Do you ever resist your creative work because you just don’t feel like doing it? Your adult mind wants to do something creative, but an inner struggle against actually creating now feels like a confrontation with defiance. “You can’t make me,” the inner brat part of you says. It sounds like a singsong “na, na, na, na, na, na” is going to follow.
Yet defiance can be very good for creativity! Defiance breaks rules and invites imagination. As discussed last month in connection with tapping into Albert (Einstein) energy, inventions of all kinds defied logic. Things that are now common seemed silly at first. Think about the successes of once-crazy ideas like home computers or microwave ovens! Or what about little, clear, adhesive patches to put on the back of your earlobes so that your earrings don’t hang down in a pierced hole that stretches practically to the bottom of your lobe? (That’a my favorite new personal, albeit minor, product; it means I don’t need to give away all earrings that weigh more than a feather!)
I remember my mom telling me all too often when I was a kid, “Stop sassing!” But now you and I can harness that defiant sassiness to give our inner critics some important backtalk! When you hear a voice inside telling you that you’re wasting time writing because you’ll never be good enough to get picked up by a publisher—or anything else discouraging your creativity—how about telling that voice, “So what! I’ll do it anyway!” I learned that from author and trainer Jill Badonsky, www.themuseisin.com, during my coaching to be a Kaizen-Muse™ Creativity Coach and Modern Day Muse Group Facilitator,* and I have used it countless times, to very good effect!
Besides, a defiant, willful child usually also has a playful, goofy, and wildly free side. This is Jill’s Modern Day Muse energy named “Bea Silly.” In her honor, sometimes, your serious adult self just needs to give your inner child a short play-break here and there throughout your day, in order to get more energy and fresh ideas. I like to do that with 53 minutes of on-task work, interspersed with 17 minutes of fun breaks, on and off throughout the day. (But often I forget . . . so this week I’m resuming the idea with lots of Bea Silly ideas for the breaks!) And, of course, there are also those times you just indulge the playful artist child within and let her create with her wildly free impulses all day long!
Just last week, I was traveling along a California freeway and we passed a circus. An area adjacent to the chain link fence separating the circus site from the highway had been marked with orange cones to designate a “Keep Out” area. There were three kids there, probably under six, and one picked up a cone and stuck it on his head like a dunce cap. A girl in a flouncy sundress followed suit, and then the youngest child joined in, with the cone practically covering his eyes. They started to run around, laughing gleefully as the cone-hats wobbled and fell and were picked up and put back on. I immediately thought of how a boundary for them had just become a new way to play, exactly the opposite of a limit! Let’s harness some of that!
We can choose which part of the child to to listen to: the wounded or angry child who refuses to let us be creative or the one that defies limits, silences the inner critic, and creates with playfulness and imagination.
The sensitive or wounded inner child often gives us clues to our deepest creative resistance. If our early drawings, creativity, imaginative play, or experimentation met with criticism, indifference, or disapproval, our immature selves may have associated creativity with negative responses from others and consequently in ourselves. In other words, our wounds of childhood may still be hampering our creativity . . . current wounds may still get triggered by old childhood patterns we haven’t yet released. We can get those wounds healed and cleanse our hearts of the old wounds—with great benefits spiritually, creatively, and often mentally and physically.
Although the choice of which aspect of our inner child affects our creativity most is up to us, we sometimes need help in breaking free and implementing the best choices, attitudes, and tools. That’s one of the benefits of creativity coaching, spiritual direction, dream work, healing prayer, and finding freedom in breaking certain spiritual strongholds — the blocks that are really intertwined and need rooting out, especially chronic fears, self-sabotage, and feelings of not being good enough. My ministry leads Christian women through an effective process to release the emotional baggage that hinders our creativity and joy. Sometimes one’s story needs to be told, examined for its blessings as well as its ugliness, and re-fashioned into a more empowering and transformative story. Perhaps the awareness of the old that holds us back and the new that opens up countless possibilities needs to be marked with a ritual of closure and new beginning as we make the transition to a freer, more joyful, and more creative life.
The retreat I just attended, a Reunion Retreat for the Spiritual Direction School I graduated from, has revved me up through the teachings and writings of Rev. Jim Clarke. His teachings and life have been inspiring me since I made a pilgrimage that he led to the Holy Land, Egypt, Rome, and Assisi decades ago. I recommend his book, Creating Rituals: A New Way of Healing for Everyday Life, and I’m eagerly exploring what he teaches about the healing power in re-framing our myths and stories and in creating effective rituals. It’s exciting to come upon new insights and tools for healing and for enhancing creativity, and I’m eager to share them with you, along with all the other tools the Holy Spirit has been helping me use!
*Modern Day Muse Groups explore ten creative principles as introduced in Jill Badonsky’s book, The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): Ten Guides to Creative Inspiration (2010).