Set the stage and allow…

I make the time, I choose the space and I set the intention to write an inspirational blog-post.

This is all I need to do for words to start flow through me effortlessly.

And so…the creative process begins…

Writing, for me, is a liberating act of self-expression. An act of self care. An act of relaxation. The words and thoughts find a clear outlet out of my mind as my fingers are busy tapping on the keyboard. I stop with overthinking. I stop overanalyzing. It feels simple, relaxing, natural.

It’s not about being good at it. It’s about allowing myself free to express.

Until I finish, I don’t know what the message of the post will be each time. So, once again, let’s discover this together!

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The creative process is quite new to me. Most of my life, I’ve learned to follow directions and guidelines, others have put in place for me, before me. Very often, I felt I had to push hard in order to follow them while other times they felt easy and natural to do so. Occasionally, I would break them, yet I could (almost) never ignore them. Being successful in following those externally imposed rules would ensure safety, love and approval. So why would I choose not to?

Eventually I had become so skilled in following rules and guidelines that I’d find it almost impossible to function without them. Sad, yet true. Eventually, it was this developed ‘inability’ that constricted my spirit enough to make me want to break free out of it. I consider myself lucky, I could recognize this and ‘answer the call’.

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The creative process - when allowed by our overthinking and result oriented ego’s - removes the factor of resistance. In fact removes the conscious mind all together. It stops being ‘thinking your way through’ but rather relaxing and allowing what wants to come through to do so. You simply become the vessel for possibility and inspiration to materialize. In practice you rarely ever know what the end result may look like or what you even try to create in that moment (for me that happens 100% when I draw).

The creative process is what gives form to the formless. It is essentially the closest to our free and playful, child-like, self. We are all creatives. It is just that some of us prefer more structure and organization than others.

Most of our lives, however, we choose to create and experience a reality from the perspective of an (over)thinking, fearful and rigid “adult”. We call this way of living responsible and realistic and we accept it as normal.

By doing so we forget and deny how stiff, unpleasant and suffocating, for the child within, this way of living actually is.

We accept a young kid (up to the age of 5-6) to live their life fully led by their imagination, yet as soon as they enter our educational systems they are supposed to act in more “realistic” and “pragmatic” ways. A 3 year old can easily and openly go around shouting “I am superman” and the rest will admire them affirm to them that this is true. But if a 10 year old does the same, in the best case scenario there will be some type of effort even by their peers to ‘bring them back to reality”.

Isn’t that interesting?

How would our world be different if this natural and inherent fire of dreaming, role playing and imagination was never dimmed down along our upbringing by our caregivers and civilized societies?

For some lucky few, we will keep and maintain a significant part of our creative nature despite the societal conditioning. And for those individuals life has the potential to feel overall fulfilling and balanced. But for the majority of us this is sadly NOT the case. The educational systems and societal conditioning play major role in this. They transforms us into well trained, obedient and fearful creatures. In the worst cases, these systems will squeeze every last drop of creativity, hope and imagination from our realities. Yet, this is not happening without our consent. Perhaps we have never consciously accepted that as our reality, but we did choose (consistently and continuously) to adapt and fit into this system, regardless, for the sake of survival.

I am not claiming that everything in our society or the way ‘adults’ think is wrong or dysfunctional.

But I do claim it is certainly distorted to a great extend.

Because our child-selves’ view on the world is the closest to what our true nature and truth is. And so, the further away we walk from that state of being, the further from our truth and uniqueness (soul’s journey) we move.

And it is then that life feels difficult, unpleasant and unfair.

This is not because this is just how life is… It’s just because we’ve chosen (unconsciously) to give up on our inner compass for the sake of external validation and approval.

But our inner compass is (and was) never lost. It’s always within us, -under all those layers of illusionary and distorted ‘truths’-, patiently waiting for us to remember it, seek it and reclaim it.

Will you? Your choice…