The Benefits of Cultivating New Creative Skills
By definition, creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas to bring something new to life. When we were kids we were always encouraged to be creative whether it was through make believe games, finger painting or playing with toys like PlayDoh. For kids, creativity is a chance to try new ideas, explore new ways of thinking and helps us to discover and celebrate our uniqueness and diversity when we’re young. It encourages children to express themselves openly without judgment.
As we get older, we often find ourselves censoring our creativity as we start to conform to social expectations, often as a means of survival and fitting in with those around us. We avoid expressing ourselves freely in order to avoid judgement from others, making decisions based on what we think those around us will approve of and as a result, end up minimising and quashing a lot of our creativity.
However, over the last year, many of us have turned to creativity as a means of distraction or coping with lockdown and Covid-19 life. It’s been a means of escapism and opportunity to embrace something new in our lives and with more time at home on our hands, we’ve taken the time to develop or return to creative passions we’d long forgotten about.
If you find yourself feeling stuck or in a rut, embracing creativity within your life can be a positive, small step in the right direction. It’s a chance to shake things up a little by challenging yourself to a new skill and as it turns out, there are many positive benefits to embracing creativity.
Freedom
There’s no manual to being creative and there’s no right or wrong way to be creative. It’s a very personal experience that differs for every person. Being creative is an opportunity for us to engage with the world without judging ourselves. Through creativity, we’re able to return to that feeling of freedom that we experienced in childhood, free from pressures to be an expert. It’s this liberating permission slip to take risks, to try new things and to strip away inhibitions.
Stress Relief
There’s an incredibly meditative element associated with creativity, that sense of being totally ‘in the zone’, where you’re concentrating so much on the task at hand that everything around you ceases to exist or at least minimises its importance and impact on you. Creativity is about fun and doing things that bring you joy, often for no other reason than that – you enjoy yourself when doing them. Furthermore, doing things that bring us joy in life reduces our stress levels overall and improves our quality of life.
Self-awareness and expression
Following on from the meditative element of creativity, through regular creativity we begin to unlock a different kind of access to our self-awareness. We begin to access our true thoughts, feelings and beliefs and take time to develop our own ideas. We learn a lot about ourselves and with that learning, we’re able to express ourselves better and more fully in all aspects of life. Plus, there’s nothing like taking on new challenges – such as a creative skill – and smashing them to make you feel like a real hero. So what do you know, your self-esteem will thank you too for embracing creativity. When we make creativity a habit, we continue to learn new, resourceful ways of solving problems through these creative skills.
Invitation to explore
If you’re on the hunt for a new creative skill yourself, we’d love to invite you along to one of our virtual classes. This week (Thursday 15th April, 6pm) we’re running a Virtual Wax Carving Class where, via Zoom, you can make your own pendant from the comfort of your own home. We’ll send you a package with everything you need ahead of the virtual class and you’ll receive the Zoom link upon purchase of your ticket.
Then, once your package has arrived safely with you, through the virtual class our tutor will teach you all the techniques to carve your pendant design into a piece of wax. The wax is much smoother and nicer to work with the buttery texture allowing you to create textures and designs that you can’t do with metal. Once you’ve finished with your wax carving, you can decide if you’d like your creation to be cast (additional prices listed on the event listing)
Secure your place on our virtual class here
