You Haven't Met Your Creative Process Yet
The difference between schedule, practice, and process changes everything.
It is an endlessly fascinating pursuit, working with creatives who are at the pinnacle of their careers. To say I love what I do would be a gross understatement. Fire starters, out-of-the-box thinkers, cosmic explorers, those who color outside the lines and have a voice inside them that believes in limitlessness, you're my people. I love helping you strike the match, pull the pin, and let your next idea completely change the landscape.
I've learned after years of this work that the needs and challenges of experts and long-game creatives (or lifers) are not the same as beginners, yet the help offered is almost always identical. Clients come to me frustrated because at this stage in the game, they have exhausted what's available. Usually several times over. So much so that what presents as frustration is actually deep sadness and a feeling of defeat.
Burnout for lifers hits different. There's the usual exhaustion, overwhelm, and depletion, but this particular flavor is less about taking on too much or undervaluing the work. They have learned that lesson already. It's more about a reckoning. Taking stock of how far they've come, looking toward what they want to accomplish next, and struggling with how to get there. This burnout arrives as a search for purpose, meaning, and value. It's a recognition that the life of a creative is ever-evolving, and even though they're far along in their careers, they find themselves once again on the precipice of a new level of transformation. Yet another metamorphosis. And this can be exhausting when met with the same generic guidance and ill-fitting solutions.
I want to be clear: I love beginners. Those discovering their creativity for the first time. I spent years there. All lifers have, and it is indeed a magical place. Also a very tenuous one. It's like learning to navigate a very new, yet incredibly established and core part of yourself for the first time. While there's no real way to cut the line of experience, when I work with beginners who are truly ready, there's a sense of acknowledgment and knowingness about creativity that they access earlier than most.
The Question That Changed Everything
An executive client of mine in a high-level leadership position recently asked, "So Lis, why is this working?" (Yes, creative lifers exist in all professions, not just fine art, music, and literature). This question came after a long list of methods she had tried: executive coaching, enneagram, team building activities, leadership retreats. And this was the first time in years that she actually felt her way of thinking, leading, and creating was not only shifting, but thriving.
Questions like these have many answers. Those of us in guidance roles whether teacher, coach, therapist, or practitioner, know that yes, it's absolutely the solutions we provide. But it's also about being a match. On some energetic level, the combination of our experience and who we are aligns with our clients. This unspoken match, the feeling of being seen and truly known, creates fertile ground for successful work together.
While matching with clients matters, along with my experience as a therapist seeing what others miss, and my lifelong pursuit of a creative life, what makes the biggest difference is this: I actually address, support, and teach clients how to master the creative process.
But Isn't That What All Creativity Guidance Offers?
No, not really. Most creativity coaching focuses on creative practice and creative schedule, not the actual creative process.
Let me parse this out:
When I begin work with clients and ask about their creative process, I'm mostly told about their creative schedule. Whether they feel best working early morning, late night, in long blocks or short bursts. This is valuable information. Many creatives spend considerable time unlearning what's suggested in school to find their most productive way of working. But when you work and how you work is your creative schedule, not your creative process. Your schedule is how you fit your creative process into your day to meet deadlines. It's logistics, not process.
What usually comes next is the order of work. How they approach a project: the steps, skills involved, how expertise allows them to organize production and leadership. The tools needed, skills required, feedback given and received. While crucial to creativity, this is creative practice, not process. Your creative practice shows up as your credentials, whether nurse, writer, CEO, graphic designer. The knowledge and tools you call upon daily to move mountains, blow minds, and create something from nothing. Important, but still not your creative process.
Your Creative Process: The Engine That Drives Everything
Your creative process is all the things in between that lead up to when you put your practice to work. When your schedule begins. When you put pen to paper.
Your creative process works 24/7, integrating your experiences with the inspiration all around you. It's been alive your whole life, offering insights from moments past to inform the present. Your creative process combines all your sensory experiences to create something entirely new from your unique perspective. It's the part of creating that feels magical. When we're in flow, there's movement, attunement, and we listen instead of direct. We're in response.
And this core part of you that has dictated most of your life decisions is something that most likely you've actually never said hello to. Acknowledged. Or had seen.
The Truth About Maintenance
While the creative process can indeed feel magical, it requires maintenance. There's talk in the creative coaching realm that if we just blast through fear, ignore our inner critic, and break through imposter syndrome, we can access this magical space. As readers of this newsletter already know, I don't believe any of that. Attention given to fear is for amateurs. Professionals with high stakes deadlines simply do not have time for fear getting in the way. There's no such thing as an inner critic, and imposter syndrome is one small part of the invalidation and judgment that creatives handle as part of the work we do. We handle it; we don't have it. It doesn't originate from within.
The creative process is cultivated through maintenance, exploration, and most importantly, allowing for the right kind of experiences.
As creatives, it's often assumed we don't need to maintain our process, so we aren't given time to do so. This is ridiculous. As a psychotherapist, I'm required to accrue continuing education units to keep my knowledge fresh. We wouldn't argue with a bus driver needing new glasses or a dog walker needing new shoes. Yet time spent having experiences is just as crucial to our work and productivity.
Unfortunately, few places encourage this exploratory time as part of the workday. As creatives, we must take it upon ourselves to go for a walk, visit a museum, attend a concert, go fishing. We don't know what we'll find there, but we must trust that our process is alive and working while we engage in these sensory experiences.
The Michael Jordan Example
Those of you reading who are GenX or older may remember when, at the height of his basketball career, Michael Jordan left to play professional baseball. This decision sent shockwaves through sports, and Jordan took enormous heat for it. He was laughed at, judged harshly, invalidated, even called insane and stupid. None of which were his truth, but all external energies he handled to grow and shift his creative process.
It was 1994, and Jordan had won three NBA championships and earned three NBA MVP awards. He was at the top of his game, considered one of the best, if not THE best, player ever to step on the court. The assumption was Jordan was leaving it all behind, turning his back on basketball and risking everything in some weird egotistical crisis.
I argue that this is simply not true.
If we look at Jordan's decision from the perspective of a creative lifer, we can guess that he was indeed playing basketball the entire time he was playing baseball. His creative process was integrating an entirely new way to participate in sports. His body was using different muscles, his senses becoming attuned to different stimuli. He was participating in and witnessing completely different methods of collaboration and teamwork.
When he returned to basketball the following spring, Jordan went on to win two more league MVPs and three more championships. I'd say that's pretty good evidence of someone with insight into how their creative process works.
The Solution
Luckily, most of us don't need such dramatic changes to shift our process. That's where I come in.
My work as a muse is to connect you with your creative process. To help organize your creative schedule and practice, yes, but more importantly, to help you support what truly cultivates the work you do on the deepest level. To allow for the experiences needed to be in your genius.
This has less to do with exercises to build skill and inspiration and everything to do with introducing you to a part of yourself that drives nearly everything you do. When we acknowledge this deep part of you, nurture it, provide a framework for it to exist, and give it the tools to be not only maintained but mastered with sovereignty and seniority, guess what? It works.
Because your creative process isn't something to fix or overcome. It's the very engine of your sustainable success, waiting to be recognized, honored, and masterfully directed.
That's why working with the creative process is the path to sustainable and successful creative lives.
So go ahed and say hello to it. Your actual creative process. Learn about it. Support it. Sustain it. Chances are it will be so incredibly happy to meet you.
3 Questions to Consider:
When did you last allow your creative process to just experience something without being focused on outcome?
How do you maintain your creative process? What are the actionable steps you take every single day to support this foundational part of your creativity?
What is your creative process craving right now?
I'd love to hear your answers. Hit reply, I read every response.
xxx
Lisa
Coming Next Week in These Three Things
I’m so excited to share that
will be the featured guest in next week’s These Three Things! And yes, These Three Things guest features are free and open to all subscribers. You’ll have a chance to participate alongside Charlotte and I and the dedicated group of weekly participants practicing the art of noticing together.Charlotte has been part of the These Three Things journey from the very beginning. She was one of the very first truly dedicated participants when the project launched in 2016. In 2020, we even collaborated on a 100 Days Project rooted in These Three Things. It was full of creativity, connection, and so much fun.
Charlotte brings a deep sense of reflection, curiosity, and creative dedication to everything she touches. I can’t wait to share her voice and vision with you next week. Stay tuned, it’s a beautiful one.
THE CREATIVE
Welcome to The Creative. Twice a month I share quotes from the books, Art is the Highest Form of Hope, Every Day a Word Surprises Me, and The Creative Act. I find perspectives on the creative process to be so meta when it comes to life. We are a creative process and everything we do is subject to the same rules. Creation is non-linear. It's messy. It moves forward and backward. And also gets stuck. Oftentimes we do not realize the purpose of a singular creative process until years later. Creativity likes to surprise us.
"We adapt and grow in order to receive." Rick Rubin
The more time I spend guiding people toward mastery of their creative process, the deeper I understand its reach. Our creative process is tied to everything. It is like breath, like blood. It's a system, a core part of us, connected to absolutely every other part of us. Perhaps the creative process is what keeps all the other parts together.
Receivership is such an important part of the creative process. Without it, we are not taking things in, interpreting what we see, hear, think, and feel. We're not transforming raw experience into something new. Receivership is often the first step of turning nothing into something. Creatives need to be receptive. And yet for many of us, this can be overwhelming. There is so much to receive, and much of it asks us to actively engage with it.
This kind of receivership is not passive. It demands understanding, integration. And it also demands time spent in a quieter, more receptive state. Both these acts are essential to the creative process. And they require us to grow.
Receivership is directly connected to our nervous system. I have been in deep study the past six months in nervous system training, and I am in awe daily of how connected our creativity is to our nervous system. A large part of mastering the creative process is expanding our nervous system from one of scarcity to one of abundance. One that is able to safely receive. This is where the maintenance comes in.
Expanding the nervous system, working toward neutrality and clarity in order to do our best work is a practice. A daily one. And I expect my clients to show up for it.
When we work from a maintenance and sustainability model of the creative process instead of a magical one, devotion to practice to reach mastery is necessary. The good news is that it doesn't take hours a day to support the creative process in this way. In essence, expanding the nervous system and reaching neutrality and clarity is very simple compared to the years of training and refinement creatives have pursued in the name of their craft.
So yes, not only does receivership help us grow and master our creative process, but growth and expansion helps us to receive. You need to work both.
BY DESIGN
This section of my newsletter began as a resource for my clients, who use Human Design to deepen their creative practice. In Mentorship, we explore Human Design as a starting point and a way to work with creativity as energy to move toward energetic sovereignty and mastery of the creative process.
If you’d like to join us in this weekly practice, download your free Human Design chart and access my HD Starter Kit, including two exclusive free guides to help you tap into creative flow and navigate life with greater ease and mindfulness.
Understanding your chart and the impact of the Gates can unlock powerful insights for this week’s transits and beyond. It is the first essential step to mastering your creative process. I’d love to have you join us.
FULL MOON
05-12-25
Scorpio
Gate 43
Full Moon in Scorpio and Gate 43: The Energy of Transformation and Inner Truth
The Full Moon on May 12, 2025, in Scorpio illuminates themes of transformation, emotional depth, and the uncovering of hidden truths. Scorpio, the intense and passionate Water sign, governs this lunar phase, emphasizing the power of rebirth, emotional resilience, and delving beneath the surface to find what truly matters. This celestial event occurs in the 8th House, highlighting themes of shared resources, deep connections, and personal transformation.
Ruled by Pluto, Scorpio asks us to release what no longer serves us, confront our fears, and embrace the cycles of endings and new beginnings. This Full Moon offers an opportunity to bring hidden emotions or truths into the light, empowering us to transform challenges into profound growth. It encourages us to trust in the process of transformation and to honor the depths of our emotional and spiritual experience.
Paired with Gate 43, The Gate of Insight, this Full Moon amplifies the energy of intuitive clarity and innovation. Gate 43 in Human Design is associated with sudden breakthroughs and unique perspectives that often challenge conventional thinking. It invites us to trust our inner knowing, even when it feels unconventional or ahead of its time. Gate 43 challenges us to communicate our insights with courage and conviction, balancing visionary thinking with practical grounding to turn ideas into meaningful transformation.
This Full Moon in Scorpio and Gate 43 encourages us to embrace the power of transformation and the brilliance of our inner insights. It’s a time to release old patterns, trust in the wisdom of our intuition, and communicate our unique truths with authenticity.
Journal Prompts to Align with the Energy of the Full Moon
Explore transformation: What parts of your life are calling for renewal or release? How can you embrace change as an opportunity for growth and empowerment?
Trust your insights: What intuitive nudges or unique ideas have been surfacing for you? How can you honor and express these insights, even if they challenge conventional thinking?
Uncover hidden truths: Are there emotions or truths that you’ve been avoiding? How can you create space to acknowledge and process these feelings with compassion?
Balance vision and grounding: How can you take practical steps to bring your innovative ideas to life? What support or resources do you need to turn your insights into action?
This Full Moon in Scorpio and Gate 43 invites you to embrace the transformative power of insight and renewal. It’s a time to trust your inner knowing, release what no longer serves you, and step boldly into the unique truths that define your journey.
Want to explore how this transformational energy aligns with your Human Design and unique cosmic influences? Schedule a reading with me to uncover personalized insights and tools for growth, authenticity, and lasting change.
SOLAR TRANSIT
5-15-25
Gate 8
Gate of Contribution
On May 15, the sun gracefully moves through Gate 8, known as the Gate of Contribution. This transit invites you to embark on a journey of introspection and self-discovery focused on the chance to learn to express yourself authentically. To step into your own vulnerability and share our true selves with others. To trust in the right timing of things and have patience to wait for the right people to share yourself with. To discover your path and walk it with a grounding and certainty of self- worth and self-love.
Human Design Gate 8 is a force for authenticity and self-expression, positively influencing the world by staying true and empowering others to do the same. Authenticity is a powerful force, and Gate 8 serves as a catalyst for this force to manifest. It encourages individuals to question and assess everything learned about life, success, and love. This introspective process ensures that personal beliefs align with one's creative contribution to the collective.
Journal prompts to deepen your understanding and engagement with this transit:
1. Recall a moment of authentic self-expression. What were you doing, and how did it feel? How can you create more of these moments in your life?
2. Reflect on vulnerability. What fears do you have about being vulnerable? How can you find the courage to share your true self?
3. Consider timing and patience in sharing yourself with others. How can you trust in the right timing and wait for the right connections?
4. Assess your sense of self-worth and self-love. Do you feel grounded in your path? How can you deepen your sense of worthiness?
A Few Announcements:
A reminder, next week artist
will be bringing her brilliance to These Three Things! I hope you will join us in the practice next week and share what you have been noticing. It’s open to all!Paid subscribers, you are invited to a live meditation event with me! Join me for a special free virtual live meditation event to call your energy back from the first months of the year. Welcome summer with clarity, intention, and ease. Discover how to ground, reflect, and energize your creativity and desires for the upcoming months. Check the link below the paywall ;)
Also, my super talented screenwriter friend,
is offering an incredible screenwriting workshop titled, 6 Weeks to a Vomit Draft, as if you needed yet another reason to work with this seasoned pro. Seriously, Bill is the real deal. If you are to vomit with anyone, let it be Bill. Classes start 5/17.
Inside this week's These Three Things:
When a close friend fell in love after years of deep inner work, his joyful retreat from the world was met with concern, even judgment. What I learned about timing, trust, and the space we give one another to evolve, even when it doesn’t look how we expect.
Also this week: the daily discipline of nonviolence toward the self, and the unexpected beauty of a kind and honest no.
These weekly reflections are where I share what I'm noticing beneath the surface, where intuition, energy, and creative practice meet. This week, we honor softness, sovereignty, and honest presence.
These Three Things is available for paid subscribers only. A quiet, focused space for thoughtful prompts, honest process, and building a reflective creative rhythm, even when the world feels tender.
Come take your seat at the table. We begin again each Sunday.
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