What chronic illness taught me about creativity

I feel like I now have a PhD in creativity. Chronic illness has taught me how I can create without the chaotic magic and under sub-optimal circumstances. This is what I’ve learnt.

Photo by Tim Arterbury on Unsplash

I used to think that creativity was something you were either born with or wasn’t. And for some odd reason I wasn’t. 

I played the flute — quite well if I may add, I sang in choirs, I wrote my own songs (which I were too embarrassed to share), I played piano and guitar and sang in my own band, I even accompanied and conducted a whole choir during a school concert. But nopes, I was not creative according to myself — I was just mediocrely good at stuff.

When I became ill — and began to write songs as a way of making sense of things — I started to understand that the feeling of not being creative was really me not being connected to myself. And yes, there are a lot of disconnected people who are incredible artists, but I came to understand that my personal creativity — that feeling of being a creative person — stems from a deep connection to my inner world. 

Creativity was my way of expressing myself.

But as my body became more and more ill, I couldn’t rely on the chaotic flow that creativity often is. I had to study creativity through a lens of highly limited energy. 

From this place, I began to learn lessons about creativity that I couldn’t grasp — or took for granted — when I was able-bodied. This is what I learnt:

Creativity can be broken into tiny acts

On most (good) days I only have about five to twenty minutes of brain-time where I can do something creative. So I’ve broken every single creative thing into tiny acts. 

For my songs I might do a ‘word dump’ one day to find new lyrics and I might pick a chord progression another day, then on a different day play around with it and come up with my own progression. 

For my book I might take notes for the outline of a new chapter on one day, or read a paragraph for research on another.

For my newsletter here on Substack I might brainstorm titles one day, or brainstorm on another, or write the introduction for an essay. 

It’s slow going, but with time I’ve become better and faster at not faffing around too much and wasting my precious brain time. I do miss the chaotic flow days where I was completely immersed for hours — but this will have to do right now.

Even people who aren’t chronically ill, but just don’t have a lot of time can break up creative projects in this way. 

To read more about my tiny creative acts read this piece.

The right kind of visualisation can spur the creative process

I was knee-deep in self-help literature during my first years of illness and spent many hours immersed in meditations visualising holding my book in my hand, or singing on stage, or receiving accolades for my album. But little did it help, I got nowhere, because I had no clue how to actually write a book or record an album — especially not with limited physical energy. All I got from all that visualisation was overwhelm. 

When I started online coaching (something I could do once or twice a week when I was mildly-moderately ill), I noticed that visualising the goal simply kept my clients stuck and overwhelmed too and I began to research. I found out what I had subconsciously known to be true for a long time, but it went against everything I was being taught.

See, self-help literature tells us to visualise our goals and they will manifest. But research (like this study) has debunked this idea. Instead, visualising the process or the steps to get to the goal is a lot more effective.

This changed things for me — especially as I couldn’t go through the process in the same way as able-bodied people. I had to invent my own steps, visualise so I knew how to plan my projects and fulfil those steps while also enjoying the process. 

I still use this kind of visualisation to this day and it keeps me going despite very limited energy and brain-time. I will use a few seconds (nothing more) quickly visualising a five minute task — this also tells me if my bodymind is prepared for it or if I need to break it further down or change it up, or ditch it.

Creative inspiration is precious (and can be a privilege)

I find that the more isolated I’ve become the less inspiration I get for my creative projects. Yes, isolation can give you things to write/create about — especially taking inspiration from the inner world — but I find inspiration runs out or gets dull. 

My dreams are usually a big stressful mess and I rarely get inspiration from them, but the few times I do I’m elated and truly grateful.

Lying in bed, confined to my home, I have to be very creative when it comes to being inspired. A while ago I did a writing exercise posted by Jeannine Oullette where we had to go for a walk and find three random things and write a short paragraph using them as inspiration. I clearly cannot go for a walk so I asked my parents to get me three things when they were on their walk. Instead of being inspired by conversations I hear out and about I allow myself to be inspired by conversations in series.

It’s not the same, which is why I find inspiration to be so precious and a privilege.

The subconscious uses a lot of energy — and we need it for the magic

For creativity to be truly magical we need the subsconscious. I didn‘t think the subconscious uses any energy because things happen in the background. But the subconscious uses a ton of energy even though we don’t feel it. 

I know this, because when I’m in a particularly exhausted phase (which I am most days) absolutely nothing happens inside of me. Nothing comes up, no new ideas, no words, no images. I can’t even do my Dali-exercise whereby I go into a meditative, near-sleep state and observe the images my mind conjures — something I’ve used often in my songwriting process. My brain is simply too exhausted to create anything.

At the moment, I cannot rely on my subconscious to produce ideas. I hate this, as I feel the magic is gone. I can still be creative, but it’s a more mechanical way of being creative, and quite frankly, a lot less magical.

I always find it ironic how illness opened me up to my creative self, but it is also what made creativity a whole lot harder and less magical, because there is simply not enough energy in my body to go out all creative in that chaotic, magical way, and I don’t have the energy to practice my skillset (like the flute or piano or my voice, or even going deeper in my writing), which is also needed to deepen one’s creativity. 

I do feel like, however, that I now have a PhD in creativity. I feel secure in my creative process — I can even create without the chaotic magic and under sub-optimal circumstances — and I know how important the bodymind is to the creative process, and that it’s not my fault when I have longer periods where I simply cannot create anything, because my bodymind is not available to be creative. 

Tell me…

What has chronic illness taught you about creativity?

What is your favourite creative tool or strategy?

How does illness hinder your creativity?

Thank you so much for reading this post. If you know someone who could benefit from this, then please share this page with them. You are also more than welcome to share it in your Facebook or other patient support groups.

Did you miss?

Navigating creativity with chronic illness

Grieving the loss of my inner world

Tiny creative acts: How I stay creative in the midst of chronic illness

Meditation: Connecting to the Earth

Are you looking for all the meditations? Click here