Why HSPs Need To Reclaim The Creative Process

Why HSPs Need The Creative Process
Source: Josef Stuefer

Most people think the creative process is just about coming up with ideas.

Our culture separates ideas from making things, but treats even the process of generating ideas as something to be manufactured. As a result, our relationship to our creativity is affected by our cultural model.

Manufacturing is not a natural HSP energy and can cause a feeling of disconnection in highly sensitive people who are more creative and holistic.

One way highly sensitive people can embrace their natural energies and creativity is by reclaiming the creative process.

How Culture Can Affect The Creative Process

The Industrial Age brought with it a huge change in how things are made. Machines became the go-to resource for making the things we use in our lives.

At the time it was a great idea, because machines were able to produce in large quantities and therefore meet large unmet needs of the human population. The Industrial Age, through the combination of carbon energy sources and new engineering skills, was a dream come true as a way to make life finally livable.

There was a cost, however. We started delegating the making of things, and we humans became administrators, strategists and accumulators.

We stopped making as individuals and lost the skills that go with that.

When we changed we also began to see creativity differently. Manufacturing became the dominant activity for us and we translated the manufacturing process into every aspect of human life.

We manufactured goods, lifestyles, identities, legacies, memes and cultural myths, and, of course, ideas.

Ideas and the making of what an idea proposed became distinct realms governed by different people, systems  and authorities.

Creativity And The Creative Process Suffers

Creativity never dies – it is a natural and fundamental part of life. However, it has suffered under materialism.

Conformity to materialistic ideals was an expectation of the age. How else do you pay for all those factories, buildings and other products?

Although our standard of living improved, to get there, creativity was discouraged in schools and elsewhere. It left creative people feeling starved for a place in the world.

Art and art making were relegated to the sidelines and creative people treated as flakes. Serious people were materialistic achievers not creatives.

Nothing and no one escapes the age they live in and art was as affected by the materialistic age as were all other spheres of life.

Art adapted in some ways. Art making became art production.

Art adopted the language of the age and some artists even achieved stardom.

The Split

Nowadays we think of creativity as the manufacture of ideas.

Creativity is just something else we produce like widgets. It is an activity when it needs to be a way of being.

When you learn about Ayurveda, the holistic health system, you discover that all aspects of nature are intelligent. Therefore, all aspects of nature are part of the ongoing creation we call life.

In the materialistic age we have been dominated by the idea that the mind and brain are where intelligence resides. The rest of us is just plumbing. The reason this is important is because the mind over matter idea objectifies everything. There really is no creativity. There is only the manipulation of what exists.

Materialism, however, is not an accurate picture of the world. Whether your point of view is spiritual, creative or holistic healing, life and creativity are not just about what we see.

The world is not divided into material and not material, mind and matter, responsible people and creatives.

Why HSPs Need To Reclaim The Whole Creative Process

The current age has made life difficult for highly sensitive people for many reasons.

One of those reasons is living with and trying to survive in a culture whose energy is inimical to them.

The cultural model is a compartmentalized one, and HSPs are holistic people.

Embracing all aspects of the creative process: the idea, the process of making the idea real and releasing it to the world, means that you now have a way of engaging that your nature can support.

You are no longer at odds with yourself in order to survive.

That is a great place for HSPs to be, because so often our being different is a barrier to our development and progress.

Embracing the creative process puts your life back under your control.

It may feel strange but eventually it will feel great.

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    • says

      Thank you for stopping by, Douglas and sharing your thoughts. I agree that as much as high sensitivity can be a burden at times, the upside shows up in our creativity and well as our humanity.

      All the best,

    • says

      Hi Mary,

      Thanks for stopping by. Your creativity is always there, however, most of us are discouraged in our creativity so it becomes dormant. You can bring it back to life.

      Here are some links to get you started:

      These two will get you started.

      I also like Bill Plotkins work on the whole self as a way to increase your capabilities. His books have a lot of exercises. Here is a link to his recent book, Wild Mind, which I highly recommend. I also recommend the books of Robert Fritz, a composer who has written extensively about the creative process.

      I hope this help. Remember it’s an adventure and a journey not a performance!

      All the best,

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