Creating from the Heart: Finding Our Voice Through Creativity 

There are seasons in life when everything feels a little harder. Sometimes the difficulty is obvious. A loss, a major life change, financial stress, a relationship ending, a career that no longer feels right, or a dream that suddenly seems much farther away than it once did. Other times it is harder to explain. We simply know that something inside of us is shifting.  

During those seasons, we may find ourselves asking questions we do not have answers for yet? Who am I becoming? What do I actually want? What matters to me now? What is mine, underneath all of the expectations, should, and ideas about who I'm supposed to be?

I have come to believe that sometimes we do not think our way into those answers. Sometimes we create our way toward them.

Creativity can give us a language when ordinary language is not enough. It can give our thoughts somewhere to land, our emotions somewhere to move, and our curiosity somewhere to explore. It can also remind us that we are not done growing or expanding as a person. We are constantly learning, changing, discovering, and becoming.

Creativity is for Everyone 

I think we have done ourselves a great disservice by treating creativity as though it belongs to a special category of people. Being a professional  artist, musician, writer, architect, or designer is, of course,  a different level of creative pursuit than what we are speaking about in this post. Those who pursue creative mastery in their field put in many hours of practice and schooling to be elevated in the arts as a career. It is easy to feel like those people are blessed with talents you don’t feel you have. Understandably so, but creativity is much bigger than that. Using our imagination to create offers benefits for everyone’s well being.   

The American Psychological Association describes creativity as a process that can involve developing original ideas, approaches, or solutions, while psychologists increasingly recognize that current or is not limited to traditional artistic activities. Creativity can show up in the way we solve problems, approach challenges, communicate ideas, experiment with materials, or imagine new possibilities. It can happen in a studio, a garden, a kitchen, a workshop, a classroom, or at a kitchen table. The arts are only one of many ways human beings express their creativity. ( American Psychological Association, 2026)

That means that we all have the potential to be creative. It is both a mindset and an action.   

You do not have to be good at drawing. You don’t have to know how to design a building. You do not need a degree, expensive supplies, or  carefully designed studio. You don’t even need to know exactly what you are doing.

You simply need enough curiosity to begin.

Creativity is not only about making something beautiful. It is about exploring possibilities. It is asking questions, experimenting, noticing, connecting things that did not seem connected before, and making something where there is previously nothing.  

Sometimes creativity is simply saying, “What if I…” "How might I..." "Wouldn't it be cool if..." It's about bring something forward from the heart and mind, seeing the world in a new us, as much as it is about  physical creation.

There is No Right Way to Be Creative  

One of the most liberating things we can give ourselves is permission to stop worrying about whether we are creating the right way. 

You can paint something terrible (I sure have.) You can write something nobody ever reads (I have more notepads than I care to say.) You can make a dress that does not fit (So many times) You can plant something that does not grow quite how you thought it would. (Who has been devastated by killing their favorite new plant?)  You can take photographs of shadows on the sidewalk ( I do! ) You can make collages, rearrange your furniture, build something, take something apart and repurpose it or just learn how it works, learn an instrument, make jewelry, garden, bake, cook, dance around your kitchen, DJ, knit, or color in your favorite coloring book.

You can make something simply because you want to.

The point is not always to produce something worthy of display. Sometimes the point is simply to give your inner being expression, to give your thoughts and feelings somewhere to go. To express without words what inspires you or how you experience the world, yourself, or your environment.  

That distinction matters because when we make creativity another arena in which we have to perform, achieve, monetize, or prove ourselves, we can lose the very thing that makes being creative nourishing. We turn play into productivity, expression into performance, curiosity into comparison, and suddenly the question becomes, “Is this Good enough?”  

Instead, what if we asked, “What wants to come through me?”

That is a very different question.  

I know how this can feel first hand. My hobby became my business and I burned out on the thing I loved. Once I stepped away it took me awhile to jump back into being truly creative. Letting myself be curious instead of perfect and trying new things birthed new ideas. I utilized my previous skills to make something that was new to me. When I took the pressure off I found a new interpretation of old skills. Creativity is a great tool to have in your life tool chest. It is a powerful place to come back to throughout our lives for so many reasons. Needless to say, I created a lot of things for work and lots of things for the pleasure of doing them. Both profoundly changed my life and my happiness. When you allow yourself to make mistakes and just enjoy the process that is where the best ideas are born. The next chapter for me often starts with a creative pursuit.  Burning out and starting over several times finally led me to want to expand even further and I finally took a huge chance and went back to school for architecture! This journey of creativity can take you just snow anywhere. If you cn see it. You can put in the work to be it. Might not always be easy but one foot in front of the other, right?

Here's an example of something I did just to do. It was just for fun. I wasn't trying to make anything just checking out some color and paper. Take 20 minutes and just make to make. Doesn't have to be anything, or good. Just have fun!

Creating When Life is Difficult 

There is something particularly powerful about creativity during difficult times in our lives. When life feels uncertain, creating can give us a small place where we still have agency. Remember all the people making sourdough, learning instruments, baking, crafting, painting, and finding new hobbies during Covid? When so much of the world suddenly felt completely outside of our control, people found ways to create small pockets of choice.

That matters.

Choice is part of what allows us to experience a sense of freedom. When everything around us feels uncertain, having agency over even one small aspect of our lives can be incredibly powerful. When we are creating, we get to choose the color, the material, the subject, the shape, the words, the music, or the direction. We can change our minds. We can make mistakes. We can take something apart and start again. We're not locked into a single outcome. We are limited only by what we can imagine and, sometimes, by what we have available to work with.  

And sometimes creativity means working with what you have.

That is exactly how I came up with my latest bags.

A few years ago, I lost most of what I owned, including the majority of my studio supplies. It was devastating. I was fortunate enough to still have one of my sewing machines, my thread and notions, a small amount of fabric, and the patterns I had created over the years.

At first glance it may not have seemed like much. But I realized I was wealthy in a different way. Those patterns represented years of work. Years of practice, experimentation, mistakes, problem solving, trial and error, blood sweat and tears, and eventually expertise. They represented thousands of hours of learning how to make things, how to solve problems when something didn’t work, and how to look at a material and imagine what it could become.

I had lost a lot.

But I had not lost everything.

I had knowledge. I had experience. I had my creativity. I had my imagination. And I had enough materials to begin. So I had a choice. I could crumble under the weight of what I had lost, or I could get CREATIVE! I got creative.

That doesn’t mean the loss wasn’t painful. It doesn’t mean creativity magically fixed everything. It didn’t. But it gave me something I could do. It gave me a place to begin. I could look at what I had instead of only looking at what I had lost and ask, What can I make from this?

That question can be surprisingly powerful.  

And I think we can apply it to much more than making things.  

When we feel helpless, angry, sad, overlooked, stuck, or alone, it can be easy to focus on everything we don’t have or everything we cannot control. Sometimes agency begins with looking at what is within our reach and asking ourselves what possibilities still exist there.

This is not about pretending that everyone has the same resources or that every difficult situation can be solved with a positive attitude. That is not realistic but it helps to keep your head above the chaos. There are circumstances where people are genuinely hard pressed, and I would never want to minimize that. Creativity can be a tool we turn to throughout our lives to remind us of our agency and ourselves.

But even within difficult circumstances,there can sometimes be small opportunities for choice, experimentation, resourcefulness, and creative expression.  

And if resources are part of the problem, get creative there too.

Check out your local library. Many libraries offer free access to books, classes, tools, technology, and sometimes maker spaces. Look for organizations. Check Facebook Marketplace or Nextdoor for people giving away supplies. Visit thrift stores, yard sales, and ask around for the items you are looking for. Sometimes someone’s unwanted stuff can become exactly what you needed. I have absolutely rescued things that other people were throwing away and turned them into something useful or beautiful. Sometimes the limitations are what make the idea interesting in the first place.

You can make a collage

Use old clothes and fabrics samples to upcycle something new. I made this for an Ineterior Design course. It is a men's shirt, a pair of women's pants and I used the extra buttons from the shirt and an upholstery fabric sample for the little bag. 

For example, you don’t even need to know how to sew or have a sewing machine alter clothing. You can repurpose or upcycle things you already have and give them a second life instead of throwing them away. Think Sex Pistols, denim jackets, safety pins, and patches. The whole punk fashion was built on altering your own clothes. From bedazzling to altering the cut of your boxy t-shirts the sky is the limit. It’s about looking at what you have and finding a new way to use it. That is creativity! It’s about putting your own spin on the things you do or make. Self expression at its finest.

I know difficult things happen. I know we cannot always control our circumstances. But I also know that there is a small space between what happened to us and what we will do next. Creativity can help us find that space.  

Sometimes the great ideas come from limitations ( Not always ideal , but you tried with whatcha got when you have to!)  Sometimes having fewer choices forces us to see possibilities we might have overlooked when everything was available. I hope you have all that you desire to start you projects. But if you don't know you can still create with a little pivot in your mindset and your outlook on what materials are available to you. A mindset of abundance does a long way.

This is one of the things I love most about creativity. It doesn’t require perfect circumstances. It requires an open mind, the will to try, to believe in yourself, to choose to see something that may not even exist but you can see it, feel it, taste it, hear it, etc. Creativity is pure possibility.  

You can start with what you have…

A little material.

A little time.

A little curiosity. A little imagination. And then you see what happens. You may surprise yourself. You may discover that what you thought was a limitation was actually an invitation to think differently. Sometimes when life takes something from us, creativity gives us a way to begin making again.

We can also make something that reflects how we actually feel instead of how we think we are supposed to feel.

Research examining the relationship between art, healing, and public health has found connections between creative engagement and aspects of physical, emotional, and social well being. In their review of existing research, Heather Stuckey and Jeremy Nobel identified several ways that creative activities can contribute to health and well being, including opportunities for self expression, connection, emotional processing, and meaning making. (Stuckey/Nobel 2008)

This does not mean that making art magically fixes difficult experiences. Life is more complicated than that, and creativity is not a substitute for professional mental health care when that type of support is needed.  But we don’t have to make creativity into therapy for it to be meaningful.

Sometimes we simply need a way to say, “This is what I am feeling. This is what I am wondering. This is what I am becoming. This is what I still love. This is what I have not given up on.” Which is what I realized after my experience with creative burnout with my first creative business. I asked these questions of myself and eventually found my way back to what I loved. Creativity can give those things a place to exist that allows us a way to process and express our needs and desires for our lives. Think of how fun it is to make a Vision Board and bring a visual reference for what you have been dreaming for your life.  

Your Creative Voice is Allowed to Change

One of the things I love most about creativity is that it gives us permission to evolve. We don’t have to make the same things forever. I still make handbags, but my creative drive led me to make many things along the way. And now I am studying architecture to build on that creative curiosity and to utilize the skills I developed over the years. Creativity can lead you places you never expected to go or even be a catalyst for making new friends, starting new jobs, or pursuing a degree. You never know what may come from letting yourself be free to create whatever is in your heart. Letting your imagination push you to try something new.  

We don’t have to make the same things forever. We don’t have to identify with the person we were 5 years ago or limit our chances to grow with each creative pursuit. One thing can lead to the next. Skill can be built upon or completely left for something new. We don’t even have to understand exactly who we are becoming before we begin to move in that direction creatively or otherwise.  

This is where I think creativity and a growth mindset meet beautifully.  

Psychologist Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset challenged the idea that our abilities are fixed. A growth mindset is based on the understanding that abilities can develop through learning, effort, strategies, feedback, and support. Research continues to explore how these beliefs influence motivation and learning. (Dweck 2006)

I think we can apply that idea to something much deeper than skill. We can apply it to identity.  

Maybe I am choosing to create something different by evolving as a designer?

Maybe you are seeking to shift how you see yourself or express yourself that you have never considered before?

Maybe the fact that someone does not know exactly how to be creative or what it might feel like to try is actually the best part of being creative. The adventure is in trying and being curious. You may fail or you may be really good at it. It's allowing yourself to come as you are. Be imperfect and have fun that develops a growth mindset around creativity. Experimenting with new things. Taking a chance on yourself. Changing your perspective. Opening to the possibility of a different outcome.  

There is enormous freedom in replacing, “I am not good at this” with “ I am not good at this yet.”  I know this all too well from being in school again. I don't always get it in the first try but I keep trying until I do. I remind myself, It is not that I can't do it. It is that I have not done it yet! And end time I get better and better at the skill I am learning. Plus some of us just learn differently. So never give up on yourself! Some things tahe time, patience, and determination. Others come easy. Just forget your heart.

And sometimes "Am I good at this?" is not the question to be asking. Do you love it? Does it make you happy?  Maybe we don’t need to ask if we are good at something at all. Maybe we can ask, "Does this make me feel more like myself?” “Does this activity bring me peace, happiness, joy, etc?” “Is my life more fulfilling when I do this?”

Creativity Can Help Us Hear Ourselves

The world is extraordinarily good at telling us who we should be.  

We are constantly surrounded by messages about how we should look, what we should buy, what kind of work we should pursue, where we should live, what success should look like, how productive we should be, what our lives should look like by a certain age, and the ways we should express ourselves.  

Sometimes our authentic voice gets buried underneath all of that noise. Creating can become a way of turning the volume down.  

When we make something simply because something inside of us wants to make it, we practice listening to our inner being. We honor our inner child when we listen to our hearts. We begin noticing what attracts us, what excites us, what makes us uncomfortable, what we want to explore, and what no longer feels right.

The more we listen. The easier it can become to recognize our own voice. Not the voice of comparison. Not the voice of perfectionism. Not the voice of someone else’s expectations.

Our Voice.

The one that says, “I Love this.” The one that says, “ I am curious about that.” The one that says, “ This does not feel right anymore.” The one that says, "I want to try something different.”

And one of the most creative things we can ponder is, “I don’t know how to create what I am imagining, but I am excited to figure it out.” Half of the fun is learning how to bring your creative ideas to fruition. 

Take pictures of cool stuff and play with the settings. That's a bunch of fun. Or pictures of shadows is always fun as well.

This is the entrance to a parking garage that had some cool lights to start then I messed with the settings. Anything can provide subject matter. It's all in how you look at it.

From Pain to Possibility

I want to be careful with the idea of turning pain into something beautiful. Sometimes pain is simply painful. It can take time to find a way to transmute it into something that feels liberating or an act of healing that pain. And sometimes it needs to be left behind and that is the best place for it. Whatever your process or experience this is just one way to move forward.

We don’t need to make suffering meaningful but when we can it has the possibility of healing others as well. Something beautiful is not the necessary outcome of every difficult experience. Healing is not linear and can ebb and flow. Each person has their own experience and choice as to how they wish to process and heal. Not all experiences are the same and some should be acknowledged for exactly what they are.  

For some, with time, support, and self compassion, space to process what we have experienced, something begins to change. We may desire to express our experience in a way that honors our thoughts or feelings in ways words may not be able to convey.    

A feeling becomes  drawing. A memory becomes a story or a painting. Anger becomes movement. Grief becomes music. Confusion becomes a collage. A question becomes a design idea. A difficult chapter becomes a beginning.

This is a perfect example of the word alchemise.

Not because we magically transform something terrible into something wonderful, but because we took the experience, walked through the fire of how it may have changed us, and turned that experience into an opportunity for growth. We can examine it, feel it, question it, reimagine it, and eventually create something that expresses who we know ourselves to be  despite the pain.  

Expressive writing is an example of this process. Psychologists James Pennebaker and Joshua Smyth have spent decades researching what happens when people put difficult experiences and emotions into words. Their work suggests that expressive writing can support emotional processing and has been associated with improvements in aspects of health and well being, although it is not equally helpful for everyone or appropriate for every situation. (Pennebaker/Smyth 2016)

And using words is only one medium. Sometimes our hands know things before our minds do.  

Let Yourself Make something

Give yourself permission to make something that does not have to become anything. Even 30  minutes spent in creative pursuit can make a difference in your life.

Give yourself permission to be bad at something. Give yourself permission to experiment, to change your mind, to make something nobody else understands. Give yourself permission to create something simply because you want to.

And perhaps most importantly, give yourself permission to create from your heart even if you are not exactly sure what your heart is trying to say. You just might surprise yourself.  

Drawing made on a repurposed food Box. Nothing special. Just practicing lines and shading. I used a ruler and stencils, a normal pencil and a box. The sky is the limit.

We Are Works in Progress

I keep coming back to my inner self knowing that we are works in progress. That life involves becoming new with each new experience, interest, each day. Each new day is a new opportunity to live life with a new perspective, a new outlook, a new choice can be made at any point and exploring life with a creative outlook can be a vehicle to invite those possibilities into our world.  

We gather information all day long every day. Life moves fast and we don’t always take time to process what we are experiencing or who we are. We go through relationships, jobs, failures, triumphs, joys, dreams, discoveries, grief, loss, moments of discovery and wonder, all having the possibility of being sparks of creation in our lives.  

We get to experiment, change, begin again as often as we want, and decide the meaning each moment holds.  

Maybe creativity is not about finding the one thing we were meant to make from our hearts. Maybe it’s about learning how to listen to ourselves well enough to keep discovering what wants to be made next.

To me that is an act of self love. By giving ourselves permission to be curious we give ourselves permission to grow and change, to ebb and flow like water while nourishing our spirit. In giving ourselves permission to be curious we give value to our voice and our inner being. We allow ourselves a chance to be someone we have not been yet, to make improvements with compassion, and to learn to give ourselves the grace to become who we chose to be as we grow, shift, and change.  

Life can be difficult for sure. There will be times when we feel lost, exhausted, uncertain, or overwhelmed. But somewhere inside each of us there is possibility for a new outlook,  different outcome, a way forward. We are beings of pure possibility. It’s all in how we choose to view ourselves and the world around us and within us. Creativity is a wonderful way to explore those possibilities. A great way to find peace in a chaotic world or to overcome a chaotic mind.

There are always new ideas we have not had yet, questions we have not asked, and roads we have yet to travel. Colors to be mixed. Stories to be told. Things we have not yet built. Gardens we have not planted. Places we have yet to explore. Versions of ourselves we have yet to become. I truly believe our possibilities are endless when we don’t give up on our inner child, that part of us that knew no bounds and had not been harmed yet, that innocence still lives within. It can be returned to as a guide to get back on the path that honors our dreams again.  

So create! Be bold! Be Love! Be your beautiful amazing self, please! The world needs you and your creations. They need not be seen to make a difference. Tapping into that part of yourself, healing the rift that life may have caused between you and you, the self love that nurtures your inner being, your true self, heals deep imbalances within us and in the world, helps us all. When we learn to love ourselves, all of ourselves, the good, the bad, and the ugly we learn to love others and cherish all life and have gratitude in new and profound ways.  

I invite you to walk in wonder for this beautiful planet and yourself again. You are a beautiful and amazing soul. Your self love fuels all you touch. You get to know just how amazing you can be and watch your imagination blossom as you do allow yourself to follow your intuition and your hearts calling. Creativity is a place to begin when you are not sure how else to tap in. It need not be the end all be all or your career, but let life be more than mundane by adding some flare to your every day at minimum. Turn dull into brilliance. Add a little color to your life, break up the routine with some pizazz! You are a creator of your life. Make it fun! 

You deserve to treat yourself with care and consideration. Not because you need to prove that you are talented or to create a business, or that you are better than anyone, or anything like that. It is for you, for your brain health, your mental and emotional well being, to soothe your nervous system, break up the monotony, lower stress, add some sparkle to your life, maybe make some new friends. Hobbies and interests beyond work, family, or other obligations help you feel less alone or disconnected. They are for you. They have always helped me to stay sane when things get funky.  No one needs to like it. Create because you are alive. Because you have thumbs (lol)! Create because something inside of you needs to be expressed. Create because you are allowed to take up space in this world. Create because __________ (fill in the blank) This is your life story. What do you want it to be?!

And when life hands you something difficult, remember that you do not have to know exactly what to do with it yet. You can begin anywhere. There is no right way to be creative and you get to be who you choose to be. Express as you choose to express. And live your life as only you can imagine!  We all get to start somewhere. Make something that is beautiful to you. You deserve the experience of expressing what is within your heart.  

Along your way you just might discover that through being creative we are actually creating ourselves.

I know this was a long one but I have not shared in some time and hoped to inspire someone. If one person finds this post supportive or helpful then I have paid forward all the joy and amazing experiences looking at life through the lens of creativity with a sense of awe and wonder for nature, color, people in my life and those that came before me and what their creations, inventions, ideas, and fearlessness has given me. This is as much a thank you to everything that inspires me as it is a blog post for my website.  It is from my heart and I truly hope we all find our own way to express the messages, the gifts, the experiences we are meant to share with one another, in our lifetimes. They need not always be beautiful, they definitely need not be perfect. Just genuine. We learn from one another, both our triumphs and our pains. We make each other better people just by being ourselves, allowing for vulnerability, and individuality, as well as, community. It is so awesome! I feel so blessed each time I see people find their voice, share their interests, get excited about life, love on each other and nature. It doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. We still have a chance to create a better world.

May your lives be full of color and your dreams find their way to become real for you.

With Love, 

Vichelle

Works Cited

American Art Therapy Association. “About Art Therapy.” American Art Therapy Association, arttherapy.org/about-art-therapy/. Accessed 10 Aug. 2026.

American Psychological Association. “Creativity.” APA Dictionary of Psychology, American Psychological Association, dictionary.apa.org/creativity. Accessed 10 Aug. 2026.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. HarperCollins, 1996.

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House, 2006.

Pennebaker, James W., and Joshua M. Smyth. Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain. 3rd ed., Guilford Press, 2016.

Stuckey, Heather L., and Jeremy Nobel. “The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health: A Review of Current Literature.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 100, no. 2, 2010, pp. 254–263. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.156497.