I’ve heard people say they’ve received creative inspiration from various kinds of places.  At the time, I couldn’t really speak to that because I believed I had limited personal experience with creativity.  I’ve always believed and said, for better or worse, “I’m not a creative person.”  I couldn’t conceive of what being creative meant so it wasn’t missing for me, except, though, when I discovered a creation that really spoke to me.  I would be in complete admiration and appreciation for the creator’s talent.

That’s when I wished I too were creative.  I’ve also been aware for many years that inspiration hasn’t exactly been a frequent visitor, nor had I felt fired up enough to take a stand and fight for a cause.  It just wasn’t there.  I’ve asked many times: Where is my passion!!

Typical me response, coming from couldn’t be bothered when asked:

• What do you want to do today?  I don’t know.
• What do you want for dinner?  I don’t care, I’ll have what you’re having.
• Any movies you want to see?  Don’t even know what’s playing.
• Where do you want to go on holiday?  Don’t know.

I described how I stuffed down feelings of hatred and rage at age 14 and of how I later faced my fear of being consumed by these feelings.  I now know I’m not dark and won’t cause harm to any-one.  Not facing this fear kept me depressed and small.  Fighting it became tiring.

I could see just how far-reaching my negative beliefs extended.  I embarked on a journey of radical forgiveness to help.  The sequence looked something like this:

1. fear of feeling rage and hatred: faced and felt
2. allowing depression to lift
3. self-hatred surfaced, felt and witnessed
4. began a radical forgiveness journey
5. noticeable changes taking place!

First Change: I Took a Stand for my expression.

I started to speak up for myself.  Which was great on the one hand but caused me some difficulty securing a part-time job on the other.  Many times, we are tested right after making a big declaration.  Our soul wants to know if we’re serious.  As an example, to demonstrate my point: 

I applied for a job (16 hours a week) working at a garden center restaurant, for which I had recent job experience.  The interview went well and they invited me back to work 3 hours unpaid as a trial.

I sailed through my “we’re not usually this busy” trial and sat down afterwards with the manager.  She explained the contract was for 16 hours, FLEXIBLE, meaning –you’ll never work 16 hours, more like over 20.  Is that going to be a problem?

Hmmm, I thought it was for 16 hours?

Prior to this interview, I would’ve said:

“Sure, no problem, whatever you need.”

In the interview, taking a stand for myself, I said:

“I only wanted to work 16 hours a week, that’s what I thought I was applying for and that’s what works for me.  Working a tough physical job more than 16 hours at minimum wage just isn’t worth it.”

I didn’t get the job, even though my work was “brilliant.”  I couldn’t give myself away anymore since taking my stand.  No more compromise, no more suffering.  I gained so much faith and trust in the Divine that I knew the exact right job would come!

I was saying affirmations:

I have a wonderful job in a wonderful way, I give wonderful
service for wonderful pay!

Florence Scovel shinn

Second Change: Allowing Creativity to surface and be expressed.

I went back to a childhood memory that was devastating to my creativity.  I had just learned how to write cursive and was enjoying writing the letters.  After school I went home and wrote a poem in cursive and decorated the paper.  I was very proud of my creation.  I showed it to my teacher the next day and received the response: “This is very nice, but we mustn’t ever skip ahead and try things.  You’ve made mistakes.”

That instant was a serious blow to my creativity.  I felt embarrassed and withdrew, unfortunately taking my teacher’s words to heart.  My creative self was tucked away.  Much later in my life, I processed this experience and was able to forgive my teacher for what I perceived she said, and also to forgive myself for perceiving I was damaged.

Since taking a stand and addressing the past, sparks of creativity surfaced!  It felt good and was very exciting!  I started to really enjoy tweaking my website and designing things.  I took images mainly from my posts and added sayings and quotes to them.  I was sharing creations on social media and having a lot of fun!  I think it was great progress that I cared enough to enhance my small business and increase my website traffic through creativity!

I stand for being a creative, successful person.

Now, understanding that my creativity was tied up in my fear of expression – all expression, including taboo feelings, and perceived hurts, I now feel the freedom to express myself.  It feels good being creative and expressive.  It’s a lot of fun and life-enhancing.  I’m finding my passion and that’s what really matters to me.  All it took was facing my dark side and finding a scared, small, being, afraid to say boo.  Sending so much love and compassion to my younger self who is now growing up safely within my heart.

These stuffed feelings and emotions can severely stunt our self-expression.  Explore with your inner child, some place where you feel your self-expression could use more energy and vitality.  Have a look around, jot down a few suggestions, and explore what could possibly be in the way.  Have an intention for healing any blocks or working any negative beliefs. It’s a road worth traveling!

The images in this post are the one’s I’ve designed by adding sayings to! Hope you enjoy!

I have lots of information on healing fragmented pieces in past blog posts. I have also written about it in story form in my book. Please let me know if there is more info needed on this subject as I feel more and more people will be welcoming their pieces home! it is better to have the awareness, it really helps!