Creativity

Today is my birthday and I have had a lovely day. We had an indoor barbecue with a few friends. Everyone brought me something which was really kind. I was completely blown away by the present that I was given to me by my friend Janice. This is a drawing that she has done of me, from a photograph on my Fromthesheshed Facebook page.

All of us there were astonished by it. We talked about her creativity and the fact that none of the rest of us could do anything similar. She however doesn’t feel that she is particularly creative and wanted to point out all of the flaws in the picture. I was immediately struck by the way in which she did not seem to want to acknowledge her talent. It has been said before and it will be said again, however I believe that as women we need to engage more clearly with the ability to recognise our talents.

One of the things that I wanted to do when I came to Brittany was to do things that made me feel better about myself. Having been ill and having not been able to access counselling meant that my self-esteem was low. So I have done various things since I have been here to help with how I feel about myself. I went to a holistic weight loss course. For me it wasn’t so much about losing weight, though I need to lose it, but about helping me through meditation and hypnosis to feel better about who I am. I took up pilates and whilst I ended up being the eldest member of the group I kept going until, due to covid, the classes were stopped. These things are not creative in and of themselves, however they made me feel significantly better about myself and supported me in being able to be creative.

As women we are often judged by society in a way that men are not. What we wear, what we look like, how we speak, what we think about our own skills are all areas for judgement. I am on a journey to try to not be concerned by these issues, to be concerned only by what I think and a few close friends.

So my question to you is what do you do to feel good about yourself? Do you think that as women we spend too much time being concerned about these things? And finally how can we challenge some of these social constructs that have framed our lives and leave women feeling that they cannot or should not acknowledge their talents?