You are creative. Here's how to reclaim it

?In the Arena is LinkedIn News’ weekly human potential podcast hosted by?Leah Smart . You’ll hear from some of the world's brightest minds and bravest hearts about how to show up daily to live a better & more meaningful life.?Subscribe to the show's newsletter ?here . This week, Instagram influencer, Morgan Harper Nichols,?shared her journey from college admissions to well-known artist. She honestly admits the messiness of "becoming", how she's still in progress and what it took her 8 years to understand about social media .

Morgan: How can you do something today that helps you exhale?

Leah: Hey, everyone. From LinkedIn News, this is In The Arena, a podcast exploring human potential. I'm Leah Smart, and every week you'll find me right here in conversation with bright minds and brave hearts, learning how we can improve our lives and our world by transforming ourselves. Morgan Harper Nichols is not a story of overnight success, and she didn't always know she wanted to be an Insta-famous artist. She's reinvented herself multiple times and went from working in college admissions to building a community of close to two million supporters on Instagram since her first poem went viral. When I found out about her, I was immediately drawn to her work. I always felt so seen by her art, and I later realized why: She uses the stories of her supporters and her community to create her art. Her work is a huge collaboration with the world around her. Morgan is so inspiring that I even started doodling and writing some poetry again myself when I saw her work. You're going to be lit up by her honesty and by her story. Her new book is called Peace Is a Practice, and I also highly recommend her app called Storyteller, with gorgeous daily art and words to make you feel both understood and ready to face the day. I know you'll find your own story somewhere in all of it, because it was made for you, and it was kind of made by you. Here's Morgan.

Morgan: I'm not a traditionally trained artist. For a long time, even I would not really go all in because I'm like, "Well, I'm not as good as other people." It's just so valuable to just have some creative practice and outlet. I'm like, if that's what people pick up from what I do, I just get so encouraged. I'm like, "Yes, yes. Just go wild. Make art, whether it's for play or whatever." So I just love that. Literally start with scribbling with children's crayons, the cheapest supplies you can find. I always recommend that very specific thing. When we become grownups, we get a little sophisticated, and we're like, "Okay, I'm going to go buy the nice art supplies, the ones with the great reviews." But sometimes the fancy stuff you start overthinking it because you're like, "I don't want to mess up my supplies."

Leah: “Now I'm supposed to be fancy.” Yeah.

Morgan: Yeah. I'm like, no, I'm talking number two pencils. Whatever you wish you could do in a free period in third grade, that's where I want you to start. So yeah. I have just found that alone to just be so calming and peaceful in my life.

Leah: I saw your recent post that said, "No matter who does or does not notice you, you will still bloom how you are meant to." And that just feels perfectly aligned with why we should dare to go on the path of being creative.

Morgan: Yes. Oh my goodness. Well, yeah, that is my story because I'm someone who is very sensitive. And ever since I was a kid, I remember one time specifically, I went to a summer camp, and it was some random thing with some other teenagers and we were hanging outside. And for whatever reason, I brought my poetry journal to the summer camp. That's just the kind of person I was. It was like kickball, capture the flag, and here I am with my poetry journal. I'm like, "You never know. During lunch, I might need to write a poem." And this kid, he talked me into letting him read my poems at lunch. And he opened it, and he just started ripping them to shreds. He was like, "Oh, this is so cheesy. Why are you writing about this?" And experiences like that, even if you're somebody who is drawn to creating, they stay with you. That gets inside of you, and you start wondering, "Well, if these people don't like it, then what business do I have being curious about it or being interested in it?" So, for many years I had different moments like that, and it got to me. That hurt my feelings. And it made me question myself and what I created. And it took a long time to get the courage to share what I was making while it was still in process, while I didn't know how other people would receive it. But the moment that I did start to share, even just a few people here and there, hearing from other people say they felt reflected in what I was saying, from that moment, it was like, “okay, now I know I'm not alone.” There's at least one person out in the world who is interested in this poem that I wrote and sees themselves in it. That's what makes it worth it to dare to create, it's that connection element. And I think sometimes it gets cut off. If you get that bad connection right away, you're like, "Whoa."

Leah: “Just kidding.”

Morgan: Yeah. “Nevermind, close the journal. Never open it again.” But oh, just dare to try again. There are people out there who will see themselves in what you're doing, and it is so worth that connection.

Leah: There's a video that I saw recently from a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and he was talking about the process of creation. And one of the things he says is you don't want followers, you want supporters. You want people who are going to see themselves in your work and people who are going to engage with you. And I had never thought of just switching out those words, but there's this richness that gets drowned out by this thing that, “if you're going to share, you must immediately also want a million people to follow you.”

Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. That is so real. I was 20 years old, I think, when Instagram came out. So I was right there in it. I was right there in it with everybody else. I would say it took about eight years of being active online and sharing some kind of creativity online before I finally embraced what you just talked about of like. It is not about the followers. It is not about the numbers. It is not about the analytics. Yes, it is a part of it, but it is such a small part of it, especially when you're starting out. And it was when I was in my late 20s that I honestly felt like, “okay, I've tried all the things to make my work seem like it's important or worthy of being known and seen out in the world.” And it was like, you know what? I'm just going to focus on connecting with one person at a time. That's it. I don't care if I lose followers. And I did. When I first started sharing my art, I did lose followers because it was new. I wasn't very good at it. It was just random and–

Leah: I don't believe that at all, but okay.

Morgan: Oh, you can scroll back. You'll see. It took me a minute. But the thing that was so fascinating is that's when I started to grow. That's when this rapid growth happened, when I literally was like, “I give up. I give up trying to figure out all the algorithms, all the things. I'm just going to put all that aside and just focus on connecting people.” And that's when it grew.

Leah: You reminded me of, when you were sharing this story of bringing your journal to this camp, where you could be doing a million other things, but you brought your poetry journal. And then someone saw your work and said it's not enough, basically. And then you have that experience of not just “it's not enough,” but “I'm not enough” maybe. And so how can I share this? The way Dr. Brene Brown talks about this is creativity scars. And it was one of the first... when I read about that, it was one of the first moments I realized how much someone's judgment at a young age can impact your ability to create or your choice to create. And so, I heard that from you, and I think it's so valuable because I think it shows up in more ways than you being a poet and deciding not to share. I think it also shows up for people who as quote-unquote adults say, "Well, I'm not creative," or "Creativity's childish." In some ways, I think it's a way to protect ourselves from being judged by people.

Morgan: Oh my goodness. Absolutely. And I totally agree about the creativity scars, because in many ways, creativity is defined as original ideas, but even original ideas that come from other ideas and combining and making new combinations. And when you think about that, we do that all day. If you're at dinner with your friends, and everyone's laughing and telling jokes, you have your own way of being in that conversation and telling stories and making people laugh or pointing out different observations. It takes creativity to do all of that. But I think that as we grow up, we get this message overall of just “get in line, follow the rules, and you'll be okay in life.” And here's the thing. There's a whole lot of places in life where I think that's a good idea. If you're flying a plane, yeah. That might not be the best place to be the most creative. There's probably some certain knobs and buttons and she got to click in a certain order, and yeah, maybe you shouldn't change it up. But there are so many other places in life where we apply that same very formulaic thinking, where it just doesn't have to be applied. I've even been pushing myself to the limits even more as to what's acceptable or why I put kind of restraints on myself. So one example of that is I have a toddler, I have a two-year-old who is always challenging the status quo. And there will be times where I'll see him... We have a canister of uncooked rice that you can put in the pantry. So he'll take something like that and just open it and just dump it on the floor. And my reaction is, "Oh, no, what did-" And it's like, okay, yes, that is the way we're supposed to keep rice is in the container, not on the floor. But I'm like, what is that about him at such this young age where he's open to try it? So what I actually did is I found online a pouring station, where you can take uncooked rice, and you can put it in these little compartments, and kids can pour the things back and forth. And it's a sensory activity. And I was like, how many things are like this in our day to day life, where we're like, "Okay, rice goes in the jar. You can't play with that. Or you sit here for eight hours a day this way. You can't change that up."

Leah: “That's your fork, that's your knife.”

Morgan:? Yeah. Exactly. And I've just even been trying to challenge myself to say, "Why do we do things this way?" And sometimes, like flying a plane, there's good reasons. But a lot of times, there is so much room for creativity and exploration. And I just want everybody to get a little taste of that in their daily life.

Leah: There are a couple people that I go to when I'm having a hard time, and you are definitely one of them, when I look at what you've shared, because it's true. And I know you said that in part of your book, is some of sharing your own struggles has taken your breath away. Not because you're scared of someone's judgment, but because it was honest. What you shared about your son with the rice just made me immediately think, "Gosh, we just can't deal with messiness, can we?"

Morgan: Oh my goodness. That is -

Leah: It's a metaphor for life.

Morgan: Oh, it is a whole thing. So I actually just finished this book. It's 4000 Weeks by Robert Bozeman. But in the book, he points to how there was a point in history not that long ago, maybe back in the '50s, where all these kitchen appliances started showing up, and you got your toasters, your microwaves, and it just keeps adding the list of all these ways to keep a home. But with that came increased pressure of what cleanliness is supposed to look like. So it was this whole thing about there's so many things that we have to make life so efficient, but it also ends up increasing judgment around messiness or things not being clean or perfect or in line. I just moved my office, and there's nothing in here. And this room is so white. The carpet's light, light, light gray, the walls are light, light, light, light gray, the windows are white. Everything's so clean and pristine looking that I even feel a bit odd, putting a little bit of myself and color into the room. It's like, "Oh, I hope this isn't too much." And I'm like, "Wow, how often am I doing that?" Even subconsciously in day to day life, I'm scared to color outside the lines. I'm telling myself not to push this boundary. I think that there's just so much room to really ask a lot of questions about that.

Leah: We're going on a quick break. While we do, take a minute to think about what you would do without the creativity scars that you're carrying, and where in your world you can give yourself or someone else permission to get messy and spill some rice on the floor. When we get back, you'll hear how Morgan creates, even though she's still a work in progress, and how to celebrate both the shadow and the light in life.

We're back with artist and poet Morgan Harper Nichols.

Leah: Morgan, one of the things you shared that I loved is that you were making art while you are in process. Not only did you choose to make public your process, you've also left it up so that people can go see how you've grown and who you've become. And I think that can be such a barrier for people who have a dream, is that we show up at people's highlight reel, whatever that is, and go, "I could never be that," instead of having the steps or the path lit to be able to understand your process. I'd love for you to share, how did all this come about? Tell me the story of this work.

Morgan: My first job out of college was a college admission counselor at my alma mater, and I loved that job. I've always just been one who loves to just share information, so that's just a love language of mine. So getting to share that with prospective students, that was honestly my favorite part of the job. However, the school was expanding, and my job was actually moving to a different part of the state. I couldn't move with it. So that sent me down about a five, six year journey of just freelancing, trying everything. I mean, wedding photography, full-time singer-songwriter, logo designer. I've done a lot of things. And a lot of it, I would love to say it was just fueled by creativity and curiosity, but a lot of it was financial motivation. I, like many people in my generation, graduated with a lot of uncertainty about the workforce and not knowing what was next and not knowing how to kind of build a career. And at that time, it was very challenging. And even though I was an artist, my first job was in a cubicle, and I loved my cubicle. I was fine with it. I loved my job. I really did, but it didn't last forever. So it sent me down this long, uncertain, what felt like liminal space for a very, very long time. And I lived in a lot of different cities. My husband and I, we both just worked all kinds of jobs, doing lots of different freelance. And it was mostly creative things. And then in 2016, we had moved to Dallas, Texas, honestly, just because we found an affordable apartment. And in that time, that's when I feel like I really started to hit rock bottom. And that was because I felt the epitome of exhausted and broke. And those two things together is a really, really rough combination. And I honestly feel like, as a society, we don't talk enough about how much financial insecurity causes some real emotional, mental, physical struggle in people's lives. Especially if you're a young person, if you're a person of color, there's so many different reasons. And I'm also a person with a disability as well. I'm autistic. I didn't know that at the time. But I had all these different things that were just compounding, and I just felt so stuck and so uncertain. And it was in that time, for whatever reason, I opened a journal of mine and I wrote a poem about it. And for some reason, I decided to write my name at the end of that poem. And that was significant. Putting your name on it is a different level of owning it. It's like you write it, you're vulnerable, you put it out there, but then you put your name on it, and you’re like “this is my name”...that takes courage. And for me, for some reason, I took a picture of it and then I uploaded it onto Pinterest. And at the time I was not very active on Pinterest, really, but I just put it up there. And it was a few months after that, that I ended up finding out it had been re-pinned over 100,000 times. And the poem says, "When you start to feel like things should have been better this year, remember the mountains and valleys that brought you here." And the poem ends saying, "You are wrapped in endless, boundless grace. There is more to you than yesterday." And upon sharing that poem, and then it essentially kind of going viral in Pinterest-?

Leah: It went viral, yeah!

Morgan: without me knowing, without me knowing it until it started to show up on other social media platforms. And it was from that moment that I ended up having other people send me Instagram DMs and emails and messages saying how much they connected with that. And they were like, "I also feel so tired and uncertain and just feeling like I'm in this indefinite liminal space, where I don't know what's next. And I dealt with X, Y, and Z. And this is why I feel this way." And that right there was so healing and transformative for me, because it revealed to me that, while I was still in that uncertain space, other people were connecting with that as well, because they were also in that space. And it became clear to me. It's like, wow, while I don't know what tomorrow holds, I do know it matters that I'm not alone. And I do know it matters to encourage other people in knowing that they're not alone, and that we can work through this together day by day, breath by breath. And that just became the theme of my work. And it still is. And since then, I can honestly say it's been the people, a lot of them I've met online, just who've engaged with what I'm doing and sharing, that have really motivated me to keep evolving the artwork and trying new things. So, yeah.

Leah: You must get so much meaning out of this. I think part of what has happened to us as a society is we've told ourselves that if we just spit shine everything, it's going to be okay. That if you just tell your son to get the rice back in the jar, we can pretend it never happened.

Morgan: Yeah, exactly.

Leah: So it just took me right back to the rice of thinking what you're doing is you're like, “I'm letting the rice sit there. I'm pointing at it. And I'm telling you that it's okay it's there.”

Morgan: Yeah, wow. I love that so much. I'm going to remember that next time he pours the rice all over the floor.

Leah: Tell him it's okay. So I'm curious, I wonder what are some of the stories or themes from stories that you can share from your community?

Morgan: Yes. For context, I'm 32 years old. I'm 32. And it's been a trend that I hear from a lot of people who are about 10 years younger than me, which I find so fascinating because I think in a lot of ways, I am still speaking to 22-year-old Morgan. I'm still telling 22-year-old Morgan “it's going to be okay. I know you feel so much pressure right now to figure everything out, but it's okay. You don't have to get it all right, right now.” I would say that to 22-year-old Morgan literally 100 times a day, because she was anxious. She was stressed. She was autistic and didn't know it. She had a lot going on. So that ends up being a huge thing. Just demographically, a lot of people who are younger than me, just especially over the past couple of years, a lot of people just dealing with the state of the world and the constant change because it's not just what's happening globally and what country you're in nationally, but it's also what's happening within your own family system or your community. And the longer that we sit in this space of needing to watch the news more and all of that, you're just constantly taking in so much information. So I do this thing on social media where I'll ask people to submit one word that just sums up how they feel. And then I will respond to that with art. Hands down, the word I get the most, I'm talking about past two years, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. That is the word I get every single time I do that prompt. Doesn't matter what platform, what time of day, the past two years. Overwhelmed.?

Leah: You've basically done a free study for what a bunch of researchers have been paid to do. Why do we have to call it burnout? It's just general overwhelm, and it's not fun, and there aren't necessarily quick fixes to it. What are you learning? You have a section in your book about shadow and light. And so this takes me this place of most people... Nobody wants to sit in the dark for a long time and experience pain or suffering. Nobody desires that. And yet, it can be incredibly valuable. And I'm curious what you're learning about the relationship between shadow and light and how we can get better about sitting in both.

Morgan: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm a part of this as well. But I grew up in a family who to this day, present day, I would say one of the greatest battles that we deal with as a family have been health-related issues, especially when it comes to my mother and my one sibling, my sister. And I have watched these two women in my life, these two black women in my life, who oftentimes have to walk into a doctor's office again and again and again, and not get answers or oftentimes not be taken seriously. And at the same time amidst all of that, they are still able to be advocates for others who are also dealing with that and how their stories, they have chosen to speak up and speak about what they're going through to help other people, while they still don't have answers themselves. And to me, that is what it looks like to live with both shadow and light, is that while you are facing the shadow in your own life and the lack of answers or certainty or support or whatever it is that you need, that you're not getting, at the same time, however is natural for you when you have the energy to do that, you can also be an advocate for others. You can also help others, or at least be present to other people in that same space, and people can be present to you. So those two things are always happening at once. And it’s like, you want to make the shadow go away, but you can't, especially not just snapping your finger and it just goes away. But at the same time, that doesn't have to stop us from coming into the light and letting ourselves be seen, and also seeing each others.

Leah: I can so relate. And I love the shadow and light too, but I didn't always. I used to spin things to make them good. And I know you wrote something about being an Enneagram five, I'm an Enneagram seven. My brother and my mom are both five, so I see you.

Morgan: Oh my goodness. Yes. Well, my sister is a seven, so yeah. We're just, yeah. We're circling in the same thing. I love it.

Leah: The sevens try to spin everything. We reframe everything. “This is so amazing that this terrible thing happened because,” right? And that's our superpower. And it's also what keeps us from being okay exploring the shadow. You just gave me this moment of oh, the light isn't “everything's going to be okay,” or “it's perfect, it's fine,” or “it's all happening for a reason, you should be excited.” It's just “no, you do deserve to take the next step in process.” I look at it as so binary, where it's more of a spectrum.

Morgan: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like you see that when you look at paintings, so if you look at... Not all paintings, but a lot of paintings, especially traditionally painted ones, you're going to see shadow and light together. And like you just said, it's a spectrum. It's not a lot of hard black and hard white, it's actually, oh, that shadow is actually a really dark, dark crimson. When you first look at it, it might look like pitch black, but it's actually a dark crimson or a dark burnt orange or something. And that white, it's actually yellow. And it's a spectrum of color. And I just love that you pointed that out because I feel like you can see that a lot in artwork and how that really represents the human experience.

Leah: It does. And I wish we could embrace bring that more, because I think there is a lot of fear, especially maybe in American culture, of having a difficult time, of having something be hard, challenging, painful. All those words we’re just like “EE!” We can't deal with it. And yet it's part of life, and so then this shame cycle gets created about it's not okay for me to be sad.

Morgan: Yes.

Leah: Towards the end of your new book, Peace is a Practice, you talked about hope, which of course excites me because I'm a seven, and I want to go to the light. But I also think it's such a beautiful way to understand human nature. It reminds me of this, there's an interesting effect called the heliotropic effect. And what it says is that you put a plant in the window, and plants will automatically lean towards the light. No matter where you put them, plants will lean towards the light. And so even my plant, my bird of paradise in my apartment, leans towards the window. It's not in the window, but it's moving towards it. And I think of that as a metaphor about humans and how we live. And the way you talked about hope, I thought was beautiful. You said, "Hope is active imagination. Hope is the way you look forward to the future. Hope is grounds for believing that anything is possible and that peace is possible." Talk to me a little bit about hope.

Morgan: Yeah. So I love what you said about your bird of paradise plant just turning to the light. I feel like I could just visualize that. I love that. There's a poem in there somewhere. But I've always had very... Unfortunately, I've had very vivid nightmares, but I've also had very vivid dreams. And I've had vivid recurring dreams. And I started to record my dreams and I started to write them down. And what I find so fascinating about that, I'm like, “isn't it fascinating that even when I'm in the state of sleeping, that my mind is able to come up with these new ideas and create these stories? This is really fascinating.” And it just calls me to think, I'm like, I don't think it stops there. I think when we are awake as well, we can dream. And one thing that I've been doing first is just recording my sleeping dreams, but also too just really, really challenging myself on a day to day basis. And when I see something that is the exact opposite of hope and it's hopeless, I look at that and I spend some time in reflection, thinking, "What is the dream for this?" And the way that I know that I'm actually thinking about it is when I can't tell you in a sentence, when I can't just say, "Oh, I know. I know what's going to fix this." I have to spend time thinking and really meditating and reflecting and reading and listening to others. “What could the dream be? And what is my contribution within that dream?” So one kind of like a… It started as a lighthearted one, but it's turning into a bigger one. I have a dream for... So I've started making 3D art, and I haven't shared much of it yet. Very early stages. But in making 3D art and starting to make these 3D models, I realized that I can actually create a street that someone can walk down and buildings and stuff like that. And as I start to make it, I really care a lot about accessibility. I'm like, "Oh, this street should be wider." It's not even a real street. It's a virtual street. And I'm just like, "This street could be wider." I'm like, "Why can't we have places in nature where someone who maybe has some accessibility differences can walk around?" And I started thinking about it. And then, now when I'm driving down the street, I will literally look at different intersections. I'm like, "How could this be more accessible?" Now, I am not a civil engineer. I'm not a city planner. I'm an artist with an iPad. And at the same time though, I'm like, I believe that that matters. I believe that my dream for more accessible places in nature, it matters. And I don't have to know exactly all the details of how to make that a reality. But I do know that me even just spending time thinking about it, letting the ideas form over months and even years, is a part of what could be my contribution. And who knows? Maybe someday I'll be sitting on a plane next to somebody who's a civil engineer, or maybe it's just, it matters to spend that time thinking about it, especially in a time where a lot of times we feel that pressure to always post and share our ideas on how we think other people should do things. Maybe it matters to spend some months and some years in reflection, actively imagining something better for the future.

Leah: That's so beautifully put. “Your dream matters.” And I think when you're speaking from a place of experience or connection to an experience, it makes you a valid voice. You are already a valid voice, but when you've gone through a process, or you've seen something or felt something, you showing up is so different than someone who's never gone through that process. And so that's-

Morgan: So true.

Leah: So meaningful. All right, Morgan, I'm going to have you answer these three statements. The first is better humans are...

Morgan: Better humans are present to the moment.

Leah: Better work is...

Morgan: Work that energizes you.

Leah: And a better world has...

Morgan: People who are willing to listen to each other.

Leah: Thank you so much.

Morgan: Thank you so much. Oh my goodness.

Leah: So fun.

That was artist, poet, and author, Morgan Harper Nichols. If you liked our conversation or you also just want to feel seen, support her on Instagram. One big thing before we go. Your creativity belongs to you and no one else. Nobody else is an accurate judge of how good or bad your work is. We hold back so many of our ideas, our writing, our poetry, our art, music, and designs, for fear of what others will say. So if you're trapping creativity that deep down, you wish you had the courage to bring forward, try this perspective shift. Stop worrying about people judging you and start wondering how many people you're robbing of your amazing talent.?

If today's show helped you on your journey, leave us a rating before you go. And even more helpful, write a quick review. It helps other listeners like you find this show and grow with our community. And you can also find me on LinkedIn, writing about human potential. Feel free to send me a message and let me know how this is resonating with you.

In The Arena is a production of LinkedIn News. The show is produced by Michele O'Brien. Joe DiGiorgi mixed our show. Florencia Iriondo is head of original audio and video. Dave Pond is head of news production. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn. And I'm Leah Smart. Thanks so much for coming on the journey with me, and I'll see you next week.