Wednesday, May 9, 2012

the creative spirit

painted when I was 12 years old
I was asked one time to share what creativity meant to me.  I thought it would be a snap. After all, I've drawn since I could hold a crayon, and painted since I was 12.  Art has always been part of my life.

Well, nothing snapped.   I could discuss my life as an artist ad nauseum, but I decided to dig deeper and take you in a different direction.  As I thought about the question, I realized that the answer, for me, went much deeper.

In 1993 I was operating a small manufacturing business.  One day I went to the local community college, nudged there by a friend who wanted to apply but didn't want to take the entrance exam alone.  The person reading my results recommended I apply to the RN program.  I was ready for a change.

But nursing?  Was she kidding?  I pondered what to do.  While I pondered, I had to take an aptitude test, which was required to ensure you were going into a major that was a good "fit" for your personality.  I took that and scored very high in creativity. No surprise there, since I was born with a pencil in one hand and a paintbrush in the other.  The gentleman reading my results told me I might want to rethink going into nursing.  I can still hear him saying: “nursing is not a career that is creative”.

I didn't listen to him, and I am so thankful I made that decision.  Sixteen years and three nursing degrees later, I know the truth.  My truth, my belief.  

Creativity isn't just about art and creating artistic things. It's about thinking outside the box.    

It's about taking what you know or learn and making something new.  I consider myself creative and versatile.  I love creating art, needlework, photography, and any combination of a myriad of other media I've worked in.  

But being a nurse took my creativity to another plane, to a level that working as an artist alone could never do.  For me, being a nurse was an art.  The art of healing.  

Creativity was the hot pack I made from a wet washcloth in a Ziploc lab specimen bag, heated in a microwave to just the right temperature and applied to an infiltrated IV site to prevent infection and ease the pain of swelling.

Creativity was the armboard I taped to a baby's IV site to give him the maximum amount of arm movement while protecting the site so he could get the antibiotics he desperately needed.

Creativity was positioning a 98 year old woman in bed to make her comfortable and to allow the bedsores covering her emaciated body to heal.  Positions they never taught me in nursing school.

Creativity was applying dressings that couldn’t be removed by a toddler who had been inquisitive and determined enough to pull a pot of boiling eggs off a hotplate, scalding his face, chest and arm.

Every day of the more than 16 years I've worked as a nurse, I've been creative.  I've problem-solved, listened and suggested, and had ideas that come from a place inside my head that is where my creativity springs from.

Creativity is the space outside the box.  The place where a paradigm shift of beliefs takes you from using what you know, to the creation of new knowledge.      

~cath xo
Twitter @jonesbabie


21 comments:

  1. Wow Cathy for some reason this almost bought tears to my eyes. I love how described your truth.

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    1. It's been a journey of learning and self discovery, and still goes on Janine. Thanks for the wonderful comment. :D xo

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  2. Here! Here! Nursing is a professional that receives very little praise or acknowledgment of creative flair. Having worked previously in a hospice, I can think now of a thousand creative ways the nursing staff had to engage with patients and as you say, think outside the box. Without that creativity there is just medicine. With creativity there is nursing, care and support.

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    1. We have to function within the guidelines of the license we have Lucy, but there is still a lot of room for creative thinking. And creative solutions to tough answers works in all areas of life really. When I can't solve a problem, I have always tended to step out of the box to look at all possibilities. And it has stood me in good stead all my life. :D
      Thanks for the wonderful comment! xo

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  3. What a beautiful post, Cathy, three cheers to thinking outside the box.

    I would love to hear your patients singing your praises!

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    1. Actually Barbara, I have always tended to shy away from praise. I just want to do the best I can, and see someone benefit from my efforts. That is all the praise I have ever needed. Thank you for your kind comments. :D xo

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  4. yup...you got it. Most people only think Arts..that is SO not the case. If there was no creativity, progress would not happen in any area.

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    1. You are right Stuart. I see creativity everywhere I look, everyday of my life. It is the beginning, the start of something new, and sometimes it makes big differences, sometimes just a small one. But it is a fascinating process. Thanks for your comments. :D

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  5. This is just so beautifully written, in terms of words, flow and the insights themselves. You are one enlightened soul, Cathy! And I am grateful that I am able to share in your wisdom :-))

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    1. Thank you Joy! I tell the people I provide care for now that every day you work to gain insight into yourself. Not to worry what other people think, because the change you make in your life as you gain insight into yourself is what makes life better. You can't build your life on what other people think or do. Many people have a hard time grasping that, but it has sure brought my thinking down a different path all these years, and each day I learn more about myself, and life in general. :D

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  6. That is beautiful! I love it. Creativity is a bottle of problem solving and inspiration mixed together. Great post!

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    1. You are exactly right! It's a mix. Thanks for such a great comment! :D

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  7. Wow, Cath, your talent was so apparent at such an early age. That painting is amazing. And yes, I so agree that creativity can and does figure into everything we do.

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    1. It was a compulsion for me Adriene, something I didn't really think about. I just did it. :D And being such a creative spirit yourself, I knew you would understand where I was coming from. Thanks for the wonderful comments.

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  8. Please continue to be creative! We need people to think outside the box.

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    1. That's no stretch for me Muriel. I was born thinking that way, and don't think I could be any other way. :D

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  9. Thank you for sharing this connection... I'm an artist and nurse, too, and I feel quite strongly that a better understanding of how healing and art nurture and expand one another is exactly what many people need.

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  10. Thank you for sharing this connection... I'm an artist and nurse, too, and I feel quite strongly that a better understanding of how healing and art nurture and expand one another is exactly what many people need.

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