5 Ways to Channel Your Sadness into Creativity

Ivan Kokhno

Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ”, wrote:

Sadness enforces a kind of reflective retreat from life’s busy pursuits, and leaves us in a suspended state to mourn the loss, mull over its meaning, and, finally, make the psychological adjustments and new plans that will allow our lives to continue.

Reflective retreat?

Sometimes sadness is more like a violent rollercoaster that makes being rational and reflective almost impossible, let alone productive and creative.

Or like some sort of quicksand that drags you deeper and deeper, and the more you struggle the worse it gets. So you do nothing at all.

Good news: it doesn’t have to be this way.

Today I’ll share with you 5 approaches I use to turn my sadness (no matter how violent it is) into a good source of inspiration and creativity.

Photo by thom masat on Unsplash

Technique 1: Freewriting

In a nutshell, this technique is all about mindlessly writing about your sadness and later looking into your notes for ideas you could use during future creative endeavors.

You can also use a voice recorder if you prefer speaking to writing.

Here’s what it can look like:

I feel like I live in a paper world. Paper people, paper objects, paper decorations, hollow on the inside and filled with dark gooey mass to the brim. I can feel its waves.

The paper looks colorful and happy but a single clumsy movement from my part is enough to tear it to pieces, resulting in an overwhelming flow of black slime. I drown in it. I pass out.

Everything is fixed when I wake up. Everything is paper again. I move carefully: I feel the black waves moving behind the paper.

A few months after writing the fragment above I used it as a nightmare for one of my characters in a short story.

Although it sounds like no big deal, free writing actually has a few rules you have to follow to make it as effective as possible.

• Set a timer and don’t stop until it rings. Even if you feel like you’ve said everything already. Even if you think your words sound funny. Don’t stop.
• Be brutally honest with yourself. Write everything as you feel it, even if it sounds funny, strange, or scary. Just write.
• Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, or style. Your goal isn’t to create something pretty or perfect but to pour out the pain and maybe catch a few ideas in the process.

Next step: let your notes steep, like a pinch of tea in a cup of hot water. Let your mind forget a bit about what you’ve just written.

Return to your notes on the following day (or even later) to see what ideas, word combinations, or unusual images you can reap from them.

Technique 2: Creative shapeshifting

Sadness is an extremely vulnerable state, so doing anything unusual may feel much more intense than it would on a neutral day.

A good technique to channel your sadness into creativity is by shapeshifting into a role you rarely play. For creatives, it’s all about changing their creative medium, but any unusual activity or social role will work too.

The whole point of this technique is to give you a fresh perspective on everything around you and see where these new paths lead you.

For example, I’m a writer. From time to time, I’m a sad writer. When I’m sad, sometimes I like to stop being a sad writer and become a sad artist instead.

Or I can choose to be a sad cook for the evening, a sad runner, singer, or a sad sculptor: anything counts as long it’s something unusual for me.

A stack of glass I found in a local shop

Technique 3: Symbol hunting

If your sadness had a symbol, what would it be?

Grab your phone and take pictures of everything that feels or looks like your sadness. Last time when I did this technique, I took a picture of a stack of glass I found in a local shop; this was my blues that evening.

As soon as you find something that really feels like a symbol of your mood on a given day, this mood acquires a new level of existence.

Like transitioning from a 2D drawing to a 3D model. Your sadness suddenly gets a color, a shape, and this transition can open unexpected associations in your creative mind. Try it out!

Technique 4: Going somewhere else

Many people have a go-to place to feel sad.

Some stay at home and sleep through the day, some go to a pub and drown their sorrows in booze, some get lost in exhausting walks around the city.

No matter what’s your personal sad place, go somewhere new next time you feel sad and see what thoughts this attitude brings to your mind.

Sometimes you don’t really have to change your mood to feel a rush of creativity; changing your environment could be enough.

Photo by gil on Unsplash

Technique 5: Looking closer

Explore your ocean. Not as a drowning person but as a conscious diver: by choice, and in a controlled manner.

Look closer and examine the sadness that dwells in you, as if looking through a magnifying glass. Notice every tiny detail, notice the sensations in your body, notice the images that your mind shows you.

Study your sadness and answer the question: how does it feel?

Here are some answers I’ve given to this question throughout the last year:

• Death by a thousand wrapping paper cuts
• My bones crying are tears of maple syrup
• My brain feels dry

---

Bonus Tip & Conclusion

Every emotion can be used as a source of nearly unlimited creativity but there’s one universal requirement.

As the saying goes, appetite comes with eating. Well, creativity comes with creating so just grab your tools and start doing something.

Sad or happy, angry or disgusted, no matter what’s your current emotional state, you will create your best work only if you actually get to it.

Go be fabulous, and creativity will join you.

🎉👫🎉 School of Intellectual Development "New Generation Z" invites children from 4 to 12 years old to visit training in mental arithmetic.

✨7 reasons to learn mental arithmetic:

1. To teach а child to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of single-digit, double-digit and three-digit numbers by the Japanese method in easy way and without boredom

2. To develop imaginative thinking of the child

3. To develop all kinds of memory, concentration, attention

4. To increase the ability to learn foreign languages

5. To develop self-confidence

6. To engage in a progressive methodology, which is used in 52 countries of the world.

🏆Our advantages are:

1. Small groups

2. A unique intelligent on-line simulator that allows to engage all kids and select tasks individually for each kid

3. Experienced teachers with specialized education

🌟🌟🌟 Believe in your child’s limitless possibilities and send an application to attend classes

+ 380689662804 or m.me/NGenerationZ,  @new_generation_z