4 Ways Working With Your Higher Self Can Boost Creativity

Tom Faddegon

February 20, 2024

“[Creativity] is one of the most necessary energies that humans can have in all their lives. Without creativity, life is grey, dark, and lacking in hope.” - Nanette V. Hucknall, Higher Self Yoga: A Practical Teaching

Creativity is one of the noblest pursuits we can undertake as humans. It is a source of joy in and of itself, and when we embrace our innate creativity, it can bring newfound happiness and purpose into our lives.

People generally view creativity as something exclusive to the realm of art. The assumption is that lawyers, doctors, accountants, or other “left-brained” jobs don’t need to don’t require creativity to be successful. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Every field can benefit from a creative mind, and thinking “outside the box” is often what gives people an edge at their job. But while it does improve professional performance, creativity isn’t simply a way of doing better at our jobs.

As you move along your spiritual path, it’s wise to nurture your creativity with an artistic undertaking, whether it be writing, music, painting, or sculpting. It doesn’t matter what avenue you choose, so long as you enjoy the process. Even if you don’t want to pursue a specific artform, you can still foster a creative approach to solving problems can have a huge impact on your life.

Whether you're a trained artist or just trying to bring joy into your life, working with our Higher Selves can help us fuel this creativity. Here’s how…

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1. Replace Perfectionism with Positivity

“Negative attitudes are major blocks on the spiritual path… They take away your inspiration and creativity and hold you in the lower self.” Nanette V. Hucknall, Higher Self Yoga, Book 1

Perfectionism is often called the “enemy of creativity,” and for good reason. One of the biggest reasons people abandon creative pursuits is because they are too judgmental of what they create. They fall into the classic mistake of comparing their work to that of experts who have been honing their craft over many years, making them feel like their work lacks value.

Harshly judging what you create can ruin your creative flow and make it harder to come up with ideas. It’s also the perfect recipe for frustration, defeatism, and low self-esteem. Now, this doesn’t mean you should delude yourself into thinking that every idea you come up with is brilliant. Rather, it simply means that you shouldn’t punish yourself when your work doesn’t meet your high expectations.

Using Your Higher Self: Connecting with your Higher Self helps you see the positive and negative in every situation, and when we apply this to our creative endeavors, we often become aware of the positive aspects of our work. If you’re trying to draw a landscape, you might be chastising yourself that you struggle to draw birds, and completely overlook that your ability to draw trees has improved dramatically over your last few drawings. Working with our Higher Selves also makes it easier to handle feedback and constructive criticism in a way that doesn’t diminish our self-worth or discourage us from creating more.

2. Being Happy Makes You More Creative and Productive

“Happiness in your personal life brings inspiration and creativity to your work.” Nanette V. Hucknall, Karma, Destiny & Your Career

Hollywood likes to depict creative people as tortured, depressed, and self-deprecating individuals, and their misery is precisely what has led to them creating beautiful art or coming up with revolutionary ideas. In reality, people are far less productive and motivated when they are depressed. Dealing with dark times can certainly provide inspiration for your work, but putting in the hours and effort necessary to hone your skills can be impossible when you always feel melancholic.

Using Your Higher Self: One of the biggest benefits of connecting to your Higher Self is the overall increase in joy and happiness you feel in your everyday life. Connecting with nature, taking time to rest in stillness, and practicing your mindfulness meditation are easy ways to feel the spark of joy. Don't feel like you need to be happy all the time as this can create its own series of problems, but happiness should exist in your life more than less.

3. Meditation Makes You More Focused

“The focused will can be creative and determined at the same time. When it is not in a positive place, it loses its creativity.” Nanette V. Hucknall, Higher Self Yoga, Book 1

Procrastination is the most common barrier to creativity. It’s such a ubiquitous problem that some of the most popular books about being an artist, like Steven J. Pressfield’s best-selling The War of Art, are simply about how to stop putting off the work you need to do in order to improve your craft.

Using Your Higher Self: Meditation is a cornerstone of working with your Higher Self, and it can help us overcome distractions and negative thoughts that take us out of our natural creative process. Just like working with your Higher Self can improve athletic performance by helping you achieve a “flow state,” artists benefit in the same way. When you reach a creative flow state, your ideas flow freely, you lose track of time, and you don’t overthink or critique your ideas.

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4. Enhanced Intuition and Decision Making

“If you only use your rational mind to make decisions, then you lack the ability to gain access to your intuition.” - Nanette V. Hucknall, Higher Self Yoga, Book 1

In many ways, creativity is about making decisions. How does a writer decide what happens to the characters in a story? How does a painter decide what colors to use? it’s all about making strong decisions, something our Higher Self can help us to do. Even in traditionally “non-creative” endeavors, we can use creativity to imagine new possibilities. Perhaps there is an antiquated system that needs to be reinvigorated to accommodate new needs.

It’s common for people to feel like something is a little bit off about their work. Just like we can have a nagging feeling in our everyday lives that a situation doesn’t feel right, our intuition can sense that something in our work doesn’t quite fit. This nagging feeling is our intuition trying to tell us something, and listening to our intuition unlocks a deep, unspoken wisdom inside all of us.

Using Your Higher Self: Learning to listen to our intuition is an important part of working with our Higher Selves. When we give ourselves permission to work outside of the rational mind and embrace the energetic knowing that emerges when we are in touch with our intuition, we can access a new kind of information that we may not have seen when we are using only logic. A more abstract style of intuitive thinking is a huge asset in the creative process where there are no bad ideas and anything could be a starting point to something great.