Creating Momentum & Space for Our Creative Intelligence

A short newsletter series on our creative intelligence and all its capabilities

Building our creative intelligence back up offers us a way to operate out of a different mind

Hi readers. Thanks for being here with me.

Those in the inner circle know I’ve been deep in the weeds of a few creative projects these past six years. During this time, I’ve unearthed a ton of research on our creative intelligence, and decided on a whim to interview a collection of brilliant working creatives to discuss that elusive creative state and why it’s important, particularly now. There’s a range of artists who offer up the goods, including a Broadway star, an infamous Tik Toker, a Latin music sensation and talented editor at Architectural Digest.

Selfishly and perhaps awkwardly, I begin our conversations asking about the science of creativity, how experts say it slows waves in our brain, makes us less self-conscious, more brave and comfortable with uncertainty and unknowing. It’s something I wrestle with, and I wanted them to guide me through these ideas. And they did in ways that really surprised me.

This starting point stems from an article I read about the pre-frontal cortex and the pandemic. To navigate the more uncertain-feeling world we were all hit with, the pre-frontal cortex went into overdrive (for any non-scientific people like me…the pre-frontal cortex is the part of the brain that gets activated when we learn something new). Our brain did what it naturally does, but, of course, it’s not good for us to get stuck in that mode. Think of it like driving a car every day, all day, in a tense, hyper-vigilant way as we did when we first learned how to drive.

The pre-frontal cortex “goes quiet,” scientists say, when we engage in something creative (like dance, music, drawing, gardening, cooking, playing with language, etc). In my conversation with visual artist Kara McIntosh we talk about the experience of being parents and finding ourselves needing, instinctually, to carve out time when we weren’t trying to control or manage things.

The musician Jeff Tweedy in his brilliant book on creativity said:

“We could all use a break…from the ever-vigilant, constantly observing, hypercritical part of our brains we rely on to protect us from ever having our feelings hurt or any type of psychic injury…I get why we need to protect ourselves, and how having the ability to put a squad of brain cells functionally in charge of patrolling the perimeter must provide some evolutionary advantage to survival. But it does a lot less for our quality of life.”

There are of course many different ways to plug into our creative intelligence. Each of the 10 issues in the newsletter series will offer tips on finding entry points to build the muscle up (for general wellbeing or a specific creative project needing renewed energy and focus).

I hope you’ll read on and subscribe. I’m calling the newsletter The Dormer Window (logo drawn by my son Luke), wanting it to feel like that quiet, cozy space that sits atop everything.

And, as you read through the series, I hope you feel, like me, a kind of momentum building inside of you - a momentum of sensing you’re reaching into a fuller range of your intelligence, instincts and abilities.

Because I’m naturally the dramatic and dreamy type, I’ll close this call-out with a Jeff Tweedy song. I’ll also ask you to envision a big neon arrow suggesting you read the first interview in the series where artist Kara McIntosh and I discuss getting lost as a route into our creativity.

Hoping you’ll join in.

Thanks,

Nadia

“Unearth” by Seth Ruggles Hiler