Do you have a lot of ideas for your creativity that you don't take action on?
We can have a lot of ideas and never truly give any one of them a chance.
I've done this before where I could have a really good idea and I covered it but I don't do anything with it,
Treating it like it's fragile and special,
So special in fact that I won't touch it,
I won't work on it or develop it,
I just keep it in my mind.
And the great thing about ideas is that they can feel real,
They're so abundantly full of potential.
It's one of my favourite things about them,
They're bursting with possibility and when I think of them they're bright,
Hopeful and they have no edges to them.
They can be anything I want them to be because they live inside my imagination.
It's like a form of limerence with your own creativity.
You obsess over your ideas but never take the action to bring them into form.
And when I ask myself why I do this with certain ideas I realise it's because I think in some way I'm not good enough to bring them about,
That maybe I'm lacking something somewhere.
It's never really tangible,
It's always a bit ephemeral but I know there's something in my way,
Something that's a matter with me,
There's a reason why it isn't possible to execute on the idea.
And I believe it so much that I don't even attempt to develop it into form.
And there is a lie in that sensation that there's something missing,
Especially when you can't put your finger on it.
When I dissected it a bit more for myself I realised that anything that can't be named or communicated at all is suspect.
Hold it lightly,
Examine the sensations around where you feel there might be a block and you'll see that it's made up of cloudy thoughts that don't signify anything other than a fear of trying something you haven't done before.
When we dig a little deeper under those cloudy thoughts what we find is either you can distill it into a coherent form and it gives you access to do something about it.
So for my example I can be creating art or courses or writing endlessly and there's no issue at all until it comes to sharing it and marketing it.
Then all of a sudden I have a case of the cloudy thoughts where I don't know why I can't do it or won't do it,
I just know there's something stopping me.
So that is what I explored,
Only to learn that most of it was based on acquiring some form of knowledge and skill in those arenas such as marketing and selling and I wanted to find ways that didn't feel unethical to me.
That gave me actual steps I could take,
Skills I could develop because when you look closer at those sensations of feeling that you can't do something you are either going to be met with some realistic action you can take to dissolve those fears or you'll find that there was nothing there like the monster under the bed.
It was all made up.
You are free to take action,
You're just scared of the unknown,
Nothing more and with being scared of something you haven't done before my advice is always the same.
Make the tiniest of moves,
Slow it all down and break it into tiny components and have a go.
Take it step by step,
Do it in private so no one can see if that is a fear,
Do it at a pace that suits your own nervous system and don't try and replicate the person you saw on Instagram saying that they had the most perfect plan for taking action if they look like they live in a different nervous system to yours which they most likely do.
We have to take action in ways that are bespoke to us.
Ultimately all of this creativity is a call to get to know ourselves more deeply,
More intimately,
Not replicate how someone else does it and our ideas are impotent without us.
We are the activating agents.
We are the only ones that can bring and shape our ideas into form and it's our responsibility to do so.
Our ideas weren't meant to be kept,
Hoarded,
Hidden from sight.
As much as we can enjoy having them,
The whole point of them being there is so that they can be born into the world.
If you're experiencing this stage of the creative process where you are hoarding all your ideas and they're gathering dust,
Then I'd like to leave you with a prompt for your reflection.
You can journal on this prompt,
You can just say it out loud to yourself,
Sketch with it,
Whatever suits you.
I will leave some time for you to reflect on the prompts,
But if you'd like ample time then just press pause on the recording.
Reflection prompt.
Take one of your ideas and sense into what is stopping you from creating it.
What are those thoughts actually saying?
Are they ultimately empty or are they pointing you in a tangible direction where you can take some steps to develop certain skills so you can embark on creating that idea?
If there are tangible actions to take,
You can break them down into the smallest of parts and begin moving in their direction.
And if they're empty and just apparitions of fear,
You're free to move on.
You're free to move towards bringing your ideas into form.
Either way,
Your ideas are meant to be acted upon,
Not kept hidden in the recesses of your mind.
Let me know what you discovered.
Until the next time,
Happy creating.
