Feeling Stuck? Creative Wisdom From A 3-Year Old.

“Okay, Auntie, here’s what we’re gonna do…”

This is my three-year-old niece, instructing me over Facetime how to colour with her.

“Do you have a blue crayon? Blue? Okay, now here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go like this…”

Cue full-on, free-range scribbling.

Her little hand, gripping the crayon, racing around the page, filling the white space with erratic blue lines.

This “colouring workshop” was without a doubt the highlight of my day.

Kinda like having my own private session with Bob Ross, if Bob Ross was REALLY excited and just having a free-for-all on the page instead of painting “happy little clouds.”

Truly, it’s delightful to watch a child’s effortless engagement and full-body expression of creativity.

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Photo: One of my niece's many fridge-worthy creations. [/caption]

When did we forget how to do this? How to colour outside the lines, or without any lines at all?

I’ve been thinking about the need for unencumbered creative expression.

Feeling stuck in the midst of a locked-down (and defiantly grey) winter, I recently decided to try something different. So I grabbed my mixed media book, my watercolours, markers, pencil crayons, and assorted crafts.

And I started making things.

Just like my niece, I leaned into it. I scribbled hard. I painted. I glued sequins on things.

It felt freeing. Things softened somehow.

It strikes me that this approach may be useful for any feelings of storytelling stuckness.

Sure, templates can be useful and provide a sense of ease.

And as I recently explored, constraints can actually be a gateway for creativity.

(That’s one reason why my books include journaling prompts and guidance.)

But sometimes we need to break the template.

Embrace purposelessness. Messiness. The joy of creating “just because.”

Pretend, for a moment, that we were never taught to fear the blank page. That we have no idea what writer’s block is.

Since that workshop with my niece, I've been playing around with some form or art or artistic expression almost every day. It isn't a panacea for all the difficulty we're facing right now, but it is... something. Something good.

What's more, I've also been delighting, these past weeks and months, in delivering workshops of my own — for UX designers, writers, subject matter experts, and more. Of course, they're a little different from the one my niece gave me. :) But they do offer creative inspiration, storytelling skills, virtual team building and a sense of connection.

Meanwhile, wherever you are right now, I hope that just for a moment you can remember what it was like to be three again, holding a crayon, and just going for it.