Coffee and My Best Creative Space:

By Christopher Back

“Being human is enjoying what we enjoy and sharing what we see.”- Rick Rubin

Have you ever felt stuck? Wanting the ability to be able to translate your thoughts and feelings that are swirling around your head into your art, your work, or a hobby you’ve been trying to pick up? Maybe whatever it is, was easier when you first started, but somewhere along the line, you hit a bump in the process and got well—- stuck. Maybe the process was even derailed entirely for a moment. The urge to continue on pushes and pushes at you but you can’t make any progress.

Feeling stuck is a signal telling you that something is missing. Your body comes equipped with all these little signals to indicate what our body’s need, our intuition. “What do you feel when you need rest? You feel tired. What do feel when you need food? You feel hunger,” (Robbins). By tuning into what our body is telling us we can better access what our needs are, and what we’re feeling. When it comes to being stuck sometimes all we need is a break in our day to disrupt workload and to conduct a mental refresh. Sometimes we require a bigger shift to how we are living.

Shifting your environment is a great way to usher in this creative refresh. Going for a walk, hanging with friends or getting out of your day to day environment has a great tendency to facilitate more creative thinking. Shaking up your environment in small ways like this can really help you become more present in the moment and more in touch with your creativity, up out of your head and into the now! I was able to experience this first hand when I was on a vacation in Oaxaca with friends. While we were touring around the Mexican state, visiting textile artisans, mountain spring overlooks, and secluded villages, I got taken right out of my routine of being stuck and into a brand new experience. For me my routine that got me stuck was the work grind. By stepping out of my environment and into a fresh experience, I was forced to drop the narrative and live in the moment truly experiencing something brand new to me. Personally, I found the beauty of the city, countryside and all the incredible art, food and culture beyond inspiring! And I came back to my own creative pursuits back home with renewed vigor and passion.

Now, as much as I would want to take a long vacation in Mexico with close friends every time I needed a creative refresh, sadly that is not possible for us all the time. We can still shake up our environment on a small level by recognizing things that affect our ability to feel present and tap into our imagination! Luckily for me, I find that I work best in a setting where I can be around others, feed off of shared creative energy. I sit writing this in cafe, shocker. I love having something to sip on before I venture to session of work. I often pick coffee. Cafes are filled with interesting people to draw and good music to draw to. Everyone’s needs when it comes to tapping into their creative place is different however, so it’s important that we take inventory of what works best for us. Cafes serve this role well for me but really anywhere can be an ideal play to practice tapping into the your creativity. On a walk, or at the barber, sitting in a cafe like me doodling away. Maybe your next adventure can help you cultivate a better sense of awareness and get you out of being stuck. The easier we can tap into that sense of being present or experiencing something for the first time the easier it’ll be to overcome blockage in creativity. By taking the few steps in a different direction is enough for us to greet our problems with a better attitude that will allow us to one day be where we want to be, unstuck.