but yourself. Create because there’s something in your soul that needs to be expressed.” (Heather)

  • “The joy is in the process and just give yourself permission to create for the sake of creation and the rest will follow.” (Heather)

Helpful references from the episode:

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Megan
Megan

Megan started her food blog Pip and Ebby in 2010 and food blogging has been her full-time career since 2013. Her passion for blogging has grown into an intense desire to help fellow food bloggers find the information, insight, and community they need in order to find success.

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