One Simple Question That Will Eat at Your Creative Soul

Think back to when you were a kid. Did you create? Did you draw? Did you have imaginary friends? Did you build?

You were a creator. Without inhibition. Without fear. You created. You failed. And then…you just kept going and creating. Time after time.

Now, can you remember when you stopped creating? Can you remember when those days of creating turned into just doing what you were “supposed to do” in life? School took over. Then jobs. Then bills. You started maintaining instead of creating.

I distinctly remember when I started to shift. I was probably around 9. When I was playing pretend, I would pretend to be a business woman and a mom. My friends and I would pretend to write checks to the doctor for the children’s visits. We would pretend to take care of the house. We would pretend to be bankers, managing money as a career.

What I didn’t realize at that moment was that I was pretending to do all of the monotonous things that I thought grown-ups were “supposed” to do. I saw the grown-ups in my life doing those things. So that’s what I was going to do.

Eventually, those times of “pretend” became real life. I became the mom. I became great at taking care of the home. I became great at going to the grocery. I became great at managing our finances. I became a “business woman.”

I’ve become a pro at maintaining life.

But what have I lost in the process? Creation.

I’ve not lost imagination. I’ve maintained my ability to dream about possibilities. I’m sure you have to. But then (and this is where the scary part happens)…after I have a high of dreaming about possibilities, I look at my to-do list and go right back to what “needs to be done” to maintain our home, to take care of the kids, to do a good job at life. That looks like groceries. That looks like cleaning the house. That looks like scheduling the doctor’s appointment. That looks like doing everything that just “needs to be done.”

That thing I dreamed about? That thing I wanted to create? Gone in the abyss. Lost to my adulthood and responsibilities.

Ugh. It makes my heart hurt.

While I’ve been working on being a “good” version of all of these things, I’ve lost my most authentic version of myself.

I had to learn this lesson the hard way.

Right before our induction with Paxton, about a week before, Phil and I had a super hard conversation. He has been frustrated with my ability (or lack of ability) to provide for our family. Not just financially but creatively. He feels alone in the business. Rightfully so. I’ve been so focused on building our family and taking care of our home life. While I’ve been invested in building our business and doing “everything I can” to make sure we thrive, I was not tapping into my creative strengths to truly move the needle forward.

During that very hard conversation, he let out some very egoic, honest, earth-shattering comments, such as, “Do you want to be a maintainer for the rest of your life?” and “I just don’t understand how you can bring kids into the world and then not try to provide for them.”

Wow. A straight dagger to my pregnant heart. And of course, my ego fired right back. I explained that those comments were not true and were very hurtful. I defended myself. I put my walls up. I refused to allow those comments to be my truth.

We finished the conversation and both took responsibility for our words and roles in the discussion.

But as I usually do, I hold onto those comments and really explore their truth. (I SO badly didn’t want them to be true.)

What I’ve realized in the last few weeks is that there IS truth to those comments. I’ve put my creative endeavors on the back-burner. I’ve allowed them to take the backseat to all of the things I expressed above. Writing came AFTER the groceries. Developing a new strategy came AFTER the house was clean. Letting my creative energy out came AFTER making sure everyone else was taken care of.

Woof.

Here’s what finally blew my mind — my boys (all three of them) don’t need a woman who’s a good grocery shopper. They don’t need a woman who is good at cleaning the house. They don’t need a woman who keeps up with the laundry. All of those things will get done, but they DON’T need to be the priority.

They need a woman who stands in her strength. They need a woman who can show them what it means to follow creative energy. They need a woman who taps into her wisdom and shares that with the world. They need a woman who is so authentically herself that it’s impossible to question her intentions.

They need a woman who will be so fully alive that it makes THEM want to be just as alive.

Woah.

That realization took me down. That realization opened my chest, my heart, my mind. What in the actual fuck have I been doing? I’ve been slowly building a life around myself that “protects” me from having to take creative risk. I’ve been slowly sheltering myself from being fully alive. I’ve been slowly and actively creating priorities that put all of my creative energy to rest.

That is NOT how I want to live. That is NOT how I want the rest of this journey to go. That is NOT what I want to teach my boys.

While Phil’s words hurt in the moment, they’ve been transformational for me. As I look at my days now, I simply ask, how do I put creation first? How do I learn how to re-prioritize my days? I still feel myself leaning into the to-do list. My ego REALLY wants me to spend time on those groceries. And I will. But AFTER I’ve written this blog post. AFTER I’ve spent time on our creative vision. AFTER I’ve moved the needle with a healthy dose of creative energy.

And now I turn that question to you….where are you maintaining where you should be creating?

What in your life needs to be created? What do you need to unlearn to create your most authentic journey? What is burning inside of you that needs to be released out into the world?

Please don’t hold back in answering those questions. Make yourself feel it. Be honest. Journal about it. Sit with it. Envision your younger self. What would life look and FEEL like if you put energy into your own version of creation? And then, how do you build a life around that?

“Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.”

- Julia Cameron