How Yoga Can Awaken Your Creativity

Contributor: Ava Pendl
Photographer: Saffron & Sage

For most of my life, I labeled myself as “creatively-challenged.” I never knew what it felt like to completely zone out and zone in on a piece of art, although I desperately wanted to feel it. I avoided painting nights with friends because I was embarrassed by my lack of creative imagination and defaulted to spending my nights watching TV because I needed an outlet for decompression from my desk job. I buried myself into a comfortable nest of sedentary routine that destroyed the child-like imagination within.

Does this sound familiar? 

We spend so much of our lives striving for financial freedom and constantly aiming for the “top.” We work hours of overtime staring at a screen and frying under fluorescent lights while waiting for that next promotion. Glued to our desks and attached to an idealistic destination of happiness, we forget about that imagination because we’re too busy with the real world. 

There is hope, though. I found that hope through yoga. While for most, it may just be associated as a way to stay in shape, there are so many benefits of practicing yoga that can help to tap into your creativity. 

Yoga Grants Access to the Quiet Part of the Mind

By practicing yoga, you are practicing awareness and stillness of the mind. If a thought comes up, you notice it and then come back to focusing on the breath and it’s energetic journey through the physical body. As we become familiar with the breath and accepting of the internal silence, we are making room for new ideas to flood in. We breathe to create space, both physically and mentally. It is within this space that we are given the opportunity to explore deep within the mind where our intuition lies. 

Yoga Allows the Senses Come Alive

Once you have created space in the mind and body, your focus on senses and sensations is amplified. There is a crisp texture to your breath and you can feel your muscles hug to the bone. This awareness of sensation opens you wide to creative expression and understanding. Words, colors, feelings, sounds begin to unearth themselves and swirl around your mind. The intense focus allows for vibrancy in artistic expression by simply helping you to balance and tune into parts of your mind and body that are inaccessible when you’re surrounded by the typical hustle of the world off your mat. 

Yoga Boosts Energy and Directs It

A surplus of energy is only useful when it’s targeted at a task, otherwise, we find ourselves running around frantic looking for an outlet to exasperate the boost. After practicing yoga, you are given that stimulus still, but with mindful intent. Your quiet mind is reintroduced to the buzz of the outside world and reawakened with new knowledge found within. 

Yoga also unblocks energy flow throughout the body which increases circulation through the brain and heart. By unclogging the energy system in the body, you awaken the artistic expression within and allow clarity and intended purpose to embody your being, flow freely, and open you up for creation.

Whether you’re a struggling artist or, similar to me, a slave to your desk, practicing yoga is a tool for the mind and body to tap into unchartered oceans and explore the depth of your imagination. With even a single practice each week, you can unlock a fiery spirit within that can awaken your creativity.