Are You Accessing Your Creative Genius? (Part 1)

Today we get to a juicy part of the model, the Creative Genius.

There’s a lot to say, so we’ll spend three weeks here.

First off, there is a damaging myth in our society that some people are born with genius and don’t need to try very hard.

Well, the book Talent is Overrated unravels this myth of innate genius and provides abundant data that raw talent is, well, overrated. It’s the quantity and quality of deliberate practice that determines success. Geniuses are simply the ones that practice the best—not necessarily the hardest—and talents often develop later in life.

Unfortunately, most of us were talked out of our genius at a young age. We believe it’s too late to catch up to the talented few. We settle, plod along depressed, rationalize, talk ourselves down, play it safe, mimic others, nurse resentments, or sabotage our next chance at success.

Recognize any of these behaviors?

You guessed it! They are all guardians, frozen in time.

They view our core parts as weak, fragile, broken or flawed. They double-down on defense, freeze us in fear, or turn on us, blunting our true potential or genius.

Thankfully, I’ve observed time and again that when we reconnect to the emotional core and release bottled-up emotional pain, we widen our window of tolerance and a core of robust vulnerability develops. When this happens, our guardians relax and our creative genius is allowed to emerge.

Fear that has paralyzed us, is now experienced directly and can find its way to the exit doors as energetic discharges.

Life force tied up by warring guardians becomes available.

Our inner world comes back to life, gradually at first, and then powerfully, like a wildflower bloom in a desert that has received rain.

Our imagination lights up. Creative work becomes play. It produces itself effortlessly. We are surprised by our brilliance. Something bigger than us flows through us. We are the instrument of an unseen force. We easily surmount walls that previously contained us. Burnout evaporates. Our energy refills.

We have found our Creative Genius.

The creative genius here defined is an instrument of self that increases the overall health of the system. We are leaving aside the problem of manic creativity, which is essentially guardian-led, disconnected, or “driven” creativity that leads to burnout and an impairment of health. Creative production can easily over-extend us if we’re not careful, especially if stimulants are involved. This is not our true creative genius, which is connected and embodied.

Our true creative genius does not concern itself with status games and party tricks.

It guides us from a whole-system perspective.

It provides us with the capacity to heal and grow and corrects our early missteps. It may tell us when we need to rest or come up with solutions to our self-care.

There is an even deeper idea to consider. Healing from physical illness and loss may have been the evolutionary impetus for our creative drive in the first place.

“Illness was no doubt the final cause of the whole urge to create. By creating, I could recover; by creating, I became healthy.” - Sigmund Freud quoting poet Henrich Heine.

When guardians relax, creativity flows, and health emerges.