(424) 235-0409
tracy@yourtrueselftherapy.com
Trapped Creativity
You know you’re good.
You just can’t get it out.
The creative spark is there, but somehow, you just can’t start, finish, or get right the work you know you can do.
Blank canvas…
Blank page…
Stage fright…
Fear of criticism…
Fear that you’re not actually any good…
Is it that you can’t make the call?
Can’t send the email?
Can’t show your work without visceral terror?
No time? No energy?
Are you frozen in place?
All that past or present criticism…
Of your work…
Of your process…
Of your personality…
Of your intentions…
ALL that crap you’ve endured since you first felt your creative muse…
It’s not real.
It’s other people’s ideas of who and what you should be and do.
The master portrait painter John Singer Sargent once said, “A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.” Because he’d been told that – and more than once. Sargent. The leading portraitist of the 19th century.
We internalize criticism, especially when we are young. It just sits there. Its presence might fade into the background, but its effect is like a swallowed knife.
The creative process builds realities from dreams.
Not everyone understands how delicate the process can be, which is why you’ll often hear unthinking, insensitive things.
Sometimes people are unaware of the damage they are doing. Sometimes they know perfectly well.
And the damage might not be against your creativity itself. Whether it violated your sense of self, insulted your intelligence, or scorned your ability, it was about YOU, your worthiness, and your right to exist.
And that’s when the creative gears grind to a halt.
It’s not your fault.
Creatives are more sensitive than the average human. Sometimes those average humans can’t tell that they’re hurting us.
Sometimes they can and do it anyway.
A rough childhood can do it. In fact, that’s the best way to destroy creativity. But there are many other ways.
So, it’s not your fault that your creativity is trapped within.
If you think you suck despite encouragement and praise from mentors or admirers… that’s not your idea.
If you judge and criticize your work that isn’t even complete… that’s not your idea.
If you are so frozen, you can’t even begin because (fill in the blank)… that’s not your idea.
If you know you’re good but never bother to express it… that’s not your idea.
Together, we can fix that.
All that stuff that isn’t you is getting in your way.
We’ll talk about your life and how it’s affected you… until we find the energy surge that indicates energy blocked by emotional scar tissue.
Only energy dissolves energy. So, we’ll focus on the blockage and all the emotions and resistances holding it in place.
That’s when it will dissipate, relinquishing control over your life.
Here’s a good example of how it works…
One of my clients, Jane, gave me permission to share her story.
On the outside, Jane looked like a total success.
She had landed a corporate job in a successful firm. She had a decent car, a pleasant place to live, and a fancy building to work in. Yup… all boxes checked!
Except she was miserable. She hated her job, crushed by a deep awareness that she was not made for this kind of life. She worked in desperation… every single day.
So… why not just get another job?
Jane grew up in poverty and had a difficult childhood. Her family never provided her with emotional support. Her mother was an angry narcissist, and her father was… not there. She always felt adrift and lost.
She moved out when she was 18. She didn’t go to college, but she had a high IQ and a talent for writing, which she parlayed into a career.
Her childhood mentality of never having enough persisted into adulthood. And even though she hated it, she couldn’t fathom giving up what she had worked so hard to earn. Plus, she didn’t have anything to fall back on. She had no education past her failing grades in high school.
Jane was frozen in place.
When she considered making a change, every avenue was a mean street. Every possibility had a “no” at the end of it.
Even going to a community college to learn to do something else was too much – and anyway, she was always at work.
At an impasse, she heard the daily echoes in her head: “So, you’re a ‘talented writer.’ Well, start being a writer. Sell something!”
More freeze!
When Jane came to me, she cried, “I don’t know what to do. People make suggestions… like it’s easy. Maybe it’s easy for them. For me, it feels like I’m about to jump off a cliff. ”
When she said, “I don’t know what to do!” the energy surge was off the charts. So, we worked with that cry from her heart.
We focused on how she felt when she said that. I asked her when she first felt that way, and she said (with great surprise), “Oh! It’s when I was 11, and my mother threw me out of the house.”
Why? Jane had accidentally spilled something on the carpet, and her mother screamed at her to leave and not come back. Jane believed her.
She walked for hours, crying, not knowing what to do with herself, how to live, where to sleep, or how to be safe. She sobbed as the memory came back.
We focused energy on the memory…
We allowed it to exist – to affect deeply.
And it started to lift. As it lightened and dissipated, I described the process as I saw it happening in her energy field.
At the end of the session, she was free of that memory. She can recall it at will, but it no longer has claws in her heart.
Yup. That awful incident happened.
How you feel about an incident is what controls you. It’s what blocks your energy. It’s what keeps you from being who you truly are.
After this session, Jane’s homework was to send energy to the memory if it arose spontaneously… and not go looking for it or similar emotions for a few days.
In the next session, she said that she had changed. She didn’t feel like the world was a harsh and frightening place. She no longer felt lost and unprotected.
She declared, “I feel like I have an emotional center of gravity. I’ve never felt that before.”
Release those emotional scars…
We need you to release your creative energy!
Creative people are our best hope for enriching and uplifting our civilization.
You must continue making your art. When you do, you increase the net good in the world.
You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to us.
I look forward to working with you. Call me today for your free 20-minute consultation: (424) 235-0409.