Frustrated Because You Aren’t Getting What You Want Creatively?

Frustrated Because You Aren’t Getting What You Want Creatively?

What if . . . what we THINK we want isn’t really what we think?

Mick Jagger’s right. We DON’T always get what we want.

Far too often, we’ve found ourselves wanting certain things and yet it doesn’t always work out in the way we’d hoped.

It’s not a complete myth. We CAN create what we want. We CAN have more. We CAN with intention, clarity, and hard work achieve our goals.

But thank God The Secret days are over. Subscribing to positive thought CAN’T create everything we want—life just doesn’t always work that way.

It’s important to self-validate and positively reinforce. To affirm our capabilities to truly go after what we want and trust that we’re not only meant to have it, we deserve it.

Because we do!

Yet, there’s this funny thing called “preference”.  Sometimes, no matter how much we’d prefer something to turn out in a certain way, it doesn’t.

When painting, I see an image in my mind that I want to recreate on paper. But when I try to paint it, it doesn’t come out exactly as I wanted. (And sometimes, nowhere near it . . . even though I wish I could be a Mind-Xerox machine!)

Feeling let down, I might put my brush down too, blocking any spontaneous expression.

BUT WHEN I ASK:

What if you let go of preference to be truly free?
 
Then, I can allow the creative current to guide me—whatever wants to can come forth in the way that IT wants for ME.

In a way, it knows what’s BEST for me.

And not only that, but I keep on painting.

Perhaps an image I see in my mind ends up contorted. (One day, I was trying to paint “God” and it came out looking like a pig … SERIOUSLY?)

But in times like these, when I let go of preference, it’s these images that have the most originality. And the fun of inventing takes me to whole new dimensions.

Those moments make my favorite paintings. (But then again, it’s not about preference … Ha!)
 
By staying open to what wants to come through me, I remind myself that, many times, the creative energy is revealing something I couldn’t preconceive.

Without preference, I get to be surprised, curious about what is unknown to me—and places I couldn’t have known existed.

Letting go gives me mind-blowing, rock-my-socks-off Eureka! moments while painting. I learn not only to trust my LIFE more but also to have less desire to CONTROL it.
 
I keep creating, because it’s what keeps me connected to something much BIGGER than me.  

So this week, in whichever creative project you’re working on, or just in life in general, remind yourself that you don’t ALWAYS have a choice around how things will be.

And that maybe, just maybe … something greater than you might know more about what you REALLY want.  

May you have a creatively flowing week!