Nina Ross, PhD

Someone comes to the therapy studio today and says that she feels like she’s “mucking around,” not getting anything done. She wonders if she has to have a focus, or a plan of what she is going to work on before she goes into the studio. That may be one approach, I say, but may not be the only one. For example, there are people who simply enter the studio, pull out many unfinished things, and work on many things at once, going from one to the other.
As we speak and she becomes more specific about her rhythms in and out of the studio, where her interest gets drawn, and other related things, we conclude that sometimes mucking around is a vital part of the creative process.
A week later, this same client tells me that she has allowed herself to go into what she calls “wonderflow” in her studio. She says that it is bliss to follow her flow, perhaps attending, at different times, to “27 things at once.”
Really, what there is to do is follow the next thing, going with the mercurial flow as it goes.