Creativity Saved My Life

I fell in love with painting when I was in hospital.

I’d had a heart attack.

I was confused, scared, angry.

My life-trajectory, and the assumptions I’d lived by, were shattered.

Instead of being on a plane to run a residential performance workshop in Greece, I was surrounded by people wheezing and coughing – all at least 20 years older than me.

I was supposed to be out in the world, shining brightly. Instead I was cowering in a hospital bed in the corner of the cardiac unit.

My thoughts were very dark.

It’s not that I did not have ‘creativity’ in my life.

I was a performer and director.

I trained dancers and actors.

I lived creativity.

But my creative life had become drained of passion.

It had become functional – a job I did, not a passion that lit up my soul.

I traveled country to country, delivering ‘product’.

Then my world stopped in a series of brutally-painful shocks inside my chest.

Over the next week – waiting for a broken machine to be fixed, so the doctors could see what was going on inside of me – I drew a lot of pictures.

Were they any good?

They were brilliant!.

They saved my life.

They reminded my of everything I had, and distracted me from what I feared I’d lost.

Would anyone else think they were good?

Probably not.

If I look at them now, would I sell them?

Never.

They are worth nothing.

They are worth everything.

Five years on, living in a new country, I travel little, I don’t work in performance but I sell my paintings.

I make damn sure, every day, that though I create work for sale, I also create in my sketchbook. That work’s for me alone – or the small number of people on instagram who connect with me as maker, not seller, of art.

Creativity was my recovery from burnout, depression and ill-health.

If you’re needing to recover or grow, from a world where your soul feels weary, creative practice can do the same for you.

‘Creative SoulWork’ is a new programme I’ve created. Each session will be a dedicated time of creative making – painting, writing, moving – followed by a coaching conversation which will guide you to put creative joy and fulfillment at the heart of your life, instead of relegating it to the edges.

If you’re interested, you can find out more here:

www.johnbritton.co/creativesoulwork

Creativity – literally – saved my life.

Your creativity can do the same for you.