Trying to be normal nipped all my creative projects in the bud.

I was highly against that idea of being “normal”, but my subconscious mind didn’t care about my opinions.

“Normal is a just a setting on your washing machine”.
This is quote, I took from my friend Eddie, is one of my favourite for years… yet I recently realised that I was still working hard towards some kind of normality. What a non-sense!
Welcome to the mysterious world of the subconscious mind, ruling (and ruining!?) your life ;)

I feel this article is going to embody my mental revolution, my paradigm shift. Please, fasten your seatbelt, as I’m not able to predict what will happen here, and I’m promised myself to not overthink this too much, so I could just write this story here, now, and share it.

A bit more than two years ago, I wrote a rather good article I didn’t even published, because I was trying to make it perfect. What a waste.

The article is called There is no point in « seeking » anything — at all ! and it’s funny because that article was precisely reacting to a previous one I wrote two years before. As if, every two years I randomly connect to my medium account to publish something, then stumble upon some stuff I previously wrote and I totally forgot about. It’s actually a very interesting experience. Especially because I didn’t really care about my medium page (meaning I didn’t have any well thought-through editorial line for it) and I was mostly using it to publish some random rants of mine, in English. Don’t ask me why. Well I know why; it’s because English has become for me the language for growth and evolution. My thinking gets somehow stuck in French.

Still following? Well done!
We’re now going deeper in my crazy mind and it’s time to react to that article about “seeking”.

The two-years-older version of me is quite surprised by the quality of what I was already understanding back then, and quite impressed by my ability to share it with words in a explicit way. Even if the article is at times hard to read because I didn’t take the time to properly edit it, I believe the quality is higher than what I’d be ever able to write these days. Not because I lost my mind abilities, but because I lost interest in expressing myself in a rational way. Articulating my opinions can even become painful, because I feel like words are lacking substance and will never properly portray what I really feel about things. Or maybe it’s also because I know that what I will express will anyway be misinterpreted by people’s personal bias. As if it’s somehow useless to try express something with words as if you’ll only get an illusion of understanding. I know, it’s quite an extreme point of view ;)

Anyhow, I now dislike the endless debates, philosophical blah-blah and “putting the worlds to rights” conversations that were once my favourite hobbies. I’d rather spend time daydreaming, enjoying the moment alone or in good company, exploring my sensorial abilities.
I don’t have opinions anymore, or to be precise, I don’t identify, nor do I get attached to them anymore. Therefore I’m not really interested in voicing them, only when its for my own record, and I’m happy to share for the people interested in it for explorational purposes.
No more intention to teach anything, nor convince or prove anything, just some random thoughts and experience sharing. Nothing more than that.
No particular agenda or “higher” intentions… Ahh, those higher intentions. Those where the ones who killed all my creative projects, nipped them in the bud, as I realised reading that old unfinished article of mine.
My aspirations became obsessions, and through the perfectionism of my work, I was trying to perfect my being. I was trying hard to be “normal”, definitely not consciously, but still, I was working hard to match some standard of what creative work should be like.
According to my own personal standards, maybe, but those were drawn from the standards of my surroundings, the paradigms I grew up into. And here kicks in the subconscious mind again *nyuk nyuk* (evil laugh).

How do we free ourselves from that sh*t!!?
If there was an easy solution, we would all be the super-heros we dream of being, all the subconscious blocks and self-sabotage mechanisms would simply vanish and we would be able to do anything, and life would be perfect, right?
Some people believe that this is a non sense, because the very reason for humanity to exist is to experience all that crazy sh*t and learn to grow ourselves out of it.
If there’s no more sh*t, there’s no more humanity as we know it. Period

I don’t really know what to think about, nor do I really want to spend much time “thinking” about it, but this theory would be the closest to my own understanding, and that will do for this writing. As I mentioned above, I lost interest in expressing my feelings (my “sensings”) in a rational way.
It’s a long time ago I dropped the measuring stick Brene Brown is referring to in her talk about Vulnerability, which I highly recommand :)
I’ve discovered that there are things that can’t be put into boxes, can’t be measured, nor defined with that beautiful tool that is the language of words. And it’s time for me to move on to a new paradigm, a new way to relate to things and express myself...

But wait, how did this happened?
How can you drop your favourite hobby, and more unusually how can you loose interest in thinking?
Early 2016, I made a wish. It was 6 months after a little existential crisis. I say little because I didn’t not break down (as it happened with my burnout). I was actually very patient with that crisis, probably because after one burnout, you learn how to take care of yourself.
This crisis was still a major one, because it marks the moment I retired from work. Being a workaholic, I needed to cure myself from my addiction and drop work all together, so I could hopefully one day learn a healthy way to relate to it again.
As I kept in mind that summer 2015: “If you want something you’ve never had you have to do something you’ve never done.”
Quitting everything I knew to discover a brand new world was that thing.

My wish was quite simple:
I wanted to connect with my intuition.

I had read lots and lots of content saying that intuition is the path of least resistance, that if you can connect with it, you’d tap into unlimited ressources and infinite possibilities. It really resonated with me. I loved that idea that your intuition will guide you to the things you need, and the more you’ll train to connect with it, the easier those things would come to you.
I was sold, I had to try it. The traditional way I was killing myself with was not working anyway. I had nothing to loose.

On the cover of my notebook, I wrote “Forget who you think you are” and made this my intention for the year; exploring the unknown, discovering new aspects of my being, new abilities of mine. I wanted to shift into the heart and stop being so rational. I wanted to create space for my intuition to blossom and take me to new places, I was willing to leave my old ways of thinking behind, my old ways to organising my life, my old ways of being, my old me.
I was giving up everything I knew to this experiment, to the bet that I would find a better way, a healthier way to live and to create.

Two years after, I’m still in the process, dancing with the ups and downs that come with throwing yourself wide open to such an unpredictable adventure; undoubtedly learning, and growing into a more satisfying version of myself. Such a win, yet I was totally unaware of the side effects that come with such a shift! Looking back, I’d do it all over again. I’ve indeed gain a whole new level of understanding life its processes and universal laws but I also totally lost track of some very standardized ways of living that can’t make sense anymore according to this new perceptions. This is precisely how I lost interest in rational thinking, and language of words for example. Quite hard to keep on living in a society that has based its identity on those, and even harder for someone who knows that writing and communicating with the world are at the core of her “raison d’être”, but still I would not want to go back.
Truth is; once you’ve gone that way you actually can’t go back, because you can’t ignore that new sense of Truth (your own) screaming inside of you.
Some people call it madness. It probably is, but the inner peace, the sense of authenticity and the stability you get from it is, in my opinion, worth all the rationalities of the world.

…

Ok, so here is for the context, now back to that article I actually wrote right before this existential crisis. I would just recommend you to read it, because I’m realizing I’m not even able to to react on its content, as If I don’t bother anymore, because I probably do (not bother anymore)! The only thing that needed to be said is in the title: “Trying to be normal nipped all my creative projects in the bud” and that unfinished article is the perfect example.
I guess this article I am now writing is just about putting into words what I’ve been experiencing since two years (I would have never done it intentionally) so I can leave a trace of what happened, and honor my new ritual of reflecting every two years of the former state of being I was into ;)

This time, it is clearly about the shift.

I’m shifting from writing essays and didactic content to sharing stories. It’s interesting to see that my last “rational” writing was actually that blogpost I never published until today. I just didn’t feel like finishing it… I just left it there and never came back. These were my last written words of my former way of being and expressing myself. And my last written words (in any type of composition) for a while.
Thing is, they were so unintentional, that I don’t even remember that I had them there, not even remember that I wrote about that topic. They were not even a project of mine, there were simply an expression, coming right from my inner being…
It took me a dream earlier this year (almost two years after that crisis and blogpost) to start writing again, and in a new form I would have never allowed myself to do before, which is fictional writing.
Same process again. This was not a project, it was a need to express myself.

That dream was a gift, so well elaborated, a beautiful collaboration between my conscious and subconscious mind. While dreaming, I told myself, this is a story worth writing and the very next day, I spend 4 hours non-stop writing it down. I then had in between my hands the beginning of my very first novella, just like that! No need to overthink or worry about what I wanted to do or write, I just had to share that story, because the me in the dream told me to do so, and I had no other option than execute myself. This quite unconventional event allowed me to go further in that “leaving my mind behind” process, so I could jump into that new style of writing, and realise that I actually love it!
Fictional writing is indeed the best I could dream of, it combines my love for stories with my untamed imagination. That imagination I rarely dare to share because I though it was useless…
And here is the reason why I never allowed myself to write fictions.

I used to mistaken usefulness with worthiness.

If it was not useful, it was not worthy. An false understanding directly based on the rational approach stating that, the only worthy things are the things you can predict and mesure the benefits, all the rest is mere speculation… “What use would you make of crazy stories? Unless you’re a well-established writer, don’t even bother to try.”
I was so (unconsciously) hooked into that thinking that I never considered that those well-established writers, once had started as beginners themselves.

For me, it was simply “not normal” to write stories. Maybe not even to believe in your dreams. Dreams were meant to stay dreams. I can’t even believe I’m writing that, this seems so far from who I am, and who I though I was. And not only me, most of the people I know would tell you this can’t be more farther from the Magalie they know.
Truth is, no matter what the conscious me was thinking, this discourse is unquestionably what my subconscious mind was believing. And this belief was ruling my life, preventing me from being what I aspired to be, preventing me to even consider it a a valid option. Crazy sh*t, isn’t it?!

It’s crazy to see something that is so evident now, being so inaccessible then.
I though I was following my dreams when I merely was following the normalized version of it. And I was fooling myself into thinking I was really chasing my dreams. Madness. To me, that was the real madness, hahahahah!

It’s hard to describe now what “normal” meant to me, but it definitely has to do with fitting into society standards, and what I though we people were expected to, which were actually my own subconscious expectations based on my (luckily former) understanding of the world, like doing a job that you’ve been hired for, executing tasks you’ve been asked to do. If not from a boss, those tasks had to serve a well-identified and unquestionable need.
Not being too wild and challenging, quite ironic for someone who only worked in innovative fields, but yeah, my urge for renewal made me questioning big topics, such as the future of work, but not the very way I was seeing my contribution to the world.

For a long time, I even though that it was a waste of time and energy to create things that no one asked for. You can imagine how this belief was damaging my creativity. I don’t know if this has to do with being normal, but it surely had to do with me trying to fit some standards of usefulness. If no one asked for it, then you’re just having a solo-trip, and who cares about your solo-trip.

Well YOU, YOU ARE THE ONE who should care about it, because this is precisely where your genius is coming from! And from where all great innovations emerge.
Most of the time you caring about it is enough. I don’t say it’s easy, but if you do care and believe in your solo-trip, you can create something meaningful out of it, something that will touch and even move people’s heart or mind, and sometimes both. Isn’t this worth it?
To me now, no doubt it is! It is how we create the new, this is how evolution works.

For me, your uniqueness is what makes your genius.
That’s the new quote I want to (allow myself to) live by!

The craziest thing in all this, is that even when I finally freed myself from the conditioning regarding the style and content of my creativity, I still self-censor myself on the way to present my creative work. I realised that lately sending a proposal for my contribution to an online conference. Thing is, even if I consciously understand that I should give less of a f*ck and allow myself to be more spontaneous, my subconscious mind - the way I have trained myself to be- is still wanting me hard to present my work in some standardized ways.

This all formating in your subconscious brain is like Russians doll, once you’ve freed yourself from one level, you realise that there is another layer stoping you and so on. I guess until I didn’t get to the root of it, I’ll still subconsciously nipped all my creative projects in the nub. The good thing is the more I short-circuit those layers of unconscious mind, the better I get in identifying them, so today I’m better equipped than yesterday.

Now that I’m aware of this latest unconscious limitation, and I can actively work on it, and consciously decide to not give a damn anymore about formatting at all, just playfully act on my intuitions, present things as they come, as a way to reclaim (to my subconscious mind) my right to be fully creative, untamed, challenging and unpredictable as I always though I was, as I always knew I should be, as I truly am at core!

Precisely like I’m doing now, writing that article.

You see, this article I’m writing now, the one you’re currently reading, what is it? Is it fictional, or didactic? I let you choose.
The only thing that I know is that I had fun writing it, I was really enjoying myself, putting those words down, sharing a bit of my own experience. At some point I even struggled to wrap it up, but that’s also part of creative work. It isn’t all smooth and easy, some grit is always required at the end to make sense of all that content, make sure or intention is well represented.
I don’t know if this blogpost fits the standards of what a writing should be. It would probably be put into the “undefined” category, and it’s perfect that way, because I myself lost interest in trying to define things, so I’m happy to let my creations undefined ;)

The only thing that I kind of care of, or at least hope, is that you enjoyed this read, and maybe even got some value out it. This was my solo-trip, and I’m proud that today I am able to share it, without worrying nor trying to make it fit into boxes, which would just kill the very essence of it.

This article is made of half of a memoire on what happened to me the two last years and half of the reaction to my previous blogpost, because both were needed to express what I wanted to share today. It is also the happy result of two years of hard work and self-therapy. Learning to follow the flow, just be, and not giving to much of a f*ck.

Not giving a fuck has clearly been my solution, for the perfectionist workaholic I used to be. Not in a cynical way, (because I’m way too optimistic to give up on Life) but just to learn how to be light, and try new things.
I had no other option so I could allow myself that extra bit of looseness, so evident in my words, so impossible in my conditioning, that was mandatory to escape that very blocked situation.
Not giving a fuck, not caring about other people’s judgment, especially not caring about my own, becoming careless, detaching myself from what I knew, so I could see differently. All this is what helped me solve that terribly difficult equation I was stuck with (trying to please everything and everyone) so I could finally access some peace and coherence in my being.

You’re suddenly more daring to try and show off new things when nothing “important” is at play. No higher intention or ulterior motives, just the desire to create and see what happens with it.

My desire of being “normal” was a dis-ease, underhandedly trying to make me fit where I don’t belong, driving me mad and creating insecurity because I couldn’t make sense of what I was living. It’s like the Stockholm Syndrome; you become attached to that precise thing that create your suffering, because it’s somehow comforting, and give you hope for resolution.
Overthinking, which was also killing me, and I recently learnt to let go, was just the normal by-product of my situation. As, I could sense there was a dissonance between my aspirations of being and the reality of my existence, I was working hard to solve it, with the tools I had in hands. Not knowing that those tools were not adequate, and worst, were even part of the problem.

Only when I let go of everything, I could create room for other solutions to come to me (that were out of my own conscious reach). Einstein apparently said that “you can’t solve a problem with the same thinking/mindset that created it”, this is also a longtime favourite of mine. I would now add that it’s not always a question of mindset, but fairly about the level consciousness, a very basic human ability, we often forget about.

Much love to all, and many thanks for your time an interest ❤

PS: If you feel like diving more into my mind on related topics, I can only recommend to watch my video on irresponsibility, where I also mention how I quit overthinking. Because yes, now I also experiment with video (uncut videos); my current best practice to cure perfectionism!