How Spirituality and Creativity Mix

Hello, my name is Joy D. Fanning, Astronaut of Life. I am a high vibe storyteller that helps you go inward to explore, and by that I just mean I create meditations. I do readings that help you. Today's video is on how spirituality and creativity mix together. I've always kind of felt like I had a creative side and I had a spiritual side, and they were these separate things that I enjoyed. And as I'm focusing my attention on both of these now I'm realizing they're way more interconnected than I ever gave them credit to. So I want to talk about that today, despite my cat. Just ignore him. He gets this way when I'm on camera. One way that I've noticed these are blending, or that they can blend or how I figured out that they blend is when I first started writing guided meditations. I would base them on my own experience a lot of times, but sometimes I would just come up with it just like I would a fiction story. So writing these meditations, I was able to kind of see that creativity and the spirituality are, are way more mixed than I realized. And as I delve deeper into this issue, I realize that not only are they mixed, but dare I say, they come from the same place. I think my creativity is often, if not always, sparked by something spiritual. I've literally had an angel go like this to me while in meditation, and what was in his hands, or its hands, was a story. Well, actually, it was a movie, and it was like He held it out like this. I picked it up and instantly it was like a download. I knew what— I knew this needed to be a movie. I knew what story or what the story was about, and I knew it was meant for me to write. I also had the knowing that there was like maybe 5 other people that had this idea. And if I want to be the one that gets the credit for it and take it to market, then I need to jump on it and start writing it. Which, all fairness, I've only written a third of it because I'm working on something else. But I mean, I don't know how much more you need to know they're mixed than a freaking angel handing you a movie idea. I mean, What? Right? I mean, it's literally right in front of my face how mixed spirituality and creativity are. And I think our creative natures, which is like this feminine side— I don't want to say it's more spiritual, but it grooves with spirituality in this beautiful dance. That— I mean, the masculine can join in too, but the feminine creative side really, really, really goes well with this, really parallel. So the way I see it now is that spirituality and creativity are huge complements to each other. My spirituality inspires my creativity. I, I can't say this is true for every writer, every creator, but for me as a spiritual creator, spiritual storyteller, a high vibe storyteller, that's where it happens. It starts in my spirituality, and my way of expressing it is my creative side. So I This might seem like, well, duh, but for me, I'm making this video because I honestly kept them separate for so long, and I know I can't be the only person out there that keeps them separate. And it's like, this month in February on my YouTube, I'm talking a lot about creativity. I'm doing— I'm— the Monday guided meditations are all about creativity and Like last week I talked about my writing process, right? So I, I really wanted to explore this and just bring it up, add it to the conversation. So I saw them separately, and I was— as I was thinking about this video, I really realized how my creative side comes from my, my spiritual side. Now I'm going to explore back to 20— 2009, when I wrote my first novel. At that point in time, I considered myself a Christian, so I was spiritual in a way, but I definitely didn't really— besides like creativity being a gift from God, I really didn't view it spiritually. And if you read the story I wrote back then, there really are— there really is no religion or spirituality involved in that story. Now, as a spiritual person on this path, I literally cannot fathom writing a story. Now my mind is reminding me of a short story I wrote that did not incorporate spirituality. But on the whole— that was for a contest— on the whole, 90% of the time, everything I write now is me exploring spiritual concepts, especially the book series I'm writing now that I hope— I hope— I plan to have traditionally published. I— huge, huge exploration of these ideas. And in some ways, for me especially as a writer who chooses to explore their spirituality through their writing and do it in a fictional way, it's— it feels like a playground. Like I can play with these concepts and it helps me like As my characters explore it and act it out, it's like I get to watch and observe almost like a reader and do the same thing. And oh, I love it. I love it. It's a beautiful, beautiful exercise for me. And the intention— we're getting deep now, people— the intention behind this story and the energy behind the story now, that it has this deeper meaning because I'm exploring my own spirituality in this story. Man, it is intense and it's beautiful. I, and I look at other people's creations, be it poems, writing, art. It's beautifully inspired, and I, I feel like us as humans have this— I don't know if any other animals create art. That would be a good thing to Google. But if you know, totally tell me in the comments because I'll have to Google it. I don't know if animals make art, but Humans do. And obviously, if animals do make art, there's not very many animals that do. And humans are the main ones that just do it for fun, for this creativity. And I mean, I know there are people out there who don't see themselves as creative, but if you're like, Joy, this is all great. I'm glad that you can write stories and explore your spirituality. Yay for you. No. Take somebody like my dad, which, Dad, if you're watching this, I love you. I don't know if he would label himself as a creative person off the top of his head. He'd probably say, I don't draw, I don't write, I don't paint, I don't act, I don't sing, I don't do any of that. He'd probably say, nah, I'm not creative. But I would challenge him to say, but are you? Because to me, problem solving in general taps into that creative energy because you have to find the solution seemingly out of thin air. That's the same thing with creativity, man. If I'm writing a story, I— it just starts with a simple— not even a plot, more like a concept. Just, I'm going to create a story. We'll just do it together. I'm going to create a story about a frog. That might be all I have. I know I want to write a story about a frog. I don't know what the frog is going to do. I don't know any of that. I just know I want to write a story about a frog. And I— it's the same as problem solving. I have to kind of get into this mental space where I'm allowing the ideas to flow. We call it brainstorming, right? We learn this in school and we're like, well, maybe the frog has a friend. Maybe the frog— maybe there's no more flies in the frog's pond and he has to leave. Oh my gosh, now we've got drama. Now we have conflict. Now we got a story. Even if you're like my dad and you work in a factory and you're doing minimal, you know, you're doing things day in and day out, tapping into that problem solving is creative. And I will— I don't really like arguing, but I would probably— I'm willing to say this on camera— I would argue that point. I'm not a big debater, but if you want to debate it, I'll debate you. Because I think it's creativity energy that you're tapping into when you solve a problem. Even if it's, what are we going to have for dinner tonight? You have to start reaching and searching for answers from nothing, right? We want pizza. Do we want spaghetti? Do we want hamburgers? Do we want chicken? Do we want veggies? What do we want? So everybody is creative. Everybody has a creative side. It's up to you on figuring out how to use that creativity, and it might not look, um, the same way. It's not going to look the same way for everybody, and it's— it might not even be a traditional creative thing, right? It might not be art or dance or music or writing or whatever. And I want— I'm challenging my non-creatives to think about that. Also, I also think I never realized I liked writing until I was 25 years old. It wasn't like this thing I had as a child that I knew. No, I literally— I remember I had a 101 writing class in college before I wrote my novel, and I freaking hated that class. Oh, I hated that class. I hated writing the papers. I hated everything about it. I hated the grammar. And I was like, writing sucks. This is boring. I don't like it. I really hope there's no more writing in college. Hahaha. I was like a freshman or sophomore. And lo and behold, a few years later, I'm an English major. Which just means more papers, mainly reading, but writing too. And oh, that's just how life is, right? But like, I didn't— if you would have told me while I was in that 101 class writing little research papers and freaking hating the shit out of it that in like 3 years I would be writing a novel, I would have fell off my chair laughing at you. Because in my mind, writing was boring, stupid, and not fun. Why in the world would I engage in that? And now I don't really know where I'm going with this, but what I'm trying to say is that I viewed myself as a non-creative at that time because I couldn't draw. I was in choir, but like, I didn't have solos. So I didn't really view myself as like a singer. I can't play any instruments. I can't dance. I don't have a loud enough voice to do stage acting. My brother always got the main character role. I was like an Oompa Loompa, right? So I viewed myself as a non-traditional creative person. I would have been like my dad. I like to read books. Does that count? I like to watch movies, I don't know. I took a chance one day. I had this story idea. You can watch my other video, learn more about how I got into writing, but I got a story idea and I just was like, you know what, what the hell, I'm gonna write it down and see what happens. And then like 2 months later, I had a first draft of a whole book. A book. You know, like 300 pages. Yeah, I wrote it. And then I realized, shit, I am creative. I just wrote a book. I just wrote a story and it, it makes sense. It has characters, it has a plot, it has stuff going on. That's a book. Doesn't have to be good. I still did it. I'll still paint. As you can see, I'm not a great painter. But I enjoy it. And I think that's another, um, misconception around creativity is you have to be real good at it for it to mean something, which is bullshit. All right, this one's the closest and it's imperfect, so I'm going to show you. This is the throat chakra. This is supposed to be a triangle. I got cut off. Yeah, you can see that. Okay. Yeah, you can see it's not perfect. You can even see my pencil, right? Yeah. Look at these. They're not perfect. But you know what? I don't give a flying fuck. I made this. It has good energy. It's useful to me. I had a blast making it. I made the whole set by myself. I got to— it deepened my awareness and just kind of relationship with my throat chakra making this, right? I don't have to be Michelangelo to paint. You don't have to be R.L. Stine to write. Or I don't know why Judy Garland's the only name I'm thinking of for singing, which I'm like, I don't know why. It's 10:30 at night. Maybe that's why. Oh, I just looked at my notes and I saw something I want to share with you guys. Creativity is the expression of spirituality. What is my— what does that Ralph Smart say? Like, what's on this side? You know what I mean? Like, it's one of those moments. I'm gonna read that again. Creativity is the expression of spirituality. I want to say I came up with that. I don't think I wrote that. I don't think that's from anybody else. It's an expression of our spiritual nature. If you're a spiritual person, whatever your creativity is, even if it doesn't have to be painting a throat chakra sign, you can be painting a freaking bunny rabbit in a flower. It doesn't matter. You're— it's the same energy, you guys, which that gets into the law one and how everything's the same, but It's the expression. That's the expression of spirituality, even if it's dark, because spirituality to me encompasses both light and dark. Can't have one without the other. You need the balance, right? And so even if it's dark art, which I'm not talking about the dark arts like magic, I'm talking about like I drew this skull. That could be considered dark, I guess. I don't know, I grew up sheltered. Or an action movie with a bunch of boo boo boo boo boo. We can view that as very low vibe, low 3D. Oh, they're just showing the pain. But you need the pain to see the light. You don't have to watch action movies, right? You don't have to participate in that. But even the person writing it, the person who acted in it, the people who did it that created this— be controversial maybe— but they are using their— the creativity they are using to make this type of thing is still, for me, an expression of their spiritual nature. And bear with me, I'm gonna try to make a point. In the book I'm writing, I have mass murder scenes. Actually, I have a rape Um, I think that's it as far as like big R-rated scenes go. And at first I was like, oh, you know, this is— is this all right? Like, I want a high vibe story, right? But I'm like, no, the author in me is like, I have to show this. This is part of the story. I want to show this darkness, especially in book 1, to just kind of capture where this world is in my story. And that includes mass murderers and rape and encampments and insecurity, you know, injustice and all this other lower things. And yeah, I might have to fight an editor on it, but I want to keep that in there because I know what's going to happen in book 3, right? And I need this contrast as the author for you to see how dark it is where my characters are starting. This is a world that they're in. This is the darkness they are dealing with, just like all of us. Life is not rainbows and butterflies. It's sometimes rainbows and butterflies, but it's also hellfire and darkness sometimes, right? And my— for me, my story is an expression of that. I'm capturing— I have some characters that are light, but they're in this world of darkness, and And it's this, I'm showing this morphing, this transition, this changing. And the way I can do that is by showing these darker scenes. Yeah, they're uncomfortable. Yeah, they're not pretty. That's the thing, they're not supposed to be. You are supposed to be uncomfortable seeing that. That's a good reaction. I'm kind of going off topic, I think, but what I'm trying to say is creativity is an expression of spirituality, and it can be— it can look so many ways, just like our world looks so many ways, okay? And if you view yourself as a non-creative I really challenge you to question that. And I'm not saying you need to go pick up a guitar or try to write a novel or start singing or something. By all means, if you feel led or you always wanted to learn the guitar, go do it. But you already are creative is my main point. Like, even if you don't view yourself as creative you're creative. And if you're a spiritual— if you consider yourself to be a spiritual person, then you're, you're creative too. And using the way you create, using this gift of creativity that humans have— big gift, guys. Big, big gift. Big bow on it, man. Why not use it? Why not use it to put something in there? You know what? I just had another thought about my dad and how he is creative because he was a pastor when I grew up. I was a pastor's kid and I write notes for these videos. And I remember seeing him have notes for his, for his sermons. And even though he was using the Bible and he was praying and getting messages from God about what to talk about. To me, that's creative. Yeah, it's focused on, you know, this speech or this sermon he's gonna give, but he's tapping into that creative energy, right? He doesn't have to paint a picture. He's using his words. Words can be creative, speaking or writing. View creativity as a spiritual experience. Ooh, I like that one too. View creativity as a spiritual experience. So you don't have to paint a throat chakra, you don't have to write light language or anything else, but I challenge you creators— who is everybody? As you work on your art, as you create, weave in, mix in that spirituality. And then I think you can see where I'm coming from, how our creativity is just an expression of this. It's an expression of us learning and growing and exploring. I I, I can honestly say that's true for me, and I honestly hope that's true for you too, because I think this is a beautiful place to be in. And I can't think of a better way to use your voice and your gifts than to— than with your creativity. And another point that's not in my notes that I want to make is I meditate a lot, right? And I'm clairvoyant, so I see things with my third eye. Doesn't mean it's here in 3D with me. It's almost like, like a filter, or like I'm watching two TVs, the real world and then the energy world. And my creativity, like the story ideas and how I see my characters Looks exactly the same as visions and things I see with my third eye. The way they come to me, the way they show up, how I pull them out of whatever— is it even me pulling? I don't know. Exactly. I don't know if that's true for everybody. It's true for me. Sometimes my story, I'll get like a mini movie. And then I'll just write out the little movie, right? The little scene I saw. Might base a whole book on it, you know, whatever. Same thing with my readings, with my own meditations, my private, you know, my personal practice. When I— sometimes I'll be meditating and I'll see a mini movie of something, or I'll see something and Yeah, it's whether I'm working on my book or I'm in meditation, the way it appears to me is the exact same. So that's just another way that they mix. Yeah, guys, one thing I want to mention is Saturdays at 12, I have my group, my free group meditation. Um, we do the meditations that I post on Mondays together. So you get to do it like a few, 2 days before it goes live on YouTube. But we have so much fun. We discuss things. We have a lot of fun. I would love to have you there. Also visit my Etsy shop. I give personal— I make personal meditations. I have prerecorded meditations that are special. That's why they're on Etsy. And then the big thing I do is these— I call them meditation readings, where we'll— I'll make you a personal meditation, we do it together, and then I tell you what experience I had and like what I saw. Um, so check out the Etsy store, check out my services. I would love to serve you in this way. That's why I have it. It's where my passion is. I hope this video helps you. I know I was a little scatterbrained and all over the but I really think this is a cool topic to talk about, and I would love to hear your point of view and your comments. So please put them below. If you haven't, like and subscribe. Thank you so much, my soul family. I love you so much. Namaste.