Your Nervous System is Your Creative Director

People like to pretend creativity starts in the mind. It doesn’t.

Your best ideas, your boldest moves, your willingness to make a mess and see what happens, they all live or die based on what your nervous system says is possible.

When your body thinks it’s under threat (when you’re in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) you’re not going to take big creative risks. You’re going to cling to what’s safe. You’ll pick the familiar brushstrokes, the tidy sentences, the same marketing copy you’ve been using for months because it “works.” You might call it resistance or writer’s block, but most of the time it’s just your body saying, Not now. I don’t have the bandwidth to get weird.

When you’re regulated, everything changes. Safety—not comfort, but real, in-your-bones safety—opens the door for experimentation. You’ll try the color you’ve never used. You’ll ask the client the question you’ve been sitting on for weeks. You’ll ditch the outline halfway through because you feel something better emerging.

This isn’t “woo.” It’s biology. Play and exploration live in the parts of your brain that go offline when your system thinks you’re in danger. No amount of “pushing through” can out-muscle a dysregulated body.

This is important: regulating your nervous system isn’t about becoming Zen 24/7. It’s about knowing what you need in order to feel safe enough to take creative risks. That’s different for everyone. For some people, it’s moving their body before they sit down to write. For others, it’s a clear boundary with clients. For me, it’s making sure I don’t stack high-stakes projects back-to-back like I’m trying to prove something. Bc that is legit something I tend to do that gets me spinningl

If you want your work to be alive, you have to keep yourself alive in the process. And that starts with listening to the real creative director…the one living in your chest cavity, not your head.

If you’re reading this on the free side, here’s where we switch from theory to practice.
Paid subscribers get the full, step-by-step exercise I use with clients to map their nervous system signals and unlock braver, more alive creative work.

It’s simple, it works and it might change how you start every project from here on out. Upgrade now and unlock the exercise.