Transitions & Turmoil: Life Change & Creativity

Sometimes the truth ain't easy to find
I want to know all the answers
But I'm learning that these things take time

Sanctus Real, “These Things Take Time”

Life is change. Change takes energy. Energy is limited.

I am here today to convince you that these three disappointing facts, while burdensome at times, are also intricately stitched into the nature of our creative processes. Indeed – is it possible that life’s incessant change is the very flame of creativity? At least let me convince you that life’s changing nature can be a log on the fire of your creativity.

Validating change
We aren’t going to get rid of change. You aren’t doing something wrong when life throws a wrench in things or when one season turns to another. This is the nature of things. Life makes space for the mundane, but in its way and by its nature, moments turn into moments and years into new years. We do not stay in one space. 

We do not meet change alone. The benefit of flesh meeting spirit is the power of an unchanging God alive and awake within us. We do not meet the changes and chances of life without mercy also in our reach.

Processing the changes of life is a mechanism of creativity. The noticing is stronger in the upset; the changes reflect back to us a vibrancy we might have missed otherwise. Unfortunately, sometimes that vibrancy is the pain of cuts and losses, other times it is the joy of the accomplishment of the moment, and even these hills must be hiked down, and another climbed.

“Change will naturally help us notice. It is in allowing ourselves moments to process – to journal, to craft, to consider, to reflect, to discuss, to rest – in the change, that creativity will flare.”

Change will naturally help us notice. It is in allowing ourselves moments to process – to journal, to craft, to consider, to reflect, to discuss, to rest – in the change, that creativity will flare. Imagine the stone on stone, strike of change, but also the fire that begins with the strike. We can fight against change and endure it, or we can lean in curiously and listen for its insights and craft and create from those insights over time.

Why change is helpful for our brains
Let’s start with a less painful change – apple season to berry season.

In northern Michigan, we delight in September’s Golden Deliciousness and by mid-March are starting to get Gala-ed out. The root cellar barrels start to run lean anyway, but just in time for June’s buckets of blueberries. The difference may seem unnotable to most people, but to the creative, the taste on the tongue is new and fresh, the way you hold each fruit is different, and the breeze itself changes to welcome a new revelation that ignites a new poem or a new song inside our hearts and minds.

In sitting and processing, considering for a moment the change, we gain vocabulary, we notice colors, and we find a bit more relationship with the planet and the God who brings each season to bear. We grow because we consider the differences. We gain preferences and opinions. We have something to share with the world in the course of time.

The same is true for the changes and chances of life which seem more notable than our relationship with produce – accomplishment, new vocations, relationships blooming and diminishing, partings and plantings, resistance and discovery. Any change builds new and wider networks of understanding for how we see the world and how we see ourselves within it.

“In sitting and processing, considering for a moment the change, we gain vocabulary, we notice colors, and we find a bit more relationship with the planet and the God who brings each season to bear.”

Igniting Creativity (Rather than Exhaustion) in Change
Change often demands more attention than we would like to give. It annoyingly at times, demands processing. Most changes involve loss, saying goodbye to what was, even if it’s just apples, and hello to the unfamiliar or, at times, the less preferred.

Do not fret. Your changes in life will serve your creativity without your help. The Maker works within us without our knowing, and the stuff of life sits in our unconscious and builds our sense of self without our contribution. You can choose not to spend one more ounce of energy in your life change and you will have creative benefit from the change. Rest. Let time do its work. If you are exhausted by a change, let the season pass as a tending one. Tend to your soul with breath and God’s Word and sunlight and good food and good sleep. The creativity will come in its time, once the rest season has been tended to.

Change leads to creativity out of necessity.
Change, being anything but simple, requires that we simplify for a moment. We often want to plunge forward, full steam ahead, especially when change is breathing down our neck. But transitions take energy in themselves. We can process by collecting the tidbits in the scrapbook of our mind or in a real-time scrapbook. Go analog. Collect words and sketches or magazine scraps of images that resonate with you in the change.  Have a conversation and name the change, write it on a sticky note, and come back to the change in a month and see what has taken shape or needs attention.

Processing leads to creativity out of connectivity.
Our brain and nervous system find connections to be supportive. Making connections within our change is a gentle processing method that helps us feel less alone in the change and creates a pathway for making sense and meaning. Again, you might process through contemplation or you might process through expressing something to a friend or a journal; you might process by watching films or reading; you might process by noticing the change a little more closely and collecting its fortunate and unfortunate treasures as a child does in a walk through the woods.

Connection is kinder than assessment. By finding words and tidbits that help us identify the change but not determine its “goodness” or “badness” we aren’t exhausted further by our disappointment, and we give the change and transition the time it needs.

Once the change feels less exhausting, process more presently but take the words and images of your change that you have collected, in actuality or in the storage cellar of your subconscious, and bring them forward. Notice themes and any learnings. Let those themes and learnings flame.

Change will find us anyway; we might as well let God collect the pieces of ourselves and go about what God does best, redemption - making beautiful things.