How to fly and get into the flow

Creativity is all about getting into the flow. When you are in the flow it feels as if you are flying through your creative project.

But creativity can also be a very hard taskmaster. Once it gets a hold on you it never lets go. It can be very demanding. and relentless.

Which is why the world of the creative individual is often littered with broken intentions.

Speaking purely as someone who likes to write, I have struggled with procrastination, writer’s block and many broken resolutions.  The creative journey can be disillusioning and sometimes even agonizing.

The title of Irving Stone’s book about Michelangelo, “The Agony and the Ecstasy” says it perfectly.

But creativity can also be surprisingly easy when you get into the flow.

Here is one of the biggest lessons I learned about the creative  process. And I found it in a popular children’s book.

Now I have read many books that have disappeared into the dusty archives of my memory. But now and then there’s a book that keeps its glitter throughout the centuries.

When you recall a memorable book like that there’s always a little something that sticks in your mind. One such book for me has been J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy.

There’s a little passage from a piece of dialogue in the book that I will always remember because it holds such a powerful message.

Peter Pan was teaching the children how to fly. “All it takes is faith, trust, and pixie dust,” he said. So Tinker Bell, the fairy, dusted their shoulders with magic.

And it goes like this:

‘Now just wiggle your shoulders this way,” he said, “and let go.”

They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first.

He did not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne across the room.

“I flewed!” he screamed while still in mid-air.’

And so they flew out of the window and into the night.

If only we could just wiggle our shoulders and let go too. If only we could loosen up and get into that magical state of creative flow.

Maybe a little relaxation and a dusting of self-belief would help even the most cynical among us to fly too!

Because after all, we have the secret. All it takes is faith, trust, and a little pixie dust.