Unraveling to Reawaken: How Undoing My Systems Set My Creativity Free

For a long time, I thought my creativity was broken.

While I had a slightly above-average artistic talent, I literally did not feel creative. I got really great at replication . . . following patterns, recreating images, engaging in structured art activities like scrapbooking, stamping, even the occasional “paint & sip” with friends. But when it came to that deeper creative energy, the kind that flows intuitively, that surprises you as much as it expresses you. I felt blocked. Like something inside me had been closed off.

This was particularly bewildering because I come from a family of artists - not just casual hobbyists, but deeply gifted career creators. My parents were potters. My sister is an incredibly gifted woodblock print artist, her husband a sculptor. Across my family tree you’ll find architects, animators, product designers, web developers, marketing creatives, culinary geniuses, and landscape artists. Creativity runs through our bloodline like a current.

And yet, for decades, I felt like the one who had missed out on this flow of artistic energy.

I never stopped making things, exactly. I’ve remodeled my home. I dabbled in crafts: beading, scrapbooking, crocheting, even some light woodworking. But none of it felt connected to something deeper inside me. It felt like outlet, but not expression.

Somewhere along the way, in the pressure cooker of performance of career, academia, and perfectionism, my creativity got buried beneath systems. Rules. Routines. Rigidity. Somewhere between standardized tests, timeblocks, and checklists, I traded curiosity for control.

And for me, control wasn’t just a productivity strategy, it became survival.

In 2023, after decades of pushing through life with quiet grit, I was formally diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) . . . a condition I now understand had shaped the way I structured my world since childhood. OCD often shows up as hypervigilance, compulsive planning, fear of uncertainty, and the drive for constant self-monitoring. And while it made me highly capable in traditional environments, it slowly muted the parts of me that longed for flow, for freedom, for coloring outside the lines.

School systems praised my structure. Workplaces rewarded my efficiency. But somewhere inside me, the artist-child was banging on the walls screaming, let me out!

It wasn’t until I started consciously unraveling my systems; peeling back the layers of structure that I had constructed to keep myself safe, that I began to hear her again.

I didn’t find creativity in the most typical way. It didn’t come through painting or drawing. It came through learning design.

Initially it started with building presentations. Then thoughtfully designed events and conferences. Then came curriculum development. And creatively crafted speeches. And eventually, entire learning journeys that blended storytelling, science, and soul. For the first time in years, I saw my creativity was no longer lost, and I found a quiet sense of purpose.

For me, that return looked like acknowledging that creativity doesn’t have to show up on a canvas. It can live in strategy. In the pacing of a good keynote. In the intentional way we design growth for others. Curriculum is a canvas. Facilitation is a performance art. Coaching is collaborative improvisation.

I had reconnected with something elemental. I felt fulfillment in a way that I never had before, in a way that didn’t just feel good, but true. Whole.

I’m still unlearning. Still softening the grip of old patterns. But the more I release the systems that once promised safety, the more I find that creativity is not a luxury or a hobby . . . it’s a calling. It’s how I remember who I am underneath the armor.

So if you’re someone who has ever said, “I’m just not creative,” I encourage you to ask: Who told you what creativity had to look like? And what systems might still be keeping your art from flowing through you?

Sometimes, the path back to your creative self is less about finding her, and more about making space for her to return.