creating clarity and maintaining creative momentum
it is our job to keep the train chugging along, the beauty of trying, and moving from fear to clarity through action.
‘The Creative Process’ from DEVOTED CONTEMPLATION is a monthly post centered around all things writing and creative process. The whole point is to love the process––this is where I reset each month to tend to that. These posts are filled with insights and ponderings from my life-long commitment to honing my craft and nurturing my relationship to creativity. Enjoy xo
1. I have learned more about my creative process in the past 5 weeks than I have over the past year simply because I have been in frequent action.
2. Waiting for clarity is what left me unemployed for 8 months last year and paralyzed in anxiety about making the wrong step forward. If this is you, know that I see you. Your bodily freeze is deeply familiar to my own body, you are not at all defective and you most certainly are not alone. You’re here with me, right now, right here. I am holding your cold hands within my own, breathing warm air onto them. Let my words below be the big, warm hug that begins to defrost some of your freeze.
3. Our thawing is found in the simple beauty of trying.
4. Trying may seem simple and I hope it doesn’t sound condescending because in its truth, it is deeply vulnerable and brave. When we try we are stepping into the unknown. We are attempting and that is a valiant effort. Any step is a step forward (though we probably don’t yet have the 20/20 hindsight to realize that, so just trust for now).
5. Try: (verb) an act of doing, using, or testing something new or different to see if it is suitable, effective, or pleasant.
6. When we take action, when we TRY, we create immense clarity because we are gaining valuable information about our preferences. We do not wait for clarity to come before we take action. We act before we are ready and then realize the acting is what made us ready.
7. Goldilocks taught us well. We can’t just fucking examine the porridge for 4 hours to see which one will taste the best. We gotta taste each one.
8. So now, come along with me as we move through 3 recent fears I have moved through recently by taking action and then coming across profound clarity:
9. Fear (resistance) → Action → Clarity (new truth)
Fear: I want to share more but my inspiration will dry up. I’ll have nothing left to write about if I use all of these great ideas.
Action: Regularly share my work and include all the gold nuggets that have come to me. Sift through my notes and use them all. Every last drop. My readers deserve the juice I have squeezed. If I run out, then I run out.
Clarity: Dare I say the moment I shared the ideas I received the next one?! Dare I say my inspiration is bubbling over?! Dare I say the glue to my Substack showed up out of nowhere and melded everything together so seamlessly?!
When you are frequently creating, your connection to source is stronger than ever. Ideas are not precious because they have become abundant by your consistent showing up. They are powerful and profound but they are not precious. We don’t have to hoard them anymore. We’re not greedy people anyways, let’s be generous. Let’s bring them into the 3D realm shortly after they visit us. They deserve that and we know there’s plenty more where that came from. We are never-ending wells of inspiration when we keep the channel open.
KEEP THE CHANNEL OPEN.
Fear: I can’t actually produce consistently at a high level. For Christ’s sake, I only wrote 6 fucking Substacks last YEAR, how could I possibly be able to produce 3 in 3 weeks! Even if I can produce them they’ll be shit because I’m a writer that needs a long time to write anything half decent.
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