Ariana Newcomer

Healing the soul's voice

Creative people are crazy, right? Umm, not exactly.

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It’s a common story about highly creative people – that they’re basically crazy. Creative geniuses end up as loonies, or borderline loonies, or minimally functional. The reclusive writers, the drunks, the suicides, the painter who cut off his ear (Van Gogh), the institutionalized artists…

Turns out, creativity is complex. It’s not dependent on your IQ, and you don’t have to be crazy. There are many characteristics and traits that go into being highly creative, and highly creative people may actually be MORE sane than “normal” folks.

Last week I wrote about boosting creativity through cultivating the Art of Serendipity. (Read that here.) This article builds on that one.

Here are some of the characteristics of highly creative people:

  • cultivating serendipity, or discovering “what they were not in quest of”
  • introspection and openness to their inner life
  • preferring complexity and ambiguity over black & white perspectives
  • a high tolerance for disorder and disarray
  • yet they are able to extract order from chaos
  • being highly independent and unconventional
  • willing to take risks
  • tolerance of uncertainty and contradictions

Highly creative people develop a higher self-awareness – including awareness of the “shadow” or “darker” aspects of the self. They engage with both the dark and the light – the full spectrum of life. The whole enchilada. The whole human being. All of themselves.Continue Reading

The Art of Serendipity

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IMG_0489Want to be creative? Cultivate the art of Serendipity!

Serendipity is such a wonderful word, isn’t it?

It makes me think of happy chance, and it’s related in my mind to synchronicity, another word I love.

I just found out that we can actually cultivate serendipity. This is exciting to me! Here’s a lovely story about the origin of the word:

In 1754, Horace Walpole wrote some thoughts on a Persian fairy tale that entranced him about 3 princes from the Isle of Serendip who had extraordinary powers of observation. Walpole suggested this tale contained an important idea about human genius: “As their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” (NYTimes 1/3/16) He proposed the word “serendipity” to describe this talent.

So, serendipity is not something that happens to us by dumb luck. It’s something we DO. It’s about paying attention, casting a wider net, allowing plans to change based on a feeling, using an accidental encounter or happening to chart a new path or open new doors, or make new discoveries.

It means that having too narrow a focus or being too perfectionistic can actually prevent you from finding creative solutions to problems in your business and in your life.Continue Reading

Hold Your Tongue!

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How many times have you been told to “hold your tongue” or “bite your tongue”?

How many times have you “swallowed your tongue” or “held your tongue” when there was something you really wanted to say, but couldn’t (or didn’t think you should)?

These are common phrases we use to stop ourselves or someone else from talking, or from saying something in particular. They’re ways we hold our voices back.

You need to know 2 things:

1. Holding, biting or swallowing your tongue are not just metaphors for not speaking. They actually cause physical tension in your tongue, which can really mess with your voice.

Continue Reading

No, no, no!!

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Do you struggle sometimes to say that little word, “no?”

Yep. Me, too.

I led exercises in how to say NO at the FEM Talks event, “How To Set Nourishing Boundaries and Say No With An Open Heart”.

I asked the women when it was hard for them to say no. Some of the things they said were:Continue Reading

Speaking For Change

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IMG_1107_smI had a great time at FEM Talks in Novato last Saturday, where I gave a talk on “Speaking for Change.”

This is an important topic for those of us who are working to create positive change. How do we actually use our voices to Speak for Change?

Here are some of the highlights of my talk. (This all applies to your marketing, too, by the way.)

We actually have to speak to successfully influence and motivate people to take action of some kind. That requires getting out of the “having to be nice” and “not wanting to dominate anyone” modes of thinking.

We have to speak powerfully and with passion. Holding back isn’t going to cut it – with words and with our voices. We must generate emotion in our listeners.Continue Reading

Becoming Fearless (Or Not)

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I was in a coaching program for a while with “Fearless” in the title. I learned a lot, but I didn’t become fearless.

Lots of people out there want to teach you how to become Fearless!! – to banish fear, to get rid of it, to stop it – because fear is BAD. Fear is negative, and we can’t have any negativity in our lives if we want to succeed. Or so the story goes.

The truth is, it’s not actually a good thing to get rid of fear.

There are 3 pieces of this.

One: Fear is actually a very valuable thing that tells us something is wrong, or could go badly wrong. Sometimes it is necessary to survival. That fear you feel when you’re thinking about whether to get into an elevator with a shifty-eyed, bad-energy-pouring-off-him guy is a good thing. It says, “Danger! Don’t go in there!”

Two: Making the automatic judgment that fear is negative usually misses the point.Continue Reading