by Jenna | Oct 19, 2011 | Writing Articles
I watched a beautiful yet horrifying video recently about how conventional tomatoes are picked green then forced to ripen in a gas chamber before going to market. Hence their perfectly even red coloration. I know, right?
Following an odd little breadcrumb thought trail, I started thinking about how those of us called to the spotlight are no strangers to the land of the false tomatoes.
A “tomato fear” is used to describe the fear of having rotten tomatoes thrown at you while you are performing your art.
(Your art = that Thing you do, e.g. write, speak, act, dance, sing, paint, etc., for your audience.)
The thing is, your tomato fears don’t fool me.
Are they fooling you?
Here’s what I know.
Fear is fear, nothing else.
Our silly and oh-so-sweet-and-well-meaning, reptilian-brain-driven inner critic voices would like us to believe, “No, really, I’m serious this time, you could really die from this, you better pay attention,” but we know better.
Fear is just that thing that stands in the way of our big dreams.
But we — and yes, I do mean we — simply cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by that voice of fear.
Steven Pressfield said, “Figure out what scares you the most and do that first.”
See, I know you are terrified to pursue your dream.
I know you think you are just bored and haven’t found what you are passionate about yet.
But I also I know you picture yourself being laughed off the stage or out of the audition.
Or that people will secretly say behind your back about your writing, “She’s not really that good.”
I know this, because your tomato fears don’t fool me.
I know you are petrified.
I am too.
Let’s do it anyway.
by Jenna | Oct 12, 2011 | Writing Articles
I've heard from many creatives that it takes too long to get in and out of the "creative zone" so they can't find the time to do their creative work, because they have to have big long chunks of time to get into the groove, actually do the work, and get back out of it.
I used to believe this too.
When I first set up my Sacred Writing Time on Fridays, I was trying to do some work on my coaching business and then do some writing, but I found it extremely difficult to do.
I figured it was because it was "too hard to shift gears" from one type of work to another.
What's true about this is that they ARE different kinds of work.
So I decided that Fridays would be ONLY for writing. And that helped for a while.
Creating Everyday Turns It Around
But then I started my writing community, and I made a commitment to writing every weekday.
I reorganized my schedule to include writing time at the beginning of each day, and while I've sometimes struggled to do it first, I've pretty much managed to write every single day I intended to.
I've also found that jumping right back into my writing is nowhere near as hard as it used to be.
Turns out that creating more frequently, even for lesser amounts of time, makes it easier to keep your work fresh in your mind (something I've talked about in my free tips series for writers), and therefore easier to dive back into.
Resistance Is Oh-So-Obvious
Plus I'm finding that when I really do put my writing first, my resistance is much more obvious.
And therefore much easier to bust.
Case in point: Yesterday morning when I came home to write after dropping off my son at school, I found my fear coming up big time.
See, I'm at a key transition point in my writing where I'm moving into new territory, and my fearful self thinks I won't be able to come up with anything new.
Luckily, due to the daily writing community question I answer, "What negative self-statements did you notice?" I'm more clear about what I'm telling myself than I used to be.
So I was able to say to myself, "Okay, this is fear coming up. I'm going to do the best I can to face it and do this anyway. What will help me?"
And I had the insight almost instantaneously to use mind-mapping to help me get unstuck.
So I did.
And it did! I came up with a great new spin on one of my concepts that I'm very happy with.
To Sum Up
- We have lots of excuses for not doing our creative work.
- Resistance is more obvious and solvable when you face it every day.
- Writing (or creating, depending on your "thing") daily helps keep your work fresh in your mind.
- Time to get out of "all or nothing" thinking.
- Fear is only fear. Nothing more, nothing less. It takes courage to face it, but it's worth it.
by Jenna | Sep 29, 2011 | Writing Articles
One of the things that can stop us from moving ahead with our creative work is our creative wounds.
These are the painful experiences we've been through associated with our creative work that lead us to make decisions that it's not safe to be creative or take creative risks, and that ultimately we'll be hurt if we express ourselves creatively.
These wounds show up in our lives looking like creative blocks, and we can even forget about them until we do a little deeper digging.
So How Does One Heal a Creative Wound?
Here's a simplified version of the process I'm using with my clients, which is based on Isabel Parlett's powerful business transformation work.
- First, identify the story of the creative wound. What happened, factually? What happened, emotionally?
- Then identify the conclusion that you've drawn as a result of that experience. What have you decided to believe about being creative as a result of the experience?
- How can you reframe that limiting belief into a new way of looking your creativity that is both believable and supportive?
- Now do some release work on the story -- write a forgiveness letter and shred or flush it, do a shamanic fire ritual (a "green fire"), use ho'oponopono, or create another ritual to let go of the old story.
Simple as this work may sound, it can have quite an impact.
by Jenna | Sep 14, 2011 | Writing Articles
Lately I've been talking a lot with my very right-brained, creative, multi-passionate, multi-talented clients and cohorts about the "D"-word.
Yeah, that's right.
Discipline.
It's enough to make an artist cower in terror behind legions of excuses and doubts or pipe up with even a little disdain.
(I'm an artist, I like to go with the flow / wait for the right mood to strike / follow the energy / be divinely inspired.)
(Not that there's really anything wrong with that. As an intuitive, an empath, and an Enneagram Four, I can relate to ALL of that, and I don't even think it's "wrong" per se.)
But the thing is, when it comes to getting our creative work out into the world, we often go to sleep on ourselves instead of doing the work to make it happen.
We go to sleep on those deeper-yet-oh-so-slippery truths that tell us what we need to do our best work.
We forget.
We get busy with other things.
We wait for something that never comes.
Is Discipline Really the Enemy?
It never ceases to astonish me how little actual discipline is practiced when it comes to doing the hard work of creating our stuff.
And by hard, I don't mean Hard. I mean HARD.
The kind of hard that keeps you massively resisting showing up to your writing or your canvas or your practice development, even when you don't even realize it (we'll save the other D-word conversation for another day).
You think you're too busy, you need to make more money first, or your kids need too much of your attention.
Ha!
The truth is, you need to make a commitment to get your Butt In Your Seat and show up to the creative Big Dream you know you are here to fulfill.
There is simply No Other Way it is going to happen.
One thing we do know is that the artists who take regular action to see their work through to completion are the ones who quietly make it happen.
Here's the funny thing about all of this.
You don't need to force yourself to make big, giant, rigid commitments of time and energy to make your work happen.
It's much simpler than that.
Make discipline your friend and ally.
Just commit to taking regular, consistent, and small steps and you'll move forward in a sustainable way to seeing your dream become a reality.
Inspiration From Seth Godin:
“While you and I have been busy running down dead ends and wasting our effort, scientists have been busy trying to figure out what actually works. And they know how:
- Small steps work.
- Consistent effort works.
- Group support works.
That’s it. Three things. Set a goal, and in small, consistent steps, work to reach it. Get support from your peers when you start flagging. Repeat.
You will change.”
by Jenna | Jul 27, 2011 | Writing Articles
Is it necessary to be “creatively inspired” before pursuing creative projects, or is waiting for creative inspiration a pitfall that trips us up?
Another way of saying this is: Do you have to be in the ‘right mood’ or ‘right energy’ in order to be creative?
Steven Pressfield would call this “resistance,” and say instead that what we need to do is show up and “do the work” no matter what pain, doubt, terror, or mood we might encounter in the process.
My experience is that often when I think I “can’t” create, and I do it anyway, the act of engaging with my art puts me in a whole new energy state, usually one that is more uplifted and inspired.
Other times, when I’m really stuck in my thinking or in a bad mood (yes, me too), I can jolt myself out of it by wondering about creative solutions, which puts me in a more resourceful creative state.
It seems like if I ask the right question, like, “I wonder how I could make my character more convincing as a tough, surly broad?” :) or “I wonder how I could make contact with sci-fi filmmakers?” all kinds of new answers start flowing to me.
by Jenna | Jun 24, 2011 | Writing Articles
Changing the Way You See Yourself
If you’ve had your hands analyzed or done any visioning work with me, you’ll recognize that a big part of making your purpose real is being ready, willing, and able to adjust to and adopt a new, higher level way of seeing yourself.
It can take time to change your view of who you are.
And it isn’t always easy to do.
Impostor Syndrome, Anyone?
You might feel like you’re pretending to be someone you’re not, or like you can almost grab hold of that new identity but then it sort of slips away and you’re left grasping at nothing.
Regular Life Getting in the Way
I’ve seen it happen with my visioning clients — they get clear on their big vision, but then lose focus then when they go back to their “regular lives” or can’t quite remember how or why they decided what they decided — unless they have help to stay in touch with their new way of being in the world.
Un-Squashing Our Creative Selves
I’m also seeing this happen with creative types.
Yes, ideally being creative is easy and just flows naturally from us.
But that’s not what I see on a daily basis.
More often than not I see creative spirits squashed and held back by our own fears and doubts.
And even more fundamentally, by who we see ourselves to be.
How You See Yourself Makes All the Difference
For instance, if you think of yourself as a IT worker who is a writer on the side, it is a whole different ballgame than when you know you are a writer who happens to be doing tech work to pay the bills.
You’ll make different decisions, take different actions, and have different priorities.
And Therein Lies the Rub
And those decisions, actions, and priorities are the make-or-break difference between getting your creative work out there into the world versus walking around with a movie inside your head for the rest of your life, your manuscript gathering dust on your shelf, or your tribe never hearing the message you are hear to share with them.
It’s all about knowing who you are and doing the work to make it happen.
