Are you creatively blocked? Forcing perfectionism isn’t the answer. PLAY is!
Feel the Fear…& PLAY anyway!
In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (“JC”). This week is Week #9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion.
In Chapter 9, JC asks us to stop mislabeling ourselves. Instead of calling ourselves lazy, we need to be compassionate with ourselves and recognize that we aren’t lazy. We’re “creatively blocked.”
All because of fear.
This can be rooted in our upbringing, she says. Especially when our decision to pursue creative work requires us to go against our parents’ wishes. As she puts it, we put immense pressure on ourselves “right off the bat [to] be great artists in order to justify this rebellion,” which makes it even harder to succeed. Because the “need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist” at all.
To overcome this, we need to coax our child-like Inner Artist out. Discipline works, but not for long, she says. Instead, we should entice our artist to come out by setting small goals and…
Encouraging your Inner Child to PLAY.
Play is precisely what will help us to build sustainable momentum and produce great work.
As usual, JC also does a fantastic job of normalizing what can go wrong, by emphasizing that most artists who are creatively blocked will suffer from Creative U-Turns, when creatives sabotage themselves “on the eve of or in the wake of a first creative victory.” Again, laziness is not the cause. Fear is what causes us to retreat. Because the prospect of success can induce fear, too.
But being overly strict or heavy-handed with ourselves is not the answer. Sympathy is. We must realize it’s normal to be like a “skittish horse,” coming “up to a creative jump,” then needing to “circle the field a few times before trying the fence again.”
What a revelation to see that failures are normal!
Successful artists are successful simply because they’ve learned the trick: how to survive failure.
It’s quite comforting to remember that “even our most illustrious artists have taken creative U-turns in their time.”
Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your own life:
⭐️ Do you recognize any Creative U-Turns in your own creative journey?
⭐️ Do you know of any other Creatives who have had U-Turns and recovered successfully? If not in real life, what about Creatives you admire on Substack or elsewhere?
⭐️ How can we use those Creatives as examples, to help us lessen our fear so we can jump the fence again?
⭐️ Examine whatever you’re currently delaying. Might that be fear, disguised as procrastination?
⭐️ How can you release the fear or anger that’s keeping your inner Artistic Child blocked?
⭐️ ARE YOU READY TO PLAY?!
🎃 Halloween’s the perfect opportunity to do so.
Especially because you can do it with the support of your friends & family.
Why not? No matter what age you are, it’s important to strike an air of conviviality with your friends and family — and, perhaps, most of all, children.
Including the Inner Child in each of us.
One of my absolute favorite fall activities is Trick-or-Treating to celebrate Halloween with my kids. My kiddos wear their favorite costumes that change year-after-year.
And, guess what? I get into it, too!
First, I get dressed up.
Using black eyeliner, I bring out the artist in me. I paint on a lil cat nose and whiskers, and I don a pair of fluffy cat ears.
We walk the entire neighborhood, and we’re blessed to have a neighborhood where everyone gets into the Halloween spirit. Even if our neighbors don’t have kids, they set up firepits, enjoy drinks, and hand out candy. They decorate their homes — inside and out — with all sorts of spooky and not-so-spooky sights. Families from all over drive to our neighborhood to enjoy the night out.
When we get home from exploring and trick-or-treating, with my kids’ bags full of candies, my kids are just as excited to hand candies out to the other children who visit our home.
The entire process reminds me of what it was like, to be a kid, so excited to hand out all of the candies I’d prepared for my friends.
I don’t see myself stopping, not even when my kids are older. Like my neighbors, I’ll be getting into the Halloween spirit forever! It’ll keep me young, because there’ll never come a day when I consider myself “too old.”
Second, I participate in the pumpkin carving.
My kids each get their own pumpkins to carve. I help them to carve their chosen designs, and then I turn my attention to a pumpkin devoted just for me.
Yes, you read that right! I buy my very own pumpkin, and I dive into a detailed pumpkin carving.
Over the years, I’ve done so many. They’ve gotten more intricate over time. Morphing from the black cat with its arched back, to Elsa & Olaf one year, to Harry Potter and a Dragon next.
Like this:
I’ve gotten so into it and become attached to some of the designs that I’ve even started buying Foam Pumpkins so my carvings don’t have to rot away come November.
Like that:
Now, some people might laugh at me and think, “She’s a grown adult! She must be so childish” to be into Halloween like this.
But, these simple, traditional activities have brought me so much joy!
And quite a challenge, as well!
Because pumpkin carving’s NOT so easy.
You have to create a design that’s essentially backward, because the areas that you sketch in black need to be the pumpkin you LEAVE ALONE. And the paper that you’ve left white needs to be the pumpkin you CARVE AWAY. You also have to be careful that you leave the pumpkin that’s left ATTACHED to the rest of the pumpkin! (Believe me, if you make a mistake, it can be quite a challenge to correct an overzealous knife!)
It’s a little exercise in mental gymnastics that I’ve gotten better at year after year. And, yet, so much time passes between Halloweens that it does take me a few minutes to grow accustomed to it each time I start the carving process.
I’ve also created some tricks to be able to tell what the final carving will look like when it’s lit up. And I find it quite funny when you compare and contrast the ugly look of a fully-carved pumpkin under the glare of kitchen lights, versus how it looks at night, when it’s lit from the inside, by candlelight. Sometimes, your brain can hardly believe it transforms from something so hideous and unrecognizable into something that resembles what you’ve chosen it to be once it’s lit up. Yet again, it’s the mental exercise that’s so interesting and fun to me.
Most of all, it’s the emotional feeling it gives to me that makes it all worthwhile.
Whether it’s trick-or-treating, carving a pumpkin, or decorating the house for Halloween or fall, I absolutely love the sense of freedom it gives me to PLAY!
Play must be an extremely important part of everyone’s life — whether we’re children or adults.
It allows our brains to maintain flexibility. It reminds us to stop pursuing Perfectionism. It opens us to trying and being willing to fail at new things. It prevents us from taking ourselves or life too seriously. It feels absolutely amazing in our bodies. And, especially for me, it heals my Inner Child, who was raised to pursue the “A” so much that she believed we have to be serious all of the time to be successful.
No! How wrong I was!
It’s when we play that our brains love to learn.
It’s when we play that our spirit’s able to soar.
It’s when we play that we have the freedom to be who we truly wish to be.
So, as Halloween rears its spooky head today, please do yourself a favor…
Ghost your tendency to button down!
Dress up. Get silly. Eat some yummy candy. Now, go out and have yourself a blast!
The Sally (& Jack) Skellington in me honors & respects the Sally or Jack Skellington in each of you,
Marisa
⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️
We can find solutions, together!
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