Creativity Landscape

Guest Blog Post by: Kelly Odette Laughlin, Odette Press. A one-on-one creativity coaching before the retreat and a creativity and mindfulness session with Kelly are both included in your investment to attend the Bloom Retreat. Click here to book your room.

Creativity is a process of growing, expressing, one of transformation, whether you’re working with pen on paper, ingredients in a pan, or in the creative aspects of your own “inner landscape” — and it’s a process that’s guided to flow through the use of reflection and intentionality.

Creativity is a path, not a fixed place or characteristic. Sure — you might feel naturally inclined towards artful practice or your own creative nature — but creativity is a process, a fluid place, a practice that’s dynamic. Reflection gives us good ground for knowing ourselves and experiences from the past; intentions, those powerful aims, give us motivation and act as inner guides, leading us in the direction of our future. Whether personal, professional, or for the purpose of play, knowing how/who we are, what lights our creative fire, and what our “inner landscape” is like can serve and support our whole lives. And as business owners, the adaptability and dynamism creative reflection offers is so necessary. 

You don’t have to be an artist to be creative. In fact, I believe every person has innate creativity capabilities that, for one reason or another, haven’t been allowed to grow and shine. Your own creative self is precisely what we’ll explore together in our one on one coaching sessions, and again at the Bloom Retreat. 

Together, we’ll slow, slow down: take some mindful moments for breathing. We’ll move, but slowly and gently — think “slight sway of a warm afternoon breeze” not high intensity or gym frenzies) and prepare our bodies to be, home, house our creative container. We’ll talk, we’ll reflect, you’ll be guided. We’ll play with responses to insightful questions. From our creative centers, we’ll draw out inner knowledge. Together, in the Bloom container, we’ll think beyond words, drawing from the expressive language of color, moment, shape— all the richness of the moment, and life’s experience. From there, we’ll use prompts and lists and writing and drawing as the springboard for our creative self-discovery. Through our sessions one on one, and in the larger, dynamic and supportive Bloom community, we’ll set the foundation for connection with YOU so that you can ground into your values and visions in order to take rejuvenate and restore on the pathway of taking entrepreneurial action. Rest up. Revive. And then, continue. 

Writing, being in the world, in community and reflecting specifically in nature help us commune with ourselves. With the world’s expansive space (the broad horizon, the wide blue sky, the waters that run on in an endless view) we can open up our creative self. 

To find our creative selves, it doesn’t take much: a stick, a pencil, our bodies in space. Who’s to say a drawing in the mud on the ground doesn’t count as artful living, as beautifully creative? Or that the lines and shapes we create while tracking out our walks on Google maps themselves don’t count as sculptures? I say: yes. I say: they do. And that’s exactly what we aim for in my sessions of creative coaching.

You may be thinking, Kelly — I am a business person. I am a real and true adult. Why would this apply to me? And to that I say: because you matter. 

Because that playful, creative space somewhere quiet or loud at the center of you matters. Because with all of your hard work and effort, there is a much needed and worthy space of restoration and ease. Because in order to envision, enact, and employ any sense of business acumen we first need to know where we’re starting, and that requires inner knowing, a deep sense of connection, and the power of awareness. In order to reach the visions of the wide blue sky we need to remember our humanness, and touch into that inner environment: our ground of being, our inner creative nature. And it’s hard to do so — to build this lush, rich, creative connection — if we never give ourselves the time and space to sit and wonder, write, move around, explore, reflect.

So this is what we do, and this is what we do together. 

As the Spring blooms, you bloom too. And we all need to tend to the soil. So, what is it that enriches your life, inspires you? What are the creative nutrients for your soil? What does your vision guide your towards? I’m excited to be with you as a part of your Blooming journey. May our paths be lush and intriguing, may our hearts and visions be wide. See you in May!