FLOW PSYCHOLOGY

“A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.” –Lao-Tzu

You’d be hard pressed to find a creative person who isn’t intensely aware of their aloneness, and yet, like anyone else, they live in a relationship. However, instead of a social relationship, they rely upon a deep abiding relationship with an intuitive awareness of their special gifts. There’s a sense of partnership with their subconscious intuition and imagination to do creative work.

And so the creative person working in solitude is not really “alone.” They have an intense love affair with aspects of their creative self. Henry James once said that the “essential loneliness” of his life constituted his “deepest” aspect.

The quality of relationship with one’s own inner dynamics, which are nurtured in solitude, provide the conditions for creativity. The feeling arises, when we are creating, that we are doing what we are meant to do and it is sustained by the experience of being touched by something larger– an experience that one simply cannot explain, but instead must honor and serve.

“In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.” ~Rollo May