How Can Surrender Help You as A Creative?
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As one whose joy is found in creativity, I thought this post might be helpful to any who find that they are ready to tap into the energy of surrender in their artistic creations. Surrender contains within it divine intelligence, limitless ideas, the capacity to heal our deep wounds and the power to sustain and strengthen our resolve.
The Artistic Impulse
When the first artistic impulse comes, as a sense of excitement around a new project or undertaking, then in that moment we are fully in flow. We are open channels for that which wishes to express through us and as, us. We are receptive and willing to take a risk. We’re willing to be wrong. We’re even willing to fail in that moment. Until…
Until we hit a setback, feel a block, receive some kind of criticism, or feel discouraged. This is when we become most vulnerable to our inner critic which is just a collection of stories from our past, running on auto-play, ad nauseam, that we then believe in.
We find - if we’re not surrendered to the truth of the situation - that we forget this inner critic is just an internal dialogue that has nothing to do with this moment, or with who we really are. We forget it has nothing to do with this new creation.
Even if our inner critic is replaying a dialogue where we‘ve supposedly failed before; then even that needs to be recognised as the lie that it is - for there never was a failure. There was only the interpretation of an event as something called failure, which we have subsequently believed in and thus given power to.
The Creative and the Energy of Surrender
The energy of surrender with its infallible compass for truth that is timeless and unchanging; calls to us in those moments. It asks us to see what is really going on.
What is this thing you are defining as a setback?
What does this phrase ‘a block’ mean?
What collections of scripts are you running around the word block?
What is this thing called outer discouragement?
It wonders aloud to our inner ears in still moments and then shares its musings:
‘I (creation) am the one who encouraged, inspired and directed you to do that which makes your heart sing, so who or what; could truly discourage you?’
If we’re not surrendered to its wisdom, awareness and presence, then we will not accept its loving embrace and encouragement.
We'll allow our inner critic to run the show and actively submerge ourselves in its victimhood. When we should instead, be pouring this critical inner dialogue into our creations and revealing the beauty beneath its negativity.
Everything can be in service to our creations.
Everything can be used to create that which we find beautiful or affirming. Whether that beauty or affirming is aesthetic or implied; it doesn't matter. Surrender helps us to utilise everything in service to our creations. Nothing is excluded. All is allowed.
Surrender sees the beauty in everything. It recognises the truth in everything. Therefore even negativity can inspire our creations - if we would just let it. Thus the flow of surrender can be found even in our creative blocks.
If you're in the flow of surrender and your creative juices are pouring freely then how joyful! Why not honour and celebrate that? If you’re feeling stuck, discouraged, or in the energy of self-criticism and feel it dampening your flow, then honour and celebrate that too.
Let your stuckness or discouragement fuel you. Pour it into your medium and let the creative mould of surrender do its work. Let your fear, your doubts, your criticisms and any external discouragement, be elevated into the beauty they have the potential to be.
The beauty buried inside your creative blocks waits breathlessly in the hope of your discovery. So why not allow your creative block to relax, surrender, and just be itself so the beauty it contains can be revealed to you through your creation?
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If you're feeling persistently creatively blocked and want to shift into more flow, or you have a creative project that is calling you to bring it into form, then why not schedule a Free Discovery Session?