Hey! Let’s continue that conversation we started a couple of weeks ago, shall we? The one about having a creative life while living a real life, full of commitments to things other than art? You are welcome participate in the great discussion in the comments there, and join in here too.
After reading and thinking about that initial discussion, I felt that there is something we must address first. Something that we need to get out of the way for the rest of the conversation.
Here it is: You have the right to feel what you feel.
There is no required threshold for feeling overwhelmed. There is no competition for the “Most Busy” that you need to finish in the top three in order to be allowed to feel that you don’t have enough time for creativity.
You don’t have to work a full time job, have kids at home, have health issues, have lots of commitments, etc. in order to have valid reasons for struggling with this topic.
And yet… In the discussion, I heard a lot of threads that were similar to mine. Comments where the subtext seemed to be, “I really shouldn’t feel this way…” because you are retired, or don’t have kids at home, or chose to say yes to everything on the list, or you were told by someone else you weren’t busy enough to have those feelings.
Guess what?
You have the right to feel what you feel.
I think we start here. I think we recognize we all have a unique situation we are working within. I think we have enough pressure, trying to live our best, trying to fit creativity into our lives, without the judgement and competition of others.
Before you can begin to look at the next steps of building a creative life, maybe before you can even admit that you feel overwhelmed and unhappy with how things are… You have to accept that you are allowed to.
You have the right to feel what you feel.
Let’s discuss.
