Creative Blocks

One of the obvious creative blocks I face as an artist is the inability to often get out of my own way! I am certain that I speak for many, many others when I make that statement! I also believe a person, myself included, need to think, and look deeply inside themselves and truly evaluate their parental and personal voices inside their own thoughts. I honest believe we can be our own worst critics and we can also set ourselves up for failure before we even give ourselves a chance to truly begin.

I discovered along the way, you'll have to trust me on this, is the journey is a process where you take one step and knock yourself back two more, LOL! All those thoughts, ideas, and even your best intentions while be there when your inner critic rear its head. When it does, and yes! it will happen! I've learned to reach deep down inside that ugly monster to discover where do these thoughts come from? In doing so, I've learned a lot about myself and have learn that the monster isn't as ugly and as scary as your inner critic would like you to believe!

I believe by examing those depths, you can learn a lot yourself. You can look at and analyze where those thoughts originated, where and how they came to be, look at the facts and the myths that they create in your life, not just your artistic life, but the "you that you-truly-desire- to-become you!" If you take each one, singularly, and meet them head on, in your own way, in your own time, and in your own method, you'll quickly make a lot of the bad, the bold, and the ugly disappear! Look at your parental and personal voices. Take a good look at what they say. Learn where they came from and evaluate them. Are they based on facts? fictions? or are they some wildchild idea that allowed them to manifest within yourself that you never realized even existed? Look at your personality blocks and your personality traits. What is it within you that makes you the person you are? What are your strengths? Your weaknesses? Your likes and dislikes? Listing and evaluating them will certainly help you on your journey and maybe you will be like me and discover a few things about yourself that you never realized before, like I never really gave myself for the courage and bravery I have and in my ability to overcome. Look at the ways in which you self-censorship yourself and the critisism you bestowed upon yourself without even realizing that you are doing it. Look at your world criticism. Are there people in your life who you are allowing to keep you down, keep you from achieving the person you really desire to be? Who are these people? Why do you think they are doing this to you? or better yet, why are you allowing them to do it? Look at your own personal "weariness". What are you doing to you that is promoting that self-defeating behavior? Are you "listening" and simply "accepting" the myths, the lies, the falcities simply because they are there without providing yourself the opportunity to bring them out into the light and evaluating them honestly? Are you looking realistically at the conflicts that inhibit you in your life and in your artwork? And if you are, what strides are you making to overcome them? Are you certain you're tired? Are you allowing your body's fatique to keep you from overcoming or is your life being comsumed with too many "what if's" and the fear of the unknown that you are allowing it to paralyze you? What are your environmental blocks? Is it a messy studio? {Can you see me raising my hand? LOL!} Are you unorganized like I am? Are your supplies strewn from here to there that you couldn't find them even if you desired them? What are the social blocks that eat up your chunks of time-management? Do you need to say, "Yes!" to yourself more often and "No!" to the things that assist to sidetrack you from the you that you desire to be and become? Or perhaps, it is the "I'm not talented enough" or the "I don't have what it takes to succeed" and other abusive self-talk that you get lost in? What myths and idealizaitons to need to smear away? What fears and beliefs do you need to meet head on and conquer to get to where you want to be? Are you anxious? Are you depressed? Are you allowing those incubation periods to interfere in your life?

If so, you need to work on removing those creative blocks from your life once and for all! For they will keep raising their ugly old heads time and time again until you do and further inhibit your hopes, your dreams, and your creative life. Unfortunately, no one else can slay the monsters or release from the prisons that we creative. It is up to each of us as individuals to do that and until we face those seeds of doubt, those self defeating behaviors, analyzing and evaluating, and assessing ways around them, we'll never ever break through them! Are you the only thing that is holding "he real you?" back? If so, it's time to get out of your own way!!!!!