Your Creative Expression: Tenderness and Fierce Protection Required

One glance at a full pregnant belly reminds us instantly of a deep truth of the human condition. We are creative beings. In our bodies, in our most sacred and holy core, resides the essence of pure creativity. In women, with the right germination, that essence of creativity is actually capable of producing another fully-formed life.

Creation motivates us in thousands of unseen ways every day. It’s our ability to create that assists us in choosing the ingredients of our day -- what we’ll wear, which route we’ll take to the store, the meals we’ll prepare -- each large and small action we take that shapes our lives and businesses. Yet, for most people the creative act expresses itself in largely unconscious ways.

When we dare to begin consciously creating -- writing a book, choreographing a dance, painting a canvas, drawing a picture, crafting a recipe, building a business, or designing our lives -- we face the pure vulnerability of our tender creative essence. We begin asking the creative expression tough killer questions before we’ve barely begun: “Is this any good?” “Will people like it?” “Why is this taking so long?” “Am I wasting my time?”

Creativity requires tenderness to flourish. It needs to be held as a pregnant woman drapes her arm over her belly, protectively. It needs to be guarded like the tender shoots of garden plants, keeping them out of harm’s way until they are strong enough to produce fruit.

Conscious creation and expressing creativity requires opening to the flow of creative essence energy, then allowing it to move through us into the world of form. This right brain activity needs space and time to take shape, before the left brain “editor, adjuster, corrector” tries to make it presentable to the world.

Yes, as we gain mastery in a certain creative expression we’ll have failed attempts. We must expect them, welcome them even, in order to hold our creative essence with the tenderness it requires for full development. Imagine telling a toddler each time it stood up to walk, “You’re not very good at that. You need to stop.” How long would it be before the child stopped trying?

A woman I knew showed her friend of many years her first attempts at writing. Her friend told her it wasn’t very good and she didn’t feel she was a writer. The woman never wrote another word. With that one comment from her friend, she slammed the door shut on her creative expression and never reopened it. Eventually, it robbed her of her life force. How different her life might have been with a few tender words of encouragement whispered in her ear, “Keep going.”

The creative spirit inside each of us longs to fully express. When it’s brave enough to take its first or next tender steps, here are three things to help it along.
First, keep it safe from well-meaning messages of others and from the critical internal voice.

Second, softly protect the creative flow as you go, knowing that with practice any skill gets stronger. Be patient. You’re learning to creatively walk.

Finally, give yourself permission to create, often and generously, by express your creative essence in every aspect of your life and business.