Create with Your Heart and Your Hands will Follow

Something shifts when people stop talking and start touching paper.

At first, there’s hesitation. Someone asks if there’s a “right way.” Someone else laughs and says they’re not creative. A few people hang back, watching my hands closely, as if I might reveal a secret they’ve been missing.

But there is no secret.

There’s paint on a plate. There’s paper. There’s permission to make a mess and keep going.

Within minutes, the room changes.

Conversations loosen. Shoulders drop. People start narrating what they’re doing—not because they need instruction, but because something internal is waking up.

Old rules surface: I’m not good at this. I don’t want to waste paper. This looks wrong.

We don’t argue with those thoughts. We just add another layer.

That’s the quiet magic of working with our hands. It moves faster than language. It bypasses the part of us that wants to perform or get it right.

When the materials are simple and nothing is precious, the pressure dissolves.

What’s left is curiosity.

I often remind people: it’s just paper. Nothing made here has to be kept.

Paradoxically, that’s when people start caring more—not about the outcome, but about the experience of making.

They try bolder colors. They cover up what they don’t like. They surprise themselves.

And then something else happens.

The pieces don’t stay with their makers. They’re turned into small tokens and handed to strangers.

The act of giving completes the process. Creation moves outward. What began as hesitation becomes connection.

This is what I keep noticing: creativity doesn’t need confidence to begin. It needs safety. It needs touch. It needs a container where mistakes aren’t corrected, just layered over.

Most of us weren’t taught that.

But our hands remember.

Photos courtesy: Jessica Agarwal

This was a hands-on, permission-giving creative experience hosted by Arts Los Altos at our local Community Center. I used simple materials and playful layering to help attendees bypass self-judgment and rediscover curiosity through making—and then letting go.