Emotional Creativity: When creativity extends beyond Art!

A new concept emerges: 

Emotional creativity sounds like a unique term to read about. All our lives, one has associated the ideology of creativity with art or science. When you witness the Monalisa painting by DaVinci, you comment on the creative potential Da Vinci has meaningfully presented. 

But what if I tell you that creativity, always known as a higher brain process, can extend beyond art and to the emotional responses one is able to feel, which are strangely always termed as the residuals of evolution. Many argue that creativity does not need a reserved brain region; rather, it can be unlocked through memory, perception, and emotional experiences.  

“When a person has an inborn genius for certain emotions, his life differs strangely from that of ordinary people.” – William James 

Before jumping into decoding this quote briefly, we need to understand what being emotionally creative is. 

Emotional creativity is referred to as having the ability and personality experience, expressing and creating original and appropriate combinations of emotional responses. This means having a complex emotional life and trying to spend your life understanding abstract emotions. It has been actively studied since the early 1900s. 

As presented by Mr James, you can certainly be an Emotionally Creative Genius because emotional creativity is not limited to only a few talented individuals, just like art cannot be conveyed through only a handful of creative mediums. For instance, you can feel nostalgia about the past, excitement for the present and fear of the future at the same time, and just like this, you start being different from most people.  

Cultural Relevance: 

Moreover, across ages, emotions are expressed differently in various cultures. How to experience a certain emotion, how to express it, no matter how small, is governed by social rules and regulations. Another illustration of an Indian household to be highlighted is that keeping emotions to oneself signals maturity, and expressing them is considered a sign of feeble-mindedness. Emotional Creativity undertakes this and suggests questioning and bending the chains of social guidelines to evoke and create exceptional emotional experiences. If you stray away from cultural guidelines, you know you have birthed a unique emotional approach to situations that fit your personal experience.  

Difference between Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Creativity 

Emotional creativity is closely linked to emotional intelligence but is not the same concept. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is defined as understanding, expressing, evaluating, and regulating your emotions as well as others. Ex: You see your sibling crying and feel empathic. EI expects us to give the one correct answer and evaluate with logic the emotions or regulation strategies of someone. On the other hand, Emotional Creativity (EC) is the ability to experience different spectrums of emotions and to have a complex emotional outlook on life rather than reasoning with just one emotion felt. Ex: You look at your sibling crying and feel empathic anger. Empathy for them but anger for someone who hurts them.

The contents of an appropriate emotionally creative mindset 

The question of how emotions take creative forms first arises here. Generally, the principles of creativity are applied to emotions. There are three ways to fully understand it. For example, i) if you discover a ready-made ceramic bowl just lying on the ground, ii) you discover clay and sculpt it beautifully, iii) you do not stick with art that already exists, but rather build a new form like abstract art. All of these are different examples but still can be termed as creativity no matter what the origin.  

It is the same with emotions: 

i) you express the emotions that already exist just in different combinations (showing fear + excitement before trying something new)

ii) you sculpt your preexisting emotions to meet the needs of other people (if you are angry and sad at your mother because of your argument, but you change the emotional response to calmness to not hurt her)

iii) you may develop an entirely new emotional response system to situations, moving away from set beliefs of culture. (If someone grows up believing emotions should be hidden but starts acknowledging and expressing them in front of friends to feel better.) 

Why is emotional creativity important in relationships? 

Dominantly, the benefits of emotional creativity pause personal growth, having a flourishing self-concept and motivation. But emotional creativity may also support problem-solving abilities. Having a complex understanding of emotions also aids in the expression of increased positive emotions like hope, gratitude, and empathy, which are very essential in solving problems in a relationship. It also helps in understanding deeply what the other person is enduring and reaching out to them. Instead of being emotionally silent or emotionally violent during problem-solving, you can approach the problem by reinterpreting the emotional responses you are feeling and expressing them in a way appropriate to both parties.  

Mainly, during conflict resolution, it can involve reflecting on and relating to your negative emotions and building something new from them. Treating these negative emotional experiences will allow you to reflect on the complex set of emotions; you can react to the conflict calmly rather than impulsively and be considerate of your partner or your family. 

Ex: If a person is feeling disappointed, hurt and infuriated because their partner said something rude to them, they may initially start viewing their partner as their biggest critic, but when they actively approach and ask questions to themselves about the way they are feeling an overload of emotions, they can transform this information into feeling curious about the situation, being empathic of something their partner must be going through which made them snap and hopeful that they both will work through the conflict. Here, they are being creative with the pre-existing emotions and sculpting them into more neutral ones.   

How do you cultivate emotional creativity?  

Judging creativity of emotions:  

Three steps are to be looked at before judging whether you are emotionally creative. You need all the following components in your emotional experience at all times.   

• Novelty: You need to ask yourself whether your emotions are new compared to your past self or to people around you. It does not mean you should invent a new emotion but rather ask whether it is different from the ones you felt before. Ex: If you felt abundantly sad before due to setbacks, but now you have begun to feel hopeful to start again regardless of them. 

• Effectiveness: Novelty without effectiveness is random. You must use the new emotions you feel to succeed in situations. Ex: Someone who responds to feedback with frustration now starts to understand it curiously and with motivation to get better. The important thing is that the effectiveness of new emotions is subjective and may look different to everyone in short-term and long-term scenarios. 

• Authenticity: Ask yourself – Is this really me? Is this what I believe? You must create emotions according to your personal choice and not perform them according to others’ expectations. Ex: Someone can be angry about their breakup but still go out and celebrate it happily because they escaped from a toxic relationship, and this might obviously seem bizarre to some people.

If you clutch all points and practice them, you have unlocked your emotional creative potential. Emotional creativity can be inculcated through training. Apart from the points below, you can cultivate it through;  

• Preparedness: You need to prepare yourself to express the emotions you create. You can keep records of emotions or journals about how complex or many emotions you feel can be expressed better. You can read about different emotional experiences and relate them to your daily life.  

• Reflection: Purposefully understand a certain emotional response and sit with it for a few moments, make sense of whether the reaction was valid and whether it can be better sculpted given the situation. The best way is to observe other people, preferably those more experienced than you, and how they uniquely exhibit their pre-existing emotions. You can also practice naming your emotions or imagine different conclusions of a situation. Ex: “I responded with jealousy, but maybe I could have responded with hurt.” 

• Self-Monitoring and Awareness: Ask questions like “Was this new emotional response useful?” “Did the situation or the problem solve when I used these specific emotional cues?” Also, shift your overall state of awareness or routine of responding to situations and be motivated to try out new ways of perceiving overtly difficult circumstances. Ex: If your culture suggests ‘Men cannot cry!’; you can start letting go of your fear, vulnerability, anger, etc. and sharing them with one close friend.

Emotional creativity is not a fixed trait. It may take years to develop with a lot of practice and trial, and error. Having a thorough understanding of the multidimensional concept of emotional creativity and how it is beneficial for interpersonal needs and relationships is the starting point.