Hi everyone @Former-Member @Renegade @paintingallday @Former-Member (and welcome) @Former-Member @outlander @Mariposa @Maggie @Shaz51 @Judi9877 @Snowie and anyone else here tonight. I've just read the discussion so far and it's fabulous. Lots of great ideas and inspirations.
For me creativity takes the form of colouring mandalas, writing, and cooking to share with others. But I've recently done some online classes in watercolour and acrylic painting and geometric mandalas which I enjoyed. My main medium is my writing, both journalling and writing poems and short stories. For me I know that when my creativity is really flowing I lose all sense of time - go into a timeless zone where my words just flow through me or the colours appear on a page without me having to try or think about it.
The impacts on my mental health are multiple. There's just the act of doing it taking my focus off my mh challenges, and allowing myself to express myself without feeling scrutinised by anyone, just let my words flow. The way it helps me piece together some of the events during bipolar and post-trauma episodes in the past and even sometimes find the humour in 20:20 hindsight. Then there's the feeling since I started doing live readings and entering my work to competitions and sharing in writers groups (I'm in 3) that I may actually have something to offer an audience, that I can contribute something to the world. That even tho' I primarily write for myself, others can take something away from my work. That's huge and really good for my self-esteem and self-worth. Especially when I won a couple of prizes. Had to overcome a huge fear of judgment that still rears it's head at times, but less often.
Challenges - well most of my life (I'm 57) most of my writing was done during manic or hypomanic times (tho' I didn't know I had bipolar til I was 46, it's clear looking back). So 2 years ago I realised I was really missing writing since I became much more stable and I set myself the challenge to start writing again without getting hyper. I'm still learning how to listen to the words that come from within me without putting any 'have to's' onto it, how to be in touch with my muse, so to speak. The best writing I do is when it just comes to me, without effort. So things like being outside in nature, either in the garden, at the beach, or up at a farm where I have the use of a wee caravan, listening to music, dancing .... Literally putting myself in an environment where I can hear my own thoughts without any interference.
The challenge I want to work through is to be able to create characters, write more than confessional works, and create fiction.
Re : getting started ... someone said 'If you want to be a writer you have to write'! So even if it's only a few dot points about my day, I have been writing every day since mid-March when covid social distancing started. Not trying to turn it into 'a piece' but just free flow writing - I call it splurging.
I've spent so long raving here there are probably some more questions posed by now. Thanks for making this discussion happen folks.
