Yesterday I was chatting with my coaching buddy and awesome fellow coach Marte Gehlken and she mentioned how often she hears people say this: “I’m not creative.”

I hear this a lot too. Or, “I used to be creative, back when I did a lot of artwork.” Or, “I would be creative if I had more time.”

We need to expand what we typically define as creative. Marte said during our conversation, oh so wisely, “Creating your own reality is creative.” Yeah, it is! But we tend not to see creativity this way. We think it is something outside of us, something we “should” be doing, but (frequently) aren’t.

I remember the summer of 2008, which was a very low, “dark night of the soul” place for me. Now I realize it was what we coaches who went through Martha Beck Life Coach Training call a “liminal period”, or Square One. You’ve shifted out of a place that felt really good for quite a while, because it no longer fits. But you don’t know where you’re going yet, nothing new and solid has emerged in you to guide you on your way, and it kind of sucks.

So one day in 2008 I was feeling crappy and uncreative and I was on one of my very early morning walks and pretty soon, lo and behold, I got into The Zone. I became unattached to my thoughts and was just kind of watching them and my body moved me along and I felt my breath coming in and out. And I looked down and saw this little house sparrow hop into a puddle, in which he dipped the ends of his wings and the underside of his tiny body and then shook himself off.

I felt actively engaged in my observation of this sparrow. I could feel what it was like to be the sparrow, the warmth of the water that had been sitting out in the sun on my feathers, and what it must feel like to know you’re going to take off and — fly! — in a moment.

And a message bubbled up in my chest and translated itself this way: This is creativity! Actively observing this sparrow, I had the exact same sensation I do when I write, when I paint, when I do all the things we typically label “creative.”

Creativity is a way of being in the world. It’s a way of interacting with our surroundings. We’re soaking it up. We’re actively engaged. We’re feeling it.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t write, paint, act, dance, or do whatever it is we typically label “creative.” Absolutely you should, and you must, if it calls to you. But don’t say, “I’m not creative” just because you are not doing these things. Notice where you ARE creative — which, my friend,  can be everywhere — and then do whatever you’re inspired to do.

On that note, on my walk this morning I came upon some birdseed the neighbors one street over regularly scatter on a square of sidewalk. Except today, mixed in with the birdseed, were some large cheese curls. You know, the big fat puffy Cheetos. That, I thought, is creativity.