Beyond Your Belief
We all operate from a set of beliefs and not all of them are visible to us. We may set an intention to begin a creative practice. We think that is something we want to do and yet we never seem to get around to it. Something always crops up or interferes with this intention and we judge ourselves for not meeting this goal. We berate ourselves for not being committed enough or for not being good at sticking to what we say we will do. But we have got this all the wrong way around.
Our intention is not driving our actions, our subconscious beliefs are. They will be a direct match to the actions being taken. We may not be aware we have them, or where they came from, but somewhere along the way, we heard some words or decided that we weren’t creative or very good at making art and we took it on and wore it like a skin. We may have been very young when we heard such words and so we did not question them, we decided that they were the truth and we swallowed them up whole and forgot we ever did. Except we didn’t truly forget, we just made it a part of our identity that has been driving our actions ever since.
The key here is understanding that you are not doing anything wrong, you are just living your life according to your beliefs and some of those beliefs are not serving you or aligning to the intentions you hold for yourself right now.
When you find yourself in this position, it is important to take some time and sit in silence and become a witness to your own thinking. If you are about to sit down to create or you have set your intention to begin, observe what thoughts come up for you. It can be illuminating to see how you are talking to yourself, what you are telling yourself. You may discover some overly judgemental, abrasive commentary running through your brain each time you sit down to make art. You may never have noticed it, but it could very well be the reason you find yourself resisting the act of creating.
It’s not that you are easily distracted or you never do what you say you will, you are just operating within a system where the deeply held beliefs we have as humans, run the show. That your creative output is correlated to some beliefs that you hold that are matching up perfectly with the actions you may or may not be taking.
And just as you would support a young child venturing into new territory or cheerleading a friend as they embark on something new, you use kind, compassionate language, you let them know that you are there for them and you advocate for them and their desires. You are backing them all the way. This is the tone and voice you want to be cultivating for yourself. Your creativity lies within you and it is only some errant misguided beliefs that are preventing you from exploring that creativity and allowing yourself to express it. The closer you come to seeing what beliefs are really behind any procrastination the more aware you become of what is stopping you from creating and you get to choose what beliefs you prefer and would be conducive to your new creative adventure.