Sometimes there is a logjam in our creative life. Some well-known ways to rekindle our creativity is to take a break from work. Get outside. Meditate. Work in the garden. Go to an exhibit.

I was recently looking for some new dream analysis books and ran across this cd by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Highly respected as a Jungian analyst and writer, Estes has used myths and cultural stories to divine why we remain stuck or blocked when looking at that great blank sheet of paper.

Creative impulses can be broken by interactions with negative teachers, family or loved ones. We can’t live up to our own expectations to be perfect, win awards, be ground-breaking. We set ourselves up by thinking we have to have the “right tools” or have the perfect-creative-beach-cabin before we can begin.

Pinkola Estes tells us stories that break through our customary thinking and gives us methods such as active imagination to begin or restart our creative selves. We are artists. We were born artists. Through these stories we can find our way back to being artists when we have been lost.

This book is worth listening to a number of times. Thought provoking and inspiring, it might get you back to being the artist that you are or that you forgot you were. Listen to it and share your thoughts.