Creativity is a loaded topic. So many people are convinced they’re not creative. I should know because I was one of those people. I believed my parents and teachers who told me that I had no creative talent, that I couldn’t draw, paint, write creatively or dance. It wasn’t until I was 50 that I finally decided I didn’t care what they thought. I was going to try.

I had seen blocks of color in my mind’s eye for years. I finally squashed the negative voices and started painting. In doing so, I healed the wound that had stifled my creativity since childhood. One by one, I overrode my fears and followed my interests. I moved into the unknown and forced myself to face the blank canvas. I began with silk painting and water colors, avoiding formal lessons. I chose water media because it was unpredictable. I allow the paints to flow, creating designs that are not of my doing. Something gets painted through me, emerging as realistic or abstract animals, people and angels. Each piece is a miracle that helps me trust in the unseen. I sold my hand-painted silks to fashion designer, Mary McFadden and got compliments from fashion industry leaders Nichole Miller and Kim Dawson.

I didn’t stop there. I was tired of writing for professional journals. I wanted more freedom and to face the blank page without fear. I joined a small writing group to help me in this process. We did a lot of impromptu writing where I allowed myself to quickly write whatever came into my mind instead of laboring over every word and thought, editing as I went along and judging everything. The joy of writing began to emerge as I found my voice. I wrote fantasy pieces that predicted my future without my knowing it and helped me release fears and stuck emotions without trying. I have read many of those pieces on my radio show and even have one to share with you later in this blog. Writing helped me face the blank page in life with more ease.

My journey continued. I began dancing Argentine Tango and learned how to trust myself to step into emptiness. Argentine Tango is a spiritual dance and very different from what you see on television. To dance it socially, you have to be ready at any second to go in any direction and to follow any lead. There is no way to know what your partner is going to do. In fact, if I try to predict a move, I always make a mistake. I learned to be present in every second and let go of thinking. The dance is a walking meditation that brings surprises and delight. Moving step by step into the unknown became fun.

Over time my art work was shown internationally and in museums around the country, some of my creative writing and poetry was published and I even performed Argentine Tango. I decided if I could do all this, everyone has creative talent that has been blocked. I set an intention to find a way to help people uncover their hidden creative gifts. The process that I use came to me in the space between sleeping and waking. It was a gift from the spiritual realm that has helped people on multiple levels. They discovered that they were in fact creative or that they had a far greater well of creativity within them than they had ever imagined. In addition, they removed the fears and hidden blockages to solving their most challenging personal and/ business problems. Their inner wisdom was helping them heal all parts of their lives, including their relationships, health and finances, along with their creativity.

My Ultimate Creative Problem Solving Process allows people to align and integrate information in both sides of their brain so that all of their energy is going in the same direction to reach their goal. If their unconscious is saying, “I don’t want you to do that” and their conscious mind is saying the opposite, there is a constant tug of war and the person feels stuck. Since the right side of the brain is the creative side, the information it has is hidden and can only be gotten to through meditation, dreaming, hypnosis or a creative process. The creative process is the simplest and easiest to use. I use crayons because they remind us of a time when life was less complicated and our creativity came easily. You just pick up a crayon and do something with it. I don’t call it drawing because it can be stick figures or scribbling. It doesn’t matter. The colors and process of creating allow you to get into the hidden information in the right brain and bring it to the surface, thereby removing the blockages to your creativity and to solving your problems. Because it is non-verbal, color works at deep levels within the psyche, creating profound change. Writing brings the information into the conscious mind and discussion integrates it enabling both sides of the brain to work together to help you unleash and expand your unique creative talents and move forward in life more self-empowered and connected to your intuition, your inner wisdom, your soul.

Here’s a piece that I wrote in 1999 about color:

What if we lived in a world with no colors? What if everything were black and white and shades of grey—like the old-time movies, before the advent of color film? What if every time you looked into someone’s eyes, all you saw was black or variations thereof?

Even colorblind people see some color—just not all the colors that the rest of us see or the depth of color. And even when we can’t see the color, we still feel the vibrations, the energy that each color exudes.

I was in East Berlin before the wall came down. It was a devastating experience. Everything was brown—buildings, streets, clothing. It was as if no one, no thing, wanted to call any attention to itself. So all was a uniform, non-descript color—if you want to call it color. It was eerie, as if I had been downloaded into a sci-fi movie. The feeling of drudgery and dirtiness was omnipresent-no amount of scrubbing would ever remove the soot because it was built into the system. Everything was covered up with a protective layer of nothingness.

This was the first time I became aware of the power of color. Funny how it took the absence of color to bring home to me the meaning of color. I realized then how mood and attitude and lifestyle can be affected by color. And I realized it at a feeling level—not an intellectual one. I felt the sense of anonymity, of hopelessness, of helplessness, of fear, of desperation.

As I look around the room now, I delight in the multitude and variety of colors. I soak in the warmth of the reds, oranges and yellows and the peacefulness of the blues, greens, and violets. I feel the sheer delight of the shimmering rainbows of colors sparkling overhead as the sun hits the crystal pieces in my home. I know colors are always speaking to me and working on me in their infinite variations from vibrant to muted, rich to pale, light to dark. Sometimes they shout and sometimes they fade into the background. What is needed now? The answer varies from moment to moment and there’s always just the right color to help out.

I’m among 30 renowned fine artists, shamans, spiritual and creativity thought leaders, writers and musicians who participated in a Free Online Harness Your Creative Power Summit. You will learn to cultivate your creative genius and deepen your courage, confidence and blissful passion.

Click HERE to watch Paula's interview!