In the current purging series I’ve tried to help articulate why this (and projects like these) are so vital to our human wellbeing especially at this historical juncture in time.
I know that some will skim read it. In so doing, chances are they won’t make the connection between a process like purging and it’s deeper purpose of helping to revitalize something far more critical to our human well being…personal creativity.
Nevertheless, I wanted to put in the effort to have this process available if and when people were ready (and while I have the stamina to burn a little midnight oil and get it down in writing and online).
Just like the thousand hours of TV shows I produced, many at first thought it was only about “Interior Design”. We knew that would be the case. So we tried to create a format like no other, weaving silly skits, clever makeovers, education, psychological observation, interpersonal relationship dynamics and spiritual motivation into…well, something like Pewee’s Playhouse meets Oprah..umm Stewart? LOL.
We knew if you weren’t laughing you wouldn’t be learning and if easy, clever and achievable makeovers only cost a buck or two, using stuff you never dreamed could be eye-popping, then you might first tune in and then over time actually participate. No…not just in the “interior design” process, but in your own personal inner well being.
Well, it worked. In our first two seasons over 70% of our viewing audience
wasn’t even interested in “how-to” shows. Those who were began to actually accomplish change under their roofs when they hadn’t before. What changed their experience from voyeuristic and passive to proactive and hands on? Well, we came from a completely different perspective than any of the other design show’s viewers had watched but never acted on.
What was the difference? The distinction was that our show was not actually about interior design, but rather using interior design as a tool to illustrate how one’s physical interior and one’s mental interior always matched. It wasn’t based on my 25 years if interior design, but my 25 years in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the power of personal creativity and its core origin.
When we were finally able to it illustrated that if you changed either the physical or mental interior, the other would change too, our quiet little TV show became the highest rated in the Discovery Channel’s global daytime lineup. The theme was simple: in a world that seems out of control, YOU’VE GOT THE POWER!
The difference was also in education one could understand and could physically act on. And I don’t mean just interior design know-how either.
See, first we had to dispel the often-damaging myth about creativity and its distinction to talent. In a celebrity-obsessed culture like ours where the commodity of talent is evidently the great “get” (on the path to fame and fortune) most average people simply confused it with personal creativity. They felt that if they couldn’t entertain or produce something awe inspiring, that they weren’t creative at all, so why bother?
By linking the idea and definition of ‘talent” (possessed by few) with “creativity” (which without, no human could even function), this remarkable inherent gift we all possess gets relegated to the back burner – buried under the negative perceptions of ourselves and worse, redirected to creatively manifesting high drama versus simple delight.
Truth is, a lot of the no-brainer stuff we do, subconsciously, without even thinking, can only be done through using our creativity. The brain may govern our motor skills and dexterity, but it’s our inherent creativity through which we make far more critical decisions that customize the world to ourselves.
It’s within our creative DNA that true intuition and curiosity lives and functions everyday even if only on automatic pilot. Now and then it cuts through as what we think as “premonition” or “coincidence” but otherwise we starve it, yet it remains constant. If you can drive a car through busy traffic, cook a meal, pull an outfit together, carry on a cohesive conversation, read a novel, put on make up, do your hair, shop for anything or multi-task…that’s creativity at its very basic, most rudimentary output. Like breathing…it runs whether you ask it to or not. If we do it without thinking, imagine its power if we actually, intentionally DID apply conscious thought (and therefore value) to it?
The greatest historic breakthroughs we’ve had in the modern age can only be utilized by us, through our creative intuition. An automobile can go left, right, backwards and forward. But without our creative intuition, (the ability to sit behind something as abstract as a round steering wheel controlling a ton of metal) it would just sit there. Our smart phones and laptops may give us access to unlimited data, but without out or intuition to use a mouse pad with only clicks and scrolling or swiping, cutting and pasting or and the ability to navigate multiple windows through unlimited global date, platforms and programs—it’s absolutely useless. The brain can control the finger and hands, but it’s our inherent creativity (which also harbors and protects our innate curiosity) that does the rest.
Even in the world of medicine, what is now accepted is the long overdue understanding that mental/physical (quantifiable science) can only take us so far without the inherent human creative intuition required to individually navigate the “abstract”, “unseen” and “unproven”, which is basically code for “faith”.
Yet, even here the concept of simple faith has become linked, blurred and bundled with man’s various ideas of religious interpretation. In fact, it has been said by our greatest minds that talent is basically the commercializing of inherent creativity just as religion has become the commodity to capitalize and control intuitive faith.
While the experience of blatant talent, just like ceremonial religion can each be moving and awe inspiring, the reality is both are simply various heightened levels of our inherent creativity which we already possess as part of our emotional, spiritual DNA. Without it talent or religion could not even connect with us.
Case in point, if you want to pray to (your) God, you need simply do so, alone and direct through you’re individual soul (no religious rituals required). If you want to tap into your personal creativity, you simply start thinking with that very same individual soul too (no art lessons required).
In short, we can follow man’s written directions to the letter. However, without faith and intuition it’s just words on a page or screen. Only when our imaginations are engaged (through creativity) can these physical word symbols transcend into rich, inner visuals that begin to have profound individual meaning us.
So creativity is the very embodiment of what we think faith is. When creativity is then combined with physical action, it has the power to literally transform both our inner and outer our world.
In fact the rediscovery and unlocking of one’s personal inherent creativity can only happen when some form of physical action is taken. It’s what gets this bottomless wealth of knowledge from deep within our inner and word out into our three-dimensional outer world. Without the physical action (which can be as simple as making a list) we mentally brain-process, and in most cases, just spin; drowning in a sea of rehashing and thought pile-on. Without physical action and only passive contemplation we over think everything, rendering ourselves emotionally immobile. Therefore, positive physical and tangible change never happens.
Creativity can show up in such simple ways. The act of simply walking across the street to observe something closer, when usually you're ignoring everything but your smartphone screen? That's creativity peeking through...
When you combine something as personal and individual as your home (where you’re suppose to rest and rejuvenate your mind soul and body) with something even more deeply personal as faith and individual creativity, well, you can now see that calling it “interior design” is like calling “Twittering”, computer programming or applying a Band-Aid the same as open heart surgery. Related? Yes. The same, umm, NO!
So in that context, now rethink what an exercise like purging really is. Nope,
it’s not just about getting rid of stuff and organizing. Its one of the few, tangible projects you can intentionally do, where the human hand combined with your inner soulful self can work in tandem to literally unlock and rekindle the greatest gift you have…your personal creativity.
You can do it!