Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

creativity

Why We Need to Cultivate Harmonious Passion in Our Work

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Photo by Noah Johnson

I haven’t always been a writer. I wasn’t the kind of kid who scribbled stories or penned poems or daydreamed fantastical narratives in my head. I didn’t dream about “becoming a writer” someday.

When I went off to college I majored in English mainly because I loved to read and could craft a well-structured, articulate research paper. After I graduated I worked for more than a decade in both the corporate and the non-profit worlds, where I wrote annual reports and brochures, ad copy and marketing content, case statements and fundraising letters.

It wasn’t until I was in my late 30s that the process of excavating my spiritual and religious background ultimately led me to write my first book – and then three more books after that.

What I am realizing now, more than a year after publishing my last book and nearly a year since I stepped out of the publishing arena, is that I have always written to produce a particular outcome. In my corporate and non-profit jobs, I wrote to produce marketing and fundraising content. And as an author, I wrote for the purpose of publishing books. I even began blogging in 2009, long before I had an agent or a book contract, solely to build a platform for what I hoped would be my first published book.

I enjoyed the work. Writing was invigorating and satisfying, and I was passionate about it. I believed it was my calling. But what I am beginning to understand now is that there is a difference between pure passion – engaging in your passion because you love it and because you can’t imagine not doing it and because it’s woven into who you are as a person – and passion driven by extrinsic rewards.

Psychologist Robert Vallerand calls these two types of passion “harmonious passion” and “obsessive passion.” And the difference between the two comes from how they are internalized in one’s identity.

According to Vallerand:

“Harmonious passion (HP) results from an autonomous internalization of the activity into the person’s identity. An autonomous internalization occurs when individuals have freely accepted the activity as important for them without any contingencies attached to it. Individuals are not compelled to do the activity but rather they freely choose to do so. With this type of passion, the activity occupies a significant but not overpowering space in the person’s identity and is in harmony with other aspects of the person’s life.” (my bold)

Obsessive passion (OP), on the other hand, “results from a controlled internalization of the activity into one’s identity. Such an internalization originates from intrapersonal and/or interpersonal pressure either because certain contingencies are attached to the activity such as feelings of social acceptance or self-esteem, or because the sense of excitement derived from activity engagement becomes uncontrollable. Thus, although individuals like the activity, they feel compelled to engage in it because of these internal contingencies that come to control them.” (my bold)

Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire summarize Vallerand’s hypothesis in their book Wired to Create, concluding this:

“Obsessive passion is an indicator that the activity has not been healthily integrated into a person’s overall sense of self. The ego feeds on high performance, and the person may find herself pushing too hard with little improvement, sometimes leading to mental and physical injury. In a nutshell: harmoniously passionate people are impelled to create, whereas obsessively passionate people are compelled to create by more extrinsic factors.”

In other words, it all comes down to how a person internalizes their passion. Does their passion become part of them because they love it and they would pursue it no matter what the outcome? Or does their passion become part of them because they have connected it to their sense of value and self-worth?

Oh boy. Lightbulb moment: I fall into the obsessive passion camp.

Obviously there are many authors who are both impelled and compelled to write. In other words, they are successful and probably at least somewhat motivated by extrinsic factors (books sales, best seller lists, etc.), but they also receive deep joy and satisfaction from the creative process. Their scale probably tips generously toward  harmonious passion.

My problem, it turns out, is that my scale tips heavily toward obsessive passion – always has. Yes, when I was writing books I desired to share stories that I hoped could help or at least resonate with others. Yes, I enjoy writing. But let’s cut straight to the chase: I was largely in it for the external rewards (publication, status, recognition, approval). And that, combined with the inevitable depletion that came from publishing four books in five years, thousands of blog posts and an infinite number of social media posts, led to a creative and professional breakdown of sorts (and perhaps a wee bit of a personal breakdown).

Which brings me to today. After a professional lifetime of writing for extrinsic reward, I am now learning how to write simply for the joy of it. As silly as it sounds, I am slowly teaching myself how to have harmonious passion for writing. I am learning how to pursue my passion without any contingencies attached to it.

I do believe harmonious passion can be learned, especially if a seed of it is there (however deeply buried it may be). And I know the seed of harmonious passion for writing is in me because of how I’ve often felt these past few months when I am writing. Whole hours slip by unnoticed when I am at my desk, fingers on the keyboard. I am relishing language – reveling in the simple but deeply fulfilling hunt for the perfect word or a gratifying turn of phrase. I am dipping my little toe into writing poetry, just because. And while I know journaling is, for me, a fruitful way to nurture self-awareness and growth, I also appreciate that writing in a public space helps me improve my craft and grow as a writer…which is why I am still writing here, rather than solely in the pages of my private journal.

That said, it’s not easy to break a lifelong habit. Writing for outcomes and extrinsic rewards is my default mode; it’s automatic. Which means every time I catch myself thinking about platform or “felt need” or whether a particular post will resonate with my audience, I have to gently redirect myself back to the reasons I write these days, which are all rather basic:

Because I like working with words.

Because it helps me figure out who I am and what I think about things.

Because it’s challenging but also (mostly) fun.

I haven’t ruled out the possibility of writing another book someday, though I can’t imagine doing so anytime soon. I do know this though: if I do step down the book-writing road again, the book I write will come from a deep place of harmonious passion in me.

What about you? Have you ever struggled with obsessive passion? 

How to Rekindle Creativity as an Adult

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I’ve been listening to a new-to-me podcast called Slow Home during my morning jogs, and this morning the hosts got me thinking about the importance of creativity – in particular, the act of creating not to produce something, but simply for the enjoyment of the creative process itself.

Toward the end of the episode one of the hosts quoted Albert Einstein, who once said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun,” and for the remainder of my run, I couldn’t stop mulling over the connection between fun, intelligence and creativity. I kind of liked the image of my stodgy, properly behaved brain loosening up, unpinning her hair, so to speak, and having a little party up there.

The truth is, though, creativity for the sake of being creative – “fun creativity” – does not come easily to me. As an Enneagram 3, I tend to be hyper-focused on producing and outcomes. And because my job as a writer is so tightly entwined with my creativity, I often find it hard to separate the two. The more I thought about it as I plodded toward home, the more I realized I don’t know how to be creative without production as the impetus. 

At one point in the episode the hosts suggested that those of us struggling to figure out how to be creative might consider reflecting on the creative endeavors we enjoyed as a kid.

Let me tell you, it nearly stopped me in my tracks to realize that I couldn’t remember doing anything creative in my youth. I colored in coloring books, always making sure to stay within the lines. I played with Barbies, rode my bike and read as much as I could. On a really crazy day, I constructed a blanket fort in the basement and then crawled inside to read with a flashlight.

I was about to give up entirely on the idea that I’d ever enjoyed any creative endeavors as a kid, when suddenly I remembered how much I had loved spending time outdoors.

When I was young my family owned a camper that we parked in a woodsy campground called Sun Valley (I’m not making that up). We essentially lived there all summer long, returning home only occasionally so my dad could mow the lawn (he was a teacher, so he had summers off) and my mother could catch up on laundry and bills.

To this day, the scent of citronella instantly whisks me back to the picnic table under the striped awning, the campfire snapping and popping, whip-poor-wills calling from the birch trees.

During the long, hot afternoons, while my mom read romance novels in her beach chair, Coppertoned legs outstretched, I swam in the  lake with my sister and our friends. We’d breaststroke to the float, hoist ourselves up the metal ladder, and sprawl on the splintered wood, warming our bodies brown in the sun.

Later, when my mother tuned the camper’s tiny black and white television to “The Phil Donahue Show” while she boiled hot dogs on the Coleman stove, I’d head to the stream, which for reasons that even then didn’t entirely make sense, we all called Gilligan’s Island.

There, in the dappled late afternoon light, we’d splash around in our bare feet, hunting for crayfish under slick rocks, plotting how to divert the flow of water with a network of hand-constructed channels and dams, and belting out “Put Another Nickel In” into sticks we pretended were microphones. What we made — our elaborate dams, our songs, the delicate fairy houses of twigs and flower petals — didn’t last. We simply enjoyed creating them in the moment and then left them behind when we were done to be enveloped by the rhythms of nature.

These outdoor experiences of my youth might not be considered “creative” in the traditional sense, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that’s exactly what they were. During the languid, seemingly endless days at Sun Valley, I followed my curiosity wherever it led. I immersed myself in the landscape. I discovered an endless array of intriguing flora and fauna – the plant in the boggy woods behind the camper that looked like lettuce but smelled a lot like skunk; the plump, flushed cup of the Lady’s Slipper; the insect, slim as the thinnest stick, that skittered across the surface of the water eddying dark and mysterious under the mossy bank.

Back then, I wasn’t creating to make or produce something. I was simply participating in the ongoing creation and flourishing of my true self.

I think back to my years at Sun Valley with great gratitude. I’m lucky to have had such an idyllic childhood, largely free from worries and cares. I recall that time with nostalgia, even with a bit of sadness, knowing that kind of creative freedom and exuberant living cannot be entirely rekindled.

Yet I’m also convinced that as adults, we need to pursue that kind of unbridled curiosity — to allow ourselves to be creative simply for the fun of it. I’m not exactly sure what “fun creativity” in nature might look for me now, as a 47-year-old mother of two teenage boys, working two jobs and living in the smallish city of Lincoln, Nebraska in the middle of the Great Plains. It probably won’t involve catching crayfish or singing a 1950s hit into a microphone stick. But I do know this: it would be worth my while to find out, not only for the sake of my professional writing life, but, even more importantly, for the wellbeing of my mind, body and soul.

So tell me…how are you creative as an adult? Like me, do you struggle with “fun creativity,” or have you found something you like to do or make that fills you with exuberant joy, just because? 

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We Aren’t Meant for All Work and No Play

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I have a lot on my plate these days – book writing, speaking engagements, a part-time job, shuttling kids to a seemingly endless lineup of soccer games and cross country meets and tennis practice, and squeezing housework and errands into the fringe hours. With a deadline looming in three short months, I’ve calculated exactly how many words I need to write each week to stay on track, and I’ve scheduled my time accordingly. This means aside from family obligations and work commitments, I don’t have much going on in my life.

My system hummed along perfectly for a while. I was efficient and productive, cranking out chapters, meeting my freelance deadlines, getting my kids where they needed to be, and keeping my house clean (or at least keeping the Board of Health from knocking on my door).

Before long, though, I began to sense a problem. The words weren’t coming. The ideas weren’t sparking. I found myself sitting hour after hour at my desk, a blank screen in front of me. I’d type a sentence, then delete it. Type another sentence, then delete it. I wondered, panicked, how I would finish a book if I couldn’t even finish a paragraph.

As the weeks passed, my writer’s block began to seep into other areas of my life as well. I felt sluggish and unmotivated; bored, yet restless and agitated. I complained to my husband: “I feel so…I don’t know…blah.” It wasn’t depression exactly. More like the doldrums.

Routine is good. Experts advise those who struggle with distraction and lack of focus to adopt a strict schedule and stick with it. Our brains adapt well to structure and pattern. The less we have to think about the mundane parts of our days, the more we can focus our creative energy and brain power on the projects that matter.

Yet in my pursuit of maximum productivity, I overlooked something vital: we can’t routinize our lives at the expense of actually living them.

Human beings are made for connection. That’s why God made both Adam and Eve – he saw that one was better with the companionship of the other. That’s also why he created sea and sky, mountains and plains, forests and deserts. God created us to thrive best in community and in creation.

Last week, when I complained once again about my lack of motivation, my husband offered a suggestion. “Get outside,” he said. “Go stroll around Holmes Lake.” Not a power walk, he added. “Walk slowly, look around, let your mind wander. And then go get lunch out someplace where there are other people.”

That same morning I took my husband’s advice. I walked the circumference of Holmes Lake, greeting the dog walkers and joggers who passed by, noticing the Great Blue Heron standing like a statue at the water’s edge. The sky was brilliant blue and cloudless. The grasshoppers clicked in the tall grass. I tuned in to a piercing bird call I didn’t recognize and snippets of conversation drifting down from the hill.

After my walk, I opened my laptop at a picnic table and wrote for a while under an ash tree. When my stomach started to rumble, I packed up and drove to Bagels and Joe, where I settled at a table near the ladies playing bridge.

It’s too soon to tell if this departure from my rigorous schedule will have any impact on my productivity or creativity. I suspect I’ll have to make these kinds of forays into nature and community a regular habit, rather than a one-time occurrence. But that morning under the ash tree I know for sure that I felt my soul beginning to be replenished.

Turns out, no matter how busy we are, we aren’t meant for all work and no play.

This post originally ran on October 7 in the Lincoln Journal Star. 

Life After Art: You Were Made to Create

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I used to tell people that I wasn’t creative. I acknowledged my other skills — I’m organized, can meet a deadline, run a shipshape household — but when it came to creativity, I always balked. “Nope, I’m not creative ‘that way,'” I’d tell people who asked if I did any writing on the side, like poetry or short stories. “I write for a living – annual reports and brochures and stuff like that … but I’m not creative.”

I believed it, too. I assumed other people had talents like that — artists and musicians and poets. But me? I figured I wasn’t created that way, to be creative.

And I was wrong.

As it turned out, I was simply afraid to be creative. I was afraid to take the leap into something outside my comfort zone because I was afraid I would fail. I was afraid what I wrote would be cheesy, or lame or really, really bad. The truth is, when I did finally start to write at the age of 37, some of it was cheesy and lame and really, really bad (some of it still is). But some of it wasn’t. And that gave me confidence to keep writing.

Reading Matt Appling’s new book Life after Art last week brought me back to those days, to all the years I denied my creativity because I was afraid of failing. I loved this book. It’s short; it’s a quick read. But it’s packed with powerful truths about the importance of creating for all of us, not just for the artists and the musicians and the poets, but for everyone.

Matt graciously answered a few questions for me recently, which will give you a glimpse into the book. Better yet though, buy a copy for yourself.  It’s required reading for any creative person. And believe me, you are a creative person. God made you that way.

Here are my questions for Matt and his answers about his book and the creative process:

1. Can you tell us a little bit about how art and faith intersect for you in the everyday?

The intersection of art and faith kind of easy for me to identify because I’m an art teacher, and I see my work as ministry.  But I’m really interested in people who are not so fortunate, who don’t see their work being creative or necessary to the Kingdom.  I think that’s where a lot of adults are at.  Wishing they could do more, but feeling stuck where they are at.

2. Why do you think children lose the instinct to be generous with their art?

That’s a tough one.  Part of it may just be being surrounded by uncreative adults.  Part of it may just be the awareness they gain of their peers in school.  By the time a student is in sixth grade, their entire worldview is how their fellows see them, not how they see themselves.  If children were educated in complete isolation, maybe that wouldn’t happen…but of course that would cause lots more problems!

Ultimately, I think it’s because we are fallen humans, and as we grow up we grow out of touch with God our creator in lots of ways.  Creativity is just one of them.

3. What are some ideas you might offer to an adult who feels she has completely lost her creative side – or perhaps even doubts that she had a creative side to begin with? Where or how should she begin to rediscover creativity?

One of the Creative Giants I highlighted in the book is Bob Ross, the famous PBS painter.  He was great because he showed adults that they can do this!  They don’t have to be scared to make a mark on a canvas.  Even if it doesn’t turn out well, who cares?  I think many adults are just too fearful to try new things, myself included.  I cannot tell you how many adults have told me they found out they weren’t creative…in art class, usually because a teacher told them.  I say “Who cares?”  If you want to try something, then try it.  There are no consequences for trying.

4. Some of us with kids may be seeing the “good enough” tendency in them already – as in, my art, my schoolwork, my skills, etc., are “good enough” (my kids are ages 8 and 11, and I’ve definitely seen it). What advice would you give parents? How can we encourage our kids to set consistently high standards for themselves, especially when it comes to creativity? And is it possible to stop the “good enough” downward spiral even after it’s already begun?

I think encouraging kids to set high standards starts with parents setting high standards for themselves.  Kids see that.  Kids see the values that parents live out.  And parents have to communicate to kids what their values and standards are.  I remember tagging along with my dad on business errands.  I got to go into strange offices with strange people inside and watch my dad interact with them.  I saw how he conducted himself.  It was very educational.  Let your kids see into your work life, your spiritual life, your financial life, and yes even your love life and tell them this is how we live and this is why we live this way.

5.  As a person who feared failure for a few decades, I like your idea of “reprogramming our view of failure.”  What’s the essence of this message in a nutshell?

I too realized – probably much later than I should have – that failure carries a lot of unnecessary baggage.  It looms huge in our minds as this world-ending apocalypse that has to be avoided at all costs.  When we put failure up on a pedestal like that, we steer as far away from it as possible.  Two things we have to learn about failure: first that it is a natural and necessary part of creativity and success, and two that failure is never as big a deal as we imagine it to be.

6. My favorite two lines in your whole book are these, from Chapter Six: “You will be creating for the rest of your life. You might as well do it on purpose.” What does creating look like when it’s not done intentionally, on purpose? 

Creating that’s not done on purpose looks like marriages that fall apart from neglect.  It looks like kids that drop out of school and give up their faith.  It looks like a family running itself ragged with non-stop activities but they are drifting apart emotionally and spiritually.  It looks like people who accept everything someone tells them without deep thinking about what they are being taught.  It looks like a faith that is just rote ritual, devoid of real communication with the Creator.  It looks like a man who has spent forty years at a job he hates but never found the courage to do what he secretly loved.  There’s a whole lot of that kind of creating going on.

7. If you could leave readers with one piece of wisdom or advice related to creativity and art, what would it be? 

Our schools tried to prepare us for a lifetime of learning, but how many of us were prepared for a lifetime of creating?  Creating is simply what we were made to do.  Most of us just forgot about it.

8. And something fun … You’re a writer, a preacher, an artist, a teacher – can you name your favorite thing to create? 

I have created a lot of things.  I was big into painting as a teenager.  As a young adult, I loved graphic design, and still do.  The last four years, I’ve poured out probably 450,000 words on my blog.  But my art room really is my creative pinnacle so far.  I love creating…creators!  My students make me proud when I hang their work on the walls.  It brings me full circle from my years as a youth pastor.  My work really is ministry.

 

I’ve been reading Matt Appling on his blog, The Church of No People, for a long time – years, actually. He’s good. So please, check out his writing there. And learn about Life After Art here.

I’m also delighted to give away one copy of Life After Art, so leave a comment between now and Monday, April 8, and I’ll draw one random name as the winner.