Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite

Do you believe you could be an artist? Are you creative? Or, do you believe that you “don’t have a creative bone in your body”? Or, perhaps you believe “you are not good enough”? This is a very serious syndrome, perhaps one that should be described as a “form of Post-Traumatic Art Disorder.” Believe it or not, we all have it within ourselves to be creative. How we find and use that creativity is unique to each and every one of us. And we need this creativity to help de-stress the rest of our lives: “We have placed personal fulfillment and the nourishment of our sacred inner selves on the back burner, and as a result, we find ourselves facing burnout and internal emptiness.” We need to find that inner self once again, the freedom to be creative in our own unique way.

Mary Potter Kenyon’s inspirational book, Called to Be Creative: A Guide to Reigniting Your Creativity, is part memoir, part self-help, and motivational. The author speaks to us like a friend, telling her stories, her mother’s stories, all the things in her life that inspired her and made her find her own creativity. She parallels her story and her inspirational notes with the one person who truly inspired her: her mother, a strong woman who worked hard to care for a growing family of ten, impoverished in the monetary sense but rich in faith and creative energy. As the author leads the reader through a step-by-step approach to encourage us to find our inner creativity, she shares with us countless stories, personal vignettes, cherished memories. She includes multiple quotes from great minds and lesser-known great minds, quotes that encourage creativity and seeking our inner creative power force. One of the more profound quotes she shares is from Oscar Wilde: “To live is the rarest thing in the world, Most people exist, that is all.” We need our creative inner self to blossom to help us do more than merely exist.

The author provides interactive worksheets to allow the reader to follow some of her proven steps. She provides numerous resources for further reading and aptly sums up her presentation with yet another compelling quote from her mother’s journals: “Whether my life and death was for good or for nothing, it is you who must say this. I leave you my death. Give it meaning. Remember me.” An engaging read and a powerful tool to spark our creativity.