Hearth&Sea are passionate about helping people find their way home to themselves, their creativity, and to defining their own creative life. ‘Leading a creative life’ isn’t a concrete term and that can be frustrating but hopefully it will eventually feel freeing. We know everyone’s creative life will be different and unique to them. We might not be able to tell you exactly what new land the ship will take you to, but we do know how to help you build a boat. Each of us will get to discover what leading a creative life means for us.
Six and a half years ago I started working through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a book designed to help the reader connect with their creativity and lead a more creatively prolific life. In this she has a section about fear which really opened my eyes to a new way of thinking:
“Most of us have spent years using the wrong names for our behaviours. We have wanted to create and we have been unable to create and we have called that inability laziness. This is not nearly inaccurate. It is cruel. Accuracy and compassion serve us far better.”
Before reading this I had scolded myself for being lazy all the time. I had never stopped to listen to how mean I was being to myself about it. I was so used to feeling fear but was not conscious, connected, or patient enough with myself to identify it as fear.
I can often have so many ideas and goals that I don’t know where to begin. I can be afraid that if I pick only one, I’ll pick the wrong one. That I’ll invest time and energy and the outcome won’t be good enough or understood. So sometimes I try to do too much and then feel overwhelmed that I don’t have enough time to invest as much as I would like into each project to really make it into something special. I can see now that hopelessness, anxiety, resistance, overwhelm all lead back to some sort of fear, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, and wanting to avoid confronting those fears is when I reach for my phone and distract myself. It’s what causes me to abandon my passions to stay where it’s “safe” even if that safe place isn’t making me happy.
Learning to stop scolding myself for being afraid was the first time I learned how to have self-compassion.
When a child is afraid the loving reaction is to comfort them and reassure them. It seems that with ourselves we can try to ‘overcome’ our fears by insulting ourselves. They may be silly fears, they may be huge fears, but I’ve never managed to lessen one of mine by being cruel to myself. Just acknowledging to myself that my fears make sense, that they come from unpleasant past experiences, helps them to have less of a hold on me and my actions (or inability to take action). When I can really articulate what’s holding me back, I can reassure myself and start to move forward.
If you’re interested in expressing yourself more, defining and following your dreams, leading a more challenging and fulfilling life, or finding the courage to be yourself, self-compassion is the first step in building your boat.
Kindling:
What do you say to yourself when you’re disappointed or don’t meet your own expectations?
How would you comfort someone else if you heard them saying those things?