The beauty is in the process for me — the creating, the planning, the dreaming…sending “my new big thing” love and then watching it grow. It’s how I find me and lose me all at the same time. I love the heart pounding, brain racing, wake me in the middle of the night, pure pumped up desire that comes with it!

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song” –Maya Angelou

My sister used to say “you’re either creating or you’re destroying”. At the time I didn’t I fully understood those words – I do now. I didn’t always know how to work with creative energy. Does that sound familiar? You wake up and you have that feeling, the creative itch, you want to create something big, something new and unique. There are a million thoughts running in your head and they all have something you can pull on and run with. Then it happens: doubt, overwhelm, exhaustion — what happened? For me it’s the judgement, the comparison and the coming up short that left me needing a nap by mid-morning. It’s what happens to me when I try to create from the outside. Wanting the world to view my new thing the same way I feel about it. This is where I spiral and begin to turn the energy from creative possibility to destructive implosion. “I am either creating or destroying”.

Desire and creating have always come quite naturally to me. I can get all pumped up about how I make breakfast. Really, excitement and passion were rarely my problem. It was directing the energy and staying out of the way which proved difficult.

Don’t get me wrong, there is clearly a space for creative tension and a deliberate push against our own walls. What I’m talking about here is not conscious creating. I’m talking about creative sabotage!

My innate desire to create had been squashed by my trying to strong-arm it to be something yet unnamed. In this critical state, my new big thing couldn’t breathe and it would fade away.

Knowing that it is the energy that needs directing, and not the creativity, allows me to continue creating. Learning to temper the passion and desire with love and understanding changed everything. I now know that my version of beauty will not be the same as yours, and it is not supposed to be. I now trust that it will reach those it is meant to reach…no more and no less. My role is to stay in the process, breathe and trust. This is where I can expand or implode. I can create or destroy — MY choice.

Creating is how I survive, how I keep my hands clean from the muck of the rest of life, it’s what makes my heart sing and my brain tick.

What does it for you? Where do you get stuck?

Everyone is different, finding their seed in places I don’t see. What is it that makes you sit day dreaming, itching to get to it? What gets you so hyped up that you sometimes need a nap before you ever get going?

Being open to the passion is a never ending path, how I do it changes all the time. The desire to do it has to come daily. I have to remember that creating helps me to unfold who I am and allows me to connect with the world. One of my greatest fears was breathing in the meantime – sitting, waiting, straining, certain that it would never happen again. Will I ever feel inspired to jump, to draw, to build, to write, to love, to paint, to move the flowers in just the right direction, find just the right outfit, run just the right run, and love just for the sake of loving again?

…and then it happens. My soul finds its wings were sitting patiently waiting and now it is time to direct the energy to trust. I step out of the way and see what is waiting to be born. My heart races, my hands get sweaty, my brain is moving fast but most importantly, I am alive, alive in the creating and the giving of myself to this moment. It all matters to me – all of it – always has.

Love forward and always,

Jill

xoxo