Creativity is who we are.
Reclaiming creativity, in my life. my work and living as a reminder to us all, especially when the world is on fire.
Some words arrive as if they’ve been waiting a lifetime to be spoken.
For twenty-five years, I’ve been circling around something,
something I could feel, sense, live, but never quite name.
Recently, when asked about The Nurture Map, I found myself saying,
“It’s holistic wellbeing through a unique creative journey.”
The words came out before I had time to think.
They came from somewhere deeper, the place that speaks before the mind interrupts.
And as soon as I said them, something inside me softened.
Because for the first time in twenty-five years,
I had said it simply, wholly, truly.
From the heart.
It’s funny, I’ve always known that The Nurture Map is a deeply creative process.
But for years, I hesitated to call it that.
Not because it isn’t creative, it absolutely is,
but because of what the word creative has come to mean in our world.
We live in a culture where creativity is seen as a luxury.
Something reserved for artists, designers, or people who can make things good enough to sell.
A side pursuit, a hobby, an indulgence,
unless, of course, it becomes productive.
Creativity has been domesticated by capitalism.
Measured, monetised, and made into something to prove rather than something to be.
We’ve been taught to equate creativity with output,
with perfection,
with worth.
And so many people I meet say, “Oh, but I’m not creative.”
As if creativity were a skill you either have or don’t,
rather than a current that flows through all of life.
I realised that when I sat with what activated me, and why I’d hesitated to call it a creative process, it was because I knew that using the word “creative” might put people off.
In the past, when I’d described it that way, so many had immediately replied that they weren’t creative, almost closing themselves off from wanting to know more.
It pained me, because what I could see so clearly was how creative they already were, in their care, their listening, their living.
That reflection became a mirror. It asked me: was I truly ready to claim this,
to stand fully in the truth that I am a creative, and that this is a creative process?
And the answer, finally, was yes.
I am ready to fully embody that truth, to live it out loud,
and to speak it boldly, knowing that in doing so, I also invite others to reclaim their own creative nature.
Because this is the work now, to challenge the narrow idea of what it means to be creative, and to support people in remembering that creativity is not reserved for art galleries or studios. It is alive in kitchens, in gardens, in the words we speak to our children, in the moments we choose compassion instead of control.
It is there in how we heal, how we connect, how we shape our days.
It is there in how we say yes to ourselves, even when the world says no.
To reclaim our creativity is to reclaim our agency, to remember that we are not passive observers of our lives but active participants in their unfolding. It is to remember that we are shaping, tending, weaving, even in the smallest of ways.
Because the truth is, we are all creating, all the time.
From the moment we wake up, we are composing our lives.
Every choice we make, every rhythm we move to, every small decision,
what to wear, what to say, how to respond, what to nurture,
is an act of creation.
We are creative when we cook a meal,
when we soothe a friend,
when we rearrange our days to make space for something that matters.
We are creative in how we love,
how we listen,
how we hold space for others and ourselves.
Creativity is not an activity.
It’s an essence.
It’s the living, breathing pulse of life moving through us.
And when we begin to honour that essence, to see our days as a canvas rather than a checklist, something extraordinary happens. We stop trying to prove our worth and start remembering our belonging. We begin to sense how our inner world shapes the outer one, and how every small act of care ripples outward. The way we fold laundry, the way we tend a plant, the way we speak to ourselves in the quiet moments, all of it becomes part of our creative language.
There is also a creativity of the heart,
the quiet kind that doesn’t need to be seen or validated,
the kind that reveals itself when we pause long enough to listen.
That moment, when I was asked about The Nurture Map and the words
“a unique creative journey” rose up from within,
that was the heart creating.
That was the artistry of intuition,
the effortless weaving of language and truth.
When we listen deeply, the heart becomes the most profound artist we know.
It paints through our voice,
it writes through our choices,
it sculpts the way we show up in the world.
This, too, is creativity,
a sacred dialogue between soul and self,
between what we know and what we are still becoming.
The Nurture Map, my life’s work, has always been about returning to something wilder and truer.
It’s about remembering that wellbeing is not a checklist,
but a creative unfolding.
That the way we grow, heal, and live cannot be standardised or scaled.
It’s uniquely shaped, sculpted by the hands of our own becoming.
And so, from this moment forward,
I will say it boldly and proudly:
The Nurture Map is a creative process.
Not the kind of creativity that demands an audience,
but the kind that roots us back into the sacred rhythm of being alive.
I want to reclaim the word creative.
To lift it out from the narrow walls of grind culture and perfectionism
and back into the open sky of human experience.
To be creative is to be human.
To be human is to be a creator,
of moments, of connections, of possibilities, of care.
Holistic wellbeing through a unique creative journey,
yes.
That is what this is.
That is what it has always been.
A remembering.
A return.
A quiet revolution of how we see ourselves and what we call valuable.
And maybe, just maybe,
if we can learn to see the sacred in our own daily creativity,
we can begin to untangle ourselves
from the systems that taught us otherwise.
Because when we reclaim creativity, we reclaim possibility. We begin to see that wellbeing is not something given to us by an expert, but something we co-create with life itself. Every breath, every pause, every act of tending becomes part of the larger artwork of our becoming. And in that remembering, we start to heal the collective story, the one that told us our worth was tied to productivity, rather than presence.
Creativity is resistance.
Right now, we need to connect to our creativity and our art, however messy, as much as we can. The world is on fire, and while its sometimes hard to even comtemplate being creative let alone creating anything. We have to know that our creativity and art is a way out. Not only in envisioning and creating a world we want to see but, art in the moment as being political and resistance to everything we are being pulled from.
In recent months, since I first wrote this article, I have found it difficult to balance the idea of creativity as the world is burning around us. Something I have dropped into again and again is the amazing Amie McNee’s TED talk enititled The case making art when the world is on fire. This talk is amazing not only reaffirming what creativity truly is but also the part it can play in what we are going through now.
Creativity is resistence, the remedy for burnout, the medicine for tough times. Now more than ever do we need to acknowledge and embrace our crerativity but also embody it as a source for power.
Author’s Note
This is where I stand now, at a new edge of my own work and a deeper truth.
I am reclaiming creativity as a central part of wellbeing.
I am honouring The Nurture Map as a creative process,
one that invites others to rediscover their own creative nature,
not as something to add to their lives,
but as something that’s always been there,
quietly waiting to be remembered.
Together, we can rewrite what creativity means.
Not something to hustle for,
but something to live from.
May we remember the creativity that breathes through all things,
the art of choosing, of caring, of becoming.
May we loosen the grip of “good” and “productive,”
and return to the wild grace of simply making life.
May we honour the quiet art of being human,
the brushstroke of each breath,
the masterpiece of each moment.
I want to help more people for free, open access, no paywalling, no gatekeeping. I do this through creating content, resources, mentoring, and more. Bringing wellbeing, and mental health support, back into community care. I carry this work out here on this Substack and through my Nurture Map work. This work is supported by the community with my ‘Pay it around’ philosophy that keeps on benefitting you and the people around you. Please consider supporting my work, so I can support more people for free.
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Thanks Tom, nice to see you here.