Clare Galloway does her work from a magical arthouse in an Italian medieval quarter that she purchased for a mere 10,000 Euros. The house sits atop the tiny town of Guardia Sanframondi, Italy and opens up to a breathtaking view. Once abandoned, this space is now where artists, dreamers, and creatives come gather. Aside from a delightful state of whimsy this story puts you in, I lead with this because the purchase of this space has great significance in illustrating the magic of surrender. That’s what we talk about in today’s episode – accessing the place of surrender and flow by using art. As Clare says, we all have a creative engine within ourselves. When we access this energy, we charge ourselves up and suddenly become filled with bright ideas, solutions and all the beautiful things that want to be expressed. Art is how we can be reunited with our innate primal sense of truth.
You’ve probably caught on by now that Clare is an artist. To be specific, she’s a visionary artist and writer whose work is all about healing, expansion, the good life, and the abundance of creative power that every single individual holds. She has paintings in collections around the world and is just launching a life-long vision of an online art school.
Listen in and get inspired to tap into your creative genius. Tap into it enough and you’ll learn to surf with the flow of life rather than get dragged around.
Key Nuggets:
We all have a creative engine within ourselves. We’re all creative geniuses but most of us end up getting stifled by culture or habits. When we harvest the creative energy within ourselves and charge ourselves up then we suddenly have infinite ideas and solutions to problems and beautiful things that want to be expressed.
Art is this primal way that can help us find that center (our inner free bird)
We have an ability to work energetically in the world in an expansive way.
But first we need to be aware that there are things take energy away from us and that we have the ability to charge up. There are issues when we’re not charging our energy enough. We end up reacting rather than flowing.
When we’re charged up, we flow. We’re full of great conversation and ideas….we’re full of life. We leave every situation a little better off than before we arrived - a bright contribution to a conversation, a glimmer of insight….we keep the energy charged up wherever we go.
Surfing on life vs. being dragged around by life
We’re trained to think that we’re “not creative” or that we can’t make art. It’s important to note that our creative energy comes through in so many forms!
Painting, gardening, sewing, community, creating community, cooking, taking care of children, dancing…..seriously can be anything!
When we fully inhabit our creativity, seriously anything that we do can be an act of creativity. It transforms into joy for the world. You flow and radiate. It’s anytime that we’re “in the zone” and totally in flow – time falls away. Your yoga practice counts too ;)
Creative power brings us back our essence – a primal sense of truth, connectedness
When creating, make sure you can discern between doing the art versus thinking about the art
When you are “doing” you are in the zone of flow.
When you’re thinking about it, you stay in that monkey mind constantly judging if it’s “good” or “not”. You forget to feel it.
Allow it to come the way that it comes. Express what wants to flow and allow whatever form or color to take shape as it will. Allow everything to come up. Go against the chitter chatter of “I can ‘t do this”. Ties into inner child work a bit
With all this said, it leads us up to the big reveal….* drumroll *…….this turns out to be yet another practice of self love!!
Yes, allow our desired expressions to arise without judgement.
Loving whatever comes up in all its forms and colors
And then stopping to inquire within yourself if there’s something you really don’t want to form in your art. “What is this not wanting?” “What is it trying to show me?”
One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:
There's always treasured to be gleaned from every experience in our life.
What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?
“There has to be a void in order for something new and better to fill: the times when we feel most empty or 'without' can often come just before a great new phase of our lives - and once we get the hang of this, we can practice leaning into that space, and trusting it - which better allows the change to unfold”
Links:
If you have any questions for Clare or want to learn more, connect with her through:
Website: clareartista.com (her page)
www.thesora.org (online art school)