There's a river of creativity inside you.

I have a theory/kind-of-cheesy analogy about creativity. Ready?

Creativity is like a river flowing inside of you. Whether you are an accountant, artist, barista, or whatever else, this body of water runs through you, through all of us. Side note:

If you are alive, you are creative. [tweet]

So this river (your creativity). In its natural state, it runs wild — rapids and undercurrents and white water abound. When you are a child, it flows especially free. You build towering cities from tiny legos and paint purple monsters with 59 eyeballs and draw superheros on sidewalks.

Maybe something happened when you were 10, or 26, or 52, but one day you wake up and making stuff feels foreign. You don't know where to begin, or how. Maybe you have a small inkling of a thing you want to make, but you don't make it.

You go to bed. You wake up. You go to work. You still don't make a thing.

With every passing day, the things you don't make pile up, and soon the river is dammed.

For it to flow again, you must make a thing. And other things. You must make all the things.

You must produce. You must let all the stifled creative energy that's stuck inside work through your body if you want new ideas, inspiration, growth. The old must exit to make room for the new.

Once you start making things, the river slowly begins to flow again — perhaps just a trickle. But soon the dam will bust open and you will be flooded with ideas and inspiration.

Practically speaking...

This is where one of my favorite practices comes in — a daily art project! Whether it's a week, month, or even 100 days, when you start showing up daily and making "shitty first drafts", that's when the good stuff springs forth.

It can be as simple as buying a notebook or pad of paper. Yesterday I grabbed a pad multimedia paper with 30 sheets, and I'm painting one sheet a day for the next month.

I believe everyone needs to go through an intentionally experimental phase with their creativity (like a DIY art school). I believe in the power of showing up every day and making. It's really hard. And completely worth it.

Stop sitting, waiting for that big idea, and start today with ONE thing. Maybe you don't feel confident in what you make. That's because you don't have experience making it yet! Start today. No more merely wishing "I want to make _____." Start today.

Start today, keep going tomorrow, and the ideas will flow forever. [tweet]

P.S.

If you're interested in a guided month of making, be sure to check out GRIT: A 30-Day Guidebook to Relentless Discovery for Visual Artists. 

(This is one of the things I've made!)

It's $19 and inside you'll find 20 creative prompts (note: I will NOT ask you to draw your coffee cup...), four weekly reflective exercises, resources, a free #atwildwoman download, and more.

The day I threw all my artwork in the trash.

Today I wanted to share an email with you that I sent the day I left New Zealand to move back to the States.

The recipient was my amazing coach — Steph Jagger — who has been an incredible guiding light over the past few months.

Read on for an excerpt of the email.

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HELLO!

I had to send you an email today because something so cool and mysteriously magical happened this morning.

Before we spoke yesterday, I sat down with all of the artwork I've made here in NZ and decided to let it go. I threw it all in the trash. With love, of course. I felt so grateful to have made it. Each piece taught me something. But I knew it was time to let it go.

(That, and I just didn't have room for it all in my bag.)

I released all expectations of my art right there. I really feel like the past few months have been leading up to that moment of surrender.

Then we had our call, and those words "Maybe you are an artist, not a designer" struck me right in the gut. I knew it was true immediately.

But still, I had this overwhelming peace after we chatted, "Just let it be", and decided to relax into this uncertainty and just trust. I would make art again.

I removed all art pieces from my web shop, but forgot to take them down from Etsy. Welllll, today I woke up and had sold my first "real" piece of art. (I sold one other piece before to a friend. Still counts, but this one was a complete stranger and it felt different.)

My heart dropped and leapt and I scrambled out of bed to sift through all the trash bags. I finally found the one small piece this person bought, still perfectly in tact.

I hear you, Universe. 

The pure mystery and magnitude of it makes me a bit weepy as I am about to walk out this door, where I've met so many lows and highs and breakthroughs and battles. Like this whole year was worth more than I can even comprehend right now.

Funny how the Universe shows up right when you're ready, in the most unsuspecting of ways.

[Editor's note: I much appreciated this part of Steph's response — "I love what you wrote about the Universe showing up when you're ready but really my girl, the Universe is always there...it's waiting for us to show up!" This is why she's the best.]

There's that quote by Albert Einstein: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” I feel like I'm slowly stepping back into that state of magic.

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Surrender does not mean giving up hope, but sometimes (usually) you just need to LET. GO. You just might find that when you walk away from the door you've been knocking on for weeks, months, years.. it opens.

Or it doesn't. And that's okay too. You'll find other doors, the right doors.

That's the deal with surrender. You don't know where you'll go, but when you stop trying to force your way you'll end up right where you're supposed to be.

Here's to miracles, mystery, and magic.
And surrender.

-Amanda