“Being creative is simply a practice of feeling safe enough to ask questions, take new actions and move toward other forms of survival that go beyond the basics and encompass thriving.” - Victoria Muir-Burcea
I began the Dormer Window to have conversations about how creativity changes us, and share them with people who, like me, get into spells where it gets sidelined or talked down to, and in the very moments when I need whimsy.
There is the horizontal of life (the schedules we follow, the daily expectations we attempt to meet), and then the vertical (the deep dialogues pulling us back into remembering we’re not alone and any belief it’s all up to me is just my brain needing certainty and control).
“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.”
- Jeff Tweedy, songwriter/musician
When I spoke to wellness expert & brain fitness instructor Victoria Muir-Burcea, she helped me see the horizontal and vertical planes of life in ways that are tied to my brain. There’s the survivor brain, and the creative brain, she said. And so, I said: tell me more please….
Our interview below :)…
Victoria: Firstly, our brain is wired for us to survive—not for us to thrive.
We still have the same brain we had when we were living in caves, which means its job has stayed the same. It is focused everyday on addressing our basic survival needs. It asks, constantly, am I: hydrated/over-hydrated, hungry, tired, what’s my body temperature?
If these needs are not being met, and we perceive threats, it’s very hard to be creative because we’re not feeling safe.
It’s hard to be creative, when we’re not feeling safe.
A lack of safety triggers the amygdala part of the brain, where our flight, fight, freeze response happens. When we’re here, cortisol and adrenaline release, and we’ll find ourselves feeling edgy or hyper or paralyzed.
But there are 2 parts of the brain where emotions are processed. We’ve talked about the amygdala. The second one is the hippocampus, where joyful emotions happen. And here, in the hippocampus, we can be creative. Here, we feel safe enough to encourage ourselves to ask questions, take new action and try for other forms of survival, like surviving emotionally, socially, mentally, financially, intellectually—where we can thrive and move beyond the “basics.”
In other words, being creative is not a unique faculty given to few. It’s in all of us. It’s about feeling safe enough to be curious and try.
Nadia: But I come across so many people who tell me they’re not creative. They believe this in their bones.
Victoria: New research is showing us more and more that there is no such thing as left-brain and right-brain dominant people.
It’s our subconscious that telephones messages to us all day long, telling us what our belief systems are. And our subconscious mind is formed from past experiences. They’re not truths. They’re past experiences. And they limit us.
When we label ourselves, we tell ourselves it’s true.
Nadia: The subconscious mind is wild piece of machinery… I wrestle with it so much while writing. My past experiences tell me that I’ll fail, I’ll embarrass myself, I’ll experience disappointment.
Victoria: Fear is a complex thing that operates within our subconscious mind. We need to ask ourselves, in these moments, if we’re encountering an actual threat to our survival, or is it a modern fear, which is really a limiting belief or block. Like a fear of rejection, a fear of criticism, a fear of being judged.
Rejection does come from our “cave” brain. A long time ago, if we were rejected from our community, we did face survival issues. Now, in our modern world, this isn’t the case. We can face rejection and tell ourselves we’ll be ok. It’s important to practice this.
Nadia: And it’s our creative work that forces us to begin talking to ourselves differently about our fear of rejection, of being criticized and judged. To keep writing, I have had to get over my fear of getting negative feedback (which I’ve had a lot of!), of feeling judged, and feelings of imposter syndrome that always appear when the writing doesn’t materialize the way I want it to.
If I didn’t have a community of trusted artist friends and work hard internally at telling myself these are not true threats to my survival, I wouldn’t be able to keep going. I really wouldn’t. I tell my friends that they’re the only reason I’m still trying.
Though I am still working on the rejection part. That still hurts deeply.
Victoria: Yes. We can talk back to our subconscious.
And we do it through what I like to call CPR: consistency, persistence and repetition.
I craft very specific meditations for my clients to guide the subconscious brain toward forming different kinds of actions, attitudes and behaviours. And it’s a script, so to speak, to repeat to the self over and over again. This is how re-wiring in the brain happens.
But we also have to talk to our subconscious in a way that it’ll believe you. It’s not enough to say, “I’m strong.” Because that can be countered with an inner voice saying, “no you’re not.”
What can be believed is saying something like, “I am choosing to believe in myself…” or “I am in the process of believing in myself by taking these actions…”.
Nadia: That’s true, isn’t it. It’s a very different message, and it can’t be negated. I’m going to try that.
Thank you, Victoria, for helping me understand that when I’m creative, yes, a harsh voice appears, that’s inevitable, but also that being creative helps me handle discomfort and move beyond the judging critic inside me :). It’s where I go contemplative and activate my hippocampus. I can engage in the moment without needing to critique it or decide if it’s good or bad.
For those who’d like to continue learning from Victoria, as I do, you can connect with her at her weekly Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/worryfreeandjoyfulliving
And her website: www.myrecreo.health
Founder and Owner of www.myrecreo.health, Victoria is a passionate and driven wellness advocate with 25 years of experience as a wellness coach, workshop facilitator, and community programmer. My Recreo was founded on the belief in the power of focusing on the whole self—physical, emotional, and brain—to be able to live a connected and fulfilled life. She graduated from Queen’s University in Health and has won several prestigious awards for her work in the wellness field including the Award for Innovation from the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion for her work as a health coach on ground-breaking project The Prescription for Physical Activity Project.
Thank you for this conversation. So good. CPR!