Just recently one of my brave, brave students took her intuitive paintings home and showed them to her dad.

She was generous enough to share the interchange with me and I thought it would be helpful to share it with all of you.

Here's a brief transcript of their conversation:

My student: "Hey dad, I'm taking this cool painting class in Oakland and I wanted you to see something that I created there.

Her Dad: "What is this? I don't understand it? Is this a turnip?"

My Student: "No Dad. Can't you see? It's my radical self acceptance!"

Her Dad: "Hmmmph... Well, when are you going to take a REAL art class?"

My Student: " Oh dad, you are such a funny guy!! Why would I ever want to get something as boring as formal art training??"

In my intuitive painting classes I always encourage my students to be careful about what they do with their paintings once they take them home and particularly about who they show them to.

Once you are in my studio there is a very specific parameter set about making comments on each others work, which is that we DON'T. Make comments, that is. AT ALL.

This creates an atmosphere where people can relax and not worry about things like external approval, judgment, and competition. All the things that can really put a major damper on your creative freedom and enthusiasm.

But the rest of the world outside of my studio is not yet savvy to this particular approach and in fact think that they are supposed to comment on your work.

They  think that they need to have some kind of an opinion either positive or negative. They don't know any other way to relate to a piece of artwork.

Which puts the artist in a very vulnerable position because those comments always create an impact and it's usually not a helpful one.

So I suggest to my students that they take care about who gets to see their stuff, reminding them that they don't really have to expose it to anyone and that if they do decide to open themselves up to their friends and family, it's OK to be clear about what kind of response they do want.

Presenting your paintings to another person is a great opportunity to practice having boundaries.

It's a chance to try on for size saying some potentially scary things like: "Yes, I took a painting class and what I worked on is private and I don't feel quite ready for anyone to see it just yet."

And making clear requests, like: "I would appreciate it if when you looked at my painting that you please not make any judgments about it because I'm still feeling tender and vulnerable. I would really love it if you could just be happy for me that I gave myself the chance to be creative."

But of course, sometimes you just need to throw caution to the winds and put your work out there knowing that you can find a way to creatively deal with any response you might get!

Which is exactly what this woman did by risking showing her painting to her dad. I just loved how my student was able to stick to her guns in this conversation and not get thrown off by her dad's response.

It was also a great example about how to pretty effectively deal with your own judging mind which her dad so graciously illustrated by taking on the role of a superb outer fault-finder.

This conversation with her dad could just as easily have been a conversation with her own inner critic. And in fact, some version of her dad's responses are probably something that we have all experienced and internalized at some point in our lives.

Which is why we need skillful ways to deal with those voices whether they are in our heads or in our face.

So I've outlined some things that I learned about dealing with that cranky part of our inner landscape from my students interchange with her dad.

1.) It's  much harder for the critic to get a purchase on you if you approach your creative work with a sense of positive enthusiasm.

But how, of course, do you do that especially if the disapproving part of your psyche has gone into overdrive and has your creativity in a serious choke hold?

One of the things I notice with my painting students ( and of course, with myself) is that they are always operating on two different channels when they are creating. There is the left brain channel which is where all the chatter and stories and the not so flattering commentary about what they are doing is coming from.

And then there is the right brain channel which is related to the direct here and now, in your body, felt experience of the creative process.

And it is the right brain channel that allows you to tap into where you are the most authentically and creatively alive.

You can think that what you are creating is awful or bad or not good enough and at the same time you can have a deeply felt, present time experience where you are enjoying the process of creation immensely.

So it's all about where you are focusing your attention.

Do you want to spend your time listening to an endlessly boring string of negative, disparaging criticism or simply allow yourself to have a good time?

You do get to choose.

2.) The critic doesn't really know what it is talking about. So always be suspicious of anything it tells you.

"Is this a turnip?" I mean... come on... can't you do any better than that, Mr. Backseat Driver Of The Creative Process? If you're going to criticize someone's sincere creative effort at least come up with something well thought out that has some vague reference to the thing your criticizing.

But no, no, no... the inner " Always Up For A Potshot" critic is not bound by any such rules or conventions. The truth of it is... it makes things up... all the time. We get into trouble when we take what it says to us as the gospel truth but all it wants to do is to find something that we will react to.

Essentially it's fishing for things that will make us jump up and down and get us totally distracted from actually creating.

Our job is to be a smart little creative fishy and not bite the bait.

3.) Don't allow the critic to define you. Affirm your own creative efforts every chance you get.

You get to set the terms and parameters around your creative work. Always. If the judging mind says "turnip" and you say "radical self acceptance" you are the one that has the last and final and only word on the subject.

Dance around singing made up songs about radical self acceptance.  Shout it from the rooftops.  Paint it in four foot high red letters on butcher paper and hang it on your living room wall.

4.) Don't ever, ever, EVER take it seriously.

It's always a good policy to treat that part of your mind like you would your dear, old, clueless dad. Which means with a sense of humor, a gentle eyeroll and a firm yet loving boundary.

Have you ever been asked the question " If you could have a superpower, what would it be?"

Well, it seems like I already have one although it's not one that you ever see in the Marvel Comic books.

Nor is it one that I would have necessarily chosen.

My weird superpower seems to be that I have the ability to make people cry.

It's not like I'm mean or anything. I don't go around pinching them hard or calling them bad names. And it's not really that I MAKE them cry. They just find themselves crying whenever they are hanging out with me.

This is something that I have never set OUT to do. It's not on my agenda, and it's not something that I plan for.

Although during all the many years that I was in private practice as a psychotherapist having someone cry during a session was always seen as a good thing.

Now what, you may be asking, DO I do which seems to facilitate this outpouring of weepiness. I think that my real gift is not actually making people cry. That is just a by product.

I think the gift I was given to help make the world a better place ( and I think that all of our innate gifts serve that function) is that I know how to put my own concerns and opinions aside for a while  and give people my undivided, heartfelt, gently compassionate, non-judging attention. I make them feel safe. And seen. And like they are very important.

In other words... I really know how to listen to someone.

I have built my intuitive painting empire on this particular talent. I love listening to people. I am totally fascinated and intrigued by what goes on inside of people's souls and minds. And my heart always goes out to their pain and suffering as well as being able to jump up and down in celebration of their triumphs and their joys.

I enjoy listening. And listening deeply. I can get inside of someone's experience and understand what they are going through, beam on them and shower them with acceptance, with no effort at all. For me it's not a big deal.

For a long time, I never really thought much about it. I had the attitude that if I could do it then it must be something ANYONE could do. I had a hard time valuing this quality as anything special.

It only became obvious to me that it WAS something special when people would continually remark upon my ability.

Sometimes they would tell me with an air of incredulousness, more rarely with an edge of resentment and other times it would come across with a feeling of gratitude.

They would say things like "Wow. That's amazing! How do you DO that? How do you be so non-judgmental and seem really get where the other person is coming from? How are you able to be so incredibly empathetic?"

And I would look at them and say "Huh???" It's kind of like asking somebody "How do you breathe?" or "How do you make your heart beat?"

I also started to get an even bigger clue when I discovered that people were willing to pay me money to do this.

Once I had a job as a bookkeeper. Don't even ASK how that ever happened. And I lasted all of two weeks before I was ignominiously fired. So, no.  Bookkeeping or anything to do with numbers and keeping track of small pieces of paper?  Definitely NOT one of my superpowers.

It helps to know what you are NOT good at. That's a very good start. But you also need to eventually identify your superpower. Because EVERYONE has a superpower. No one has been left out of the superpower club.

Everyone has a gift that is precious and needed by friends, family and community. Everyone has a genius, an expertise, an offering, a generous capability that is part of your basic makeup that helps, heals and inspires anyone who comes in contact with you.

I can hear some of the naysayers in the crowd now saying things like "Maybe you THINK everyone has a superpower, but not me. There's nothing about me that is particularly worthy or significant."

And I'm here to tell you... in the nicest way possible... that  you are dead wrong!! If you are alive and breathing that means you have something precious and wondrous to share with the world.

So if you're really not sure what it is, how DO you discover this inborn brilliance that is part of your birthright as a human being?

The first way to find out is to come right out and ASK people who know you to tell you what they love about you. Or if that's too scary, just notice the nice things that people in your life already say about you.

Recognizing where your talents lie is patently and often glaringly obvious to people outside of you, but not so much TO you. Because that would mean you would have to value yourself.

The second way is to ask yourself the question "What is easy for you? What do you enjoy doing so much that you can't help but do it? That you would do no matter what? That you can't STOP yourself from doing, even if you tried? What expresses itself so naturally and is so easy peasy that you take it for granted?"

Because one of the conflicts that folks have around claiming their superpower is the belief that it has to be something difficult to be worthwhile.  We all carry remnants of some Puritan ethic that tells us our purpose has to be something HARD. Something that you STRUGGLE with. Something that is always a bit out of your reach.

And I am here, once again,  to say to you: No, no, NO..... your purpose on this planet is meant to flow out of you like a clear, cascading, mountain stream.

Which doesn't mean that you might not want to spend time and energy developing it. I had lots of basic raw material around empathy and compassion to begin with but gained an enormous amount by putting myself in situations where I could be inspired and guided by others to take this nascent gift and turn it into something beautifully polished and skilled.

But developing it was something that was fun for me. I enjoyed the process of growing my empathetic, listening skills. It most often felt like play. Which is another reason I had a hard time taking it seriously. Because how could something that I experienced as so natural and so much fun be a POWER of any sort?

But it was. And still is. And the same is true for you.

So, if you already know what your superpower is, let it shine. Give it some room to breathe and LOTS of room to express itself. And watch how happy doing that makes you and those who have the great good fortune of being part of your life.

And if you don't yet have a name for it? If you're too scared or ashamed to admit that you might have something of great value to give to the world? First of all, be gentle with yourself. Try to remember that it's OK to ask for help around this.

And finally, it doesn't REALLY matter whether or not you ever call it anything. Because your gift is pouring out of you all the time ANYWAY.

It would just be nice if you got to feel really good about yourself and to enjoy it as much as everyone else.

I recently got an email from a lovely woman on my mailing list asking me about how to use creativity to work through negative emotions.

Which is a completely fabulous question and one that I have thought about a great deal.

My first response to that question is that I don't believe that ANY emotions are inherently negative.

Now I know why she used that particular word. It's a common way that everyone talks and thinks about feelings. Over the years I have had to train myself to NOT use that word because it's the one that my mind automatically goes to.

But it's a word that carries a lot of unconscious judgment with it. It creates a dichotomy of good and bad, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. And since as human beings we experience "negative" emotions on a regular basis it means that we are relegating at least half of our emotional life to the emotional dust bin.

Certain emotions are painful, yes. Difficult, often. And not always what we WANT to be experiencing.  But they are not intrinsically bad.

The emotions themselves are not really the problem. All emotions and feelings are a source of energy and offer us ways that we can be fully alive in the world.

But we get the message early on that certain feelings or emotional states are dangerous or forbidden or shameful and so we never learn how to be in a relationship with them in a way that allows us to access the energy that is available to us.

We don't realize that EVERYTHING that we feel is ultimately an opportunity for healing, self love and empowerment.

The other thing that I hear in my students question when she asks how to "work through" negative emotions is a subtext of how do you get RID of those unwanted feelings and moods.

That's something that comes up in my painting classes a lot. Someone will encounter a feeling as they are painting, either fear or sadness, anger or shame and often without even realizing it, will automatically recoil from it.

The red flashing danger lights and blaring sirens of the psyche  go into overdrive to give them the message: "WARNING! WARNING! This is bad. Get away as fast as you can. Find a way to stop this NOW."

Which is the judgmental fear response to intense feeling states. It's related to the belief that there is something wrong just because you are feeling uncomfortable or distressed. That the appropriate response to that discomfort is to shut it down or turn it off if at all possible.

But we can't ever really get rid of feelings.

If we try and stomp them out they just go underground and attempt to find other ways to express themselves. And the ways that they show up when they have been smooshed down are usually not very productive.

Like developing a splitting headache. Roadrage. Overeating. Or finding yourself inexplicably depressed.

When people are painting I try and support them to view everything that shows up, whether it is a feeling or an image or a color, as an invitation. And an invitation is always about opening a door.

When you have a strong feeling, you are being summoned by your intuition and your soul to a deeper level of connection with yourself.

The invitation is always an invitation into love. To love and practice the art of radical self acceptance for WHATEVER presents itself. To embrace what's happening in a spirit of kindness, surrender and exploration.

Now all that being said there ARE skillful and unskillful ways of being with your emotional process as you create and I want to talk about what some of the more skillful approaches look like here.

CREATIVITY FLOWS FROM THE COMPASSIONATE NOW

The first skill you want to develop is the ability to be present to yourself in a spirit of curiosity and compassion no matter what you are feeling. It's practicing a certain willingness to try and meet yourself exactly where you are with as little judgment as possible and without trying to change anything.

It's trying to remember that there really is no "better". There is only here and now and what you are experiencing.

You can use your creative process to thoroughly express all that you are capable of feeling. Through your creations you can give yourself full permission to witness your emotions, to dive into them, to allow them to pour out of you and through you.

It's helpful to remember that feelings are by their very nature fluid...  like water. And if you allow them to be fully expressed in a creative way they will completely transform on their own. No one ever cries forever.

Creation is also a practice of nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. When you are being creative and you are expressing from this deep and authentic inner-world place you are face to face with what is most real and true for you. You are doing the exact opposite of trying to get rid of your feelings or attempting to push them away.

When you put your feelings into a visible form through your creative work you are choosing the path of courage by facing them and yourself in living technicolor.

STORIES CAN BE QUITE ENTERTAINING BUT ARE NOT OFTEN HELPFUL

One of the concerns that I hear from my students is that they will get caught in a negative, or as I prefer to call it, painful or uncomfortable emotional cycle if they allow the full expression of whatever they are feeling. They imagine that if they really let themselves go towards what is arising they will get stuck in a never-ending loop of anger or grief or fear.

But feelings are designed to move. They are not innately static. They are nothing if not constantly changing.

When we find ourselves entangled in a feeling state it's because we are caught up in the STORY behind the feeling. What traps us in an unchanging cycle is our fascination with the narrative. We get mesmerized by what happened. By who did what to who and why it happened and why it shouldn't have happened and on and on. We get obsessed.

In other words when we're in this state we're actually not just feeling. We are thinking about the feeling. We are trapped in our mental machinations. Our mind won't let it go. Our mind won't ALLOW the feeling to change.

We have a vested interest in holding on to what we're feeling in an effort to figure things out. Because we are convinced that understanding something will make everything OK.

One of the things that is so great about the creative process is that it can get you in touch with feelings in their very purest state. You are painting some red and all of a sudden you feel like crying and you don't know why.

The good news is that you don't NEED to know why. All you need to do is to cry. And continue to paint.

The practice here is to try to allow whatever you are feeling as you are creating to just be there as much as possible without the story. Without being in your head.

If you find that you ARE chasing some story round and round in your mind try to bring yourself back to your body. To the paintbrush in your hand. To the color or image or shape on the paper in front of you. Let it be simple.

That's why it's so important to allow feelings room to be even if and ESPECIALLY if they make no sense at all.

THE JUDGING BRAIN IS ALWAYS UP TO NO GOOD

Feelings can often be covered up and obscured by the fault-finding mind. If a feeling is trying to come through that is threatening to you for some reason you can find yourself all of a sudden bombarded by a cascade of inner criticism.

Judgment is a very convenient and compelling distraction when you don't believe that it is safe to feel.

So if you are in the middle of creating something and you are overwhelmed by thoughts like: "This is so ugly. And trite. And let's not forget kitschy. Now you've ruined it. I absolutely hate this. This is the worst thing I've ever done." and on and on... it's always a good idea to be more than a little suspicious.

When you find yourself in the grip of this kind of negative mind chatter (and here I think the word is appropriate) try this as a practice.

Instead of IMMEDIATELY taking those messages at face value and diving into believing them whole hog, try slowing things down, taking a deep breath and asking these questions:

"What's the possible emotion that is lurking underneath this judgment? What is it likely that this judgment is trying to keep me from feeling? What do I need right now that will give me the safety to allow me to feel?"

LET IT FLOW, LET IT GROW

When a feeling DOES have the audacity to show up and we can't seem to stop it, there is another very popular suppression strategy that many of us resort to which is to at least try to hold the intensity of it back some.

If we MUST feel then we'll put the brakes on and simply let as little of the feeling as we can get away with trickle out.

Just so much and no more. We cry a few tears or feel a few sparks of anger or outrage and then shut ourselves down.

Which means that we never get the full benefits that a more complete emotional release can offer us.

The way that this shows up creatively is through the tactic of trying to control the feeling by keeping the thing that has allowed you to feel the feeling in the first place as small and contained as possible.

For example, say you're painting and you put a certain color on the page. It could be anything.... black, green, pink, gold... any color imaginable... but it touches something deep in you.

So you put a few dots of the emotion laden color on the paper or canvas and then stop. Some part of your fearful psyche gives you the message "That's certainly enough. There's no need to go overboard now, is there?" successfully limiting this chance for full creative and emotional expression.

A more skillful way to approach this opportunity to open yourself to feeling as you create is to ask some of the following questions:

"How can I intensify this? How can I go into this energy more deeply? Can I let myself have even MORE of this color, this experience, this feeling?"

What that often looks like creatively is simply adding larger swathes of the color, letting it get bigger and giving it room to take up more space in your painting which leads to allowing it to take up more space in your heart.

This list of ways to approach dealing with difficult feelings and emotions through your creative process is far from exhaustive, but I hope you find some of these tools and suggestions helpful as you continue on your journey of greater and more fulfilling creative and emotional expression.

My muse is quite the bossy sort and has been yammering at me pretty much non-stop lately.

What she wants this time is for me to be writing more. And specifically she wants me to be BLOGGING more often.

There's a familiar dance that we engage in that starts with her bugging me about something. I do actually hear it as "the still small voice"... at least initially, but the longer I ignore her the LOUDER and more insistent that voice gets. Eventually it starts to feel like muse stalking.

My first strategy in dealing with her stalky behavior is that I try to hide. I will get incredibly busy or read more or get very focused around things that actually need to be done. Cleaning out the refrigerator or returning a backlog of email messages.

I often feel very proud and productive while engaged in these activities and quite astonished that I all of a sudden have energy for tasks that I have been dragging my feet around for days or sometimes ..... longer. Much longer.

Of course , the reason I have motivation for these things that up until now have held little or no appeal is because I am avoiding the bigger, scarier thing. The thing that she wants me to do.

Which is now all about the blogging. It's not that I don't blog already. I do. I enter a blog post on my site pretty regularly about twice a month. And that is actually DOUBLING what I was doing a mere 6 months ago which was writing a post once a month.

And even that has been a bit of a stretch. I am 57 years old and it is only in the last 3 -4 years have I claimed my writer identity. Which is much more solid than it's ever been but still new enough to be a bit shaky.

Writing is still hard for me. Its still fraught with a great deal of anxiety.

It's scary because I don't completely trust my writers voice yet.

I have some pretty common and familiar fears around my creative process. One of which is that I only have so much to say, so I don't want to use everything up too quickly.

So I hoard. And titrate. I feel a bit like a miser counting the gold coins of my blog posts or articles in a little cave in my mind somewhere. Fearful that there is an end to my inspiration. I don't want to push it and find out that there really IS a bottom to my creative barrel.

I DO know that this is totally ridiculous.

I know that the creative flow is endless and that the more I tap into it the more it has to give me.

However, I am not walking my talk around this.  I am believing the voice of fear. And my muse is a HUGE proponent of me walking my talk. This is what I do on a DAILY basis with my students. I encourage them ad nauseum to trust in the generosity of the creative source.

So she wants me to challenge this belief and assumption in myself in the same way I would do with one of my students. And the way that she suggests that we do this is in public. With blog posts. More often. Much more often. Like maybe MOST days. So everyone ELSE can see and learn from me seeing and learning about this struggle.

She is ,unfortunately, right. And full of some very good ideas. Of course, some of her best ideas are the ones that scare me the most. But they only scare me so much because they are things that I really, really, really WANT to do.

They are things that require that I put my heart on the line.

Which means that I might get disappointed. Or hurt somehow.  Everything that I am trying to avoid by NOT doing what it is I am longing for.

However, I also know from VAST experience ( I am 57 after all and have been around more than a few blocks) that whenever I follow her directives and choose to not believe whatever fear is currently mesmerizing me that I always, always end up experiencing really good things.

Like joy and excitement and self confidence. Sometimes money. But unfailingly greater trust in her and in life and in the longings of my heart.

The only thing I needed was a way to enter into this new commitment. It was too much for me to just all of a sudden announce that I was going to do this unaccustomed thing. I needed some kind of encouraging and helpful support and structure.

This is where the Bindu Wiles blogging and yoga community project comes in. This is an invitation to write. For 21 days. 800 words a day. And also committing to a daily yoga practice ( I'm not sure I can do that one, yet). But the writing is practiced in a group with other people who also want to write but need some support and accountability.

All around a very cool thing. Thank you Bindu!!

So I'm signing up. Jumping in. We'll see if I can write every day. But I'm definitely going to give it a shot. And see how deeply my creative well really does go.

I also want to give a shout out to the huge hearted Leah Pinkola-Kolidas and her amazing site Creative Every Day which supports everyone to be as creative as they can possibly be!

I just completed the final session of my current Wild Heart Expressive Arts Teacher Training program.

During this five day intensive each of my students took a three hour block of time and presented and facilitated an expressive arts class that they designed. Which was total fun for me because I got to be their student! And got to experience first hand all the brilliance and creativity that just came pouring out of these amazing women.

One of my students, Jennifer Lee of Artizen Coaching fame had us participate in a really fun exercise.  She had us imagine that we had a fantasy closet filled with all kinds of outrageous and beautiful clothes. And then we were instructed to rummage through our magic closet and find our "confidence outfit." An outfit that would allow us to fully step into that sense of our bigness and self assurance. That could enable us to shine our light and strut our stuff with joy and boldness and much greater visibility and being out there presence.

My astral closet was pretty stuffed and I saw quite a few very trippy, out of this world outfits. There was a shiny, red sequined gown with a narrow waist, plunging neckline and shoulder pads a la Katherine Hepburn in the 40's that would inspire me to swirl and twirl like nobody's business and would give any girls confidence a major sparkle boost.

On the other side of the spectrum was a bolero style, black leather jacket with tight black leather pants and thigh high boots that would encourage me to stride and clomp around taking up lots of space while fully embodying my " I am strong and daring and feisty. Don't you dare hold me back. I can do anything" inner warrior-queen self.

Both of those choices would have made me extremely happy. And boosted my confidence tremendously.

But what I found myself pulling out of my closet and putting on my body were the jeans that I wear every day. And of course I would never even dream of leaving the house without donning some of my fancy Native American Southwestern jewelry or a pair of my cowboy boots.

But for me, these things are standard fare. It's just how I dress. I was profoundly surprised that this is what I was drawn to as my confidence outfit. It certainly wasn't what I expected to happen. And a part of me tried to talk myself into the red dress or the black leather jacket, because I am so used to thinking that my sense of confidence has to be something extraordinary.

I couldn't believe that true confidence could be this effortless and simple.

What stepping into my familiar garb allowed me to claim was the feeling that who I am, right here, right now, with nothing changed at all, is where I can connect with the greatest sense of self-assurance.

It got me in touch with a deep-in-my-bones sensation, both new and strangely familiar, that I am enough.

This whole "I am enough" issue has been in the forefront of my thoughts recently. I have been looking long and hard at the ongoing healing process that I am constantly engaged in between what my life looks like on the outside and how I feel about it on the inside.

Because, no matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish, no matter how much I have, there is some ancient, core place inside of me that feels like it is NEVER enough.

I can experience that feeling of "not enough" in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it's associated with guilt of a non-specified nature. I'm not sure WHAT I'm guilty of. That is never clear. I just have this vague feeling of having "sinned" somehow.

Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing. Which never wants you to feel too self satisfied. And in fact, having that feeling of being all-right and contented is always cause for suspicion. And a sure path to the eternal fires of hell.

So the struggle of "not enough" when I'm in the middle of the guilt cycle means putting a lot of energy into trying to be the "good girl."

Another way that I can feel it is as a restlessness, a hunger, a never feeling satisfied, an always wanting more, more, more...

It might be more happiness. Or excitement. Often success. Or a feeling of pride and fulfillment. So I try to "get" those things by buying something or accomplishing something or constantly striving to improve myself.

There is a third version of not being enough that is usually related to other people and often revolves around my business. Which looks like more people signing up for my newsletter or wanting to attend my workshops.

This version is also associated with comparing myself to others and how much I perceive them to be having.

But it can also be focused on wanting to feel included in a special group or getting noticed by a particular individual.

This version of the voice keeps asking the question "Am I enough for them? Do they like me?  Am I good enough, smart enough, exciting enough, attractive enough to get their approval and attention their admiration and love?"

All of these versions put the source of the experience of being enough outside of me. Which pretty unfailingly leads to disappointment.

When I am in that place of believing I am "not enough" what I want to feel is that I have value. I want to feel like I am worth something. That who I am and what I have to offer is a blessing in the world.

But this place where I am convinced that I am "not enough" is kind of like a black hole. It's a mantra that some part of my psyche repeats to me over and over again. And it's a loop that never ends. A belief and a mindset that is not at all impacted by external reality.

Because no matter how much the world might reflect back to me that maybe I actually AM OK, it's like this part of my mind can't really, truly believe it. This place is stubbornly impervious to external validation.

Where this dynamic can predictably show up for me is around my creative process. When I sit down to paint or write or even when I'm taking photographs, I often have to grapple with this voice of "not enough." This voice that is judging every word that comes out of my fingers moving across the keyboard, that questions each brushstroke as it appears on my canvas.

This message of "not creative enough" is something that is lurking in the background of most peoples psyches. And believing it is what is responsible for keeping many folks from actually being creative. Because taking the risk to do so brings them face to face with this painful place of believing that they are lacking.

And is, paradoxically, one of the many reasons that I appreciate the creative process in my life so very much.

Because every time I make that choice to create. Every time I choose to mobilize the courage necessary to face this place of shame, I am actually chipping away at this core belief. I am developing new pathways in my brain and mind and heart.

Because I have made the choice to not believe the voice of "not enough" I am at the same time giving myself the message that I do have value. That what I have to offer the world does matter.

And it's the power of that internal struggle and the hard won inner validation that comes out of that supreme holy effort to choose a creative life that seems to have the greatest impact on that brick wall of belief in my own defective nature.

It is also why my mission in life is to encourage people to engage with their creativity purely for the sake of BEING creative.

Feeding yourself from your own creative well puts that experience of "being enough" back where it belongs... on the inside. Where it can't be touched or swayed as much by external circumstances. If you have a place that you can always come back to... a place where you can connect with an unshakable source of inner abundance.... which is what your creativity can provide for you... it's a lot easier to remember ... and believe.. that you are always, always, always enough.