I have a new creative project that I am in the very beginning stages of and it is a big project. It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time and haven't been able to get to because of lack of time  and because I couldn't figure out exactly how to make it happen. But some time has opened up and the shape of it has now become very clear.

I'm very jazzed about it and my muse is totally onboard with it signaling her approval by  continually feeding me ideas. It's something that I really want to do. I think it's going to be pretty awesome once it's completed.

And I'm avoiding it like the plague.

I am hopelessly and madly in love with the creative process, but like any relationship where you are hopelessly and madly in love there are times when your beloved drives you crazy.

And the creative process is no exception.

One of the ways that it makes me wacky is how inexplicably linked it is to my inner critic. As soon as I'm ready to launch into virgin creative territory the judging mind is right there breathing down my neck, sometimes whispering and other times shouting in my ear. It wastes no effort in finding numerous tactics all designed to make me miserable and with the ultimate goal of stopping the creative show.

It reminds me of those fairy tales where the hero or heroine is searching for the treasure and they find the cave where the all the shiny, gorgeous stuff is hidden but have to deal with the big, scary fire-breathing dragon before they can get anywhere near it.

And that's kind of how it feels. When I am at the beginning of a new creative venture I start off feeling tremendously excited because I'm so very close to the source. The treasure is right there where I can practically touch it. I can imagine all the pleasure and satisfaction I will have diving into the creative energy and birthing this never before seen thing into the world. But before that happens I have to do some fancy footwork around that dragon.

And my initial responses to that dragon are not always very heroic.

At first it just looks so darn big. And I feel so small in comparison. It sits there blocking the door looking all smoky and fangy and intimidating while telling me all the ways I'm not good enough and why I don't deserve the treasure.

The treasure is only for people who are really talented and have something worthwhile to say.The treasure is earmarked for real artists and real writers. The treasure belongs to someone who is brilliant and full of genius.

In other words, the treasure is obviously not for me.

So my first non-heroic response is to hang my head and mope around for a while. I feel tired. And vaguely crummy. I keep telling myself that I just need to rest a little bit more or that I need to answer a few more emails or finally clean out the freezer. And the time that I set aside for writing or painting just slips away.

The dragon is happily sitting there feeling mighty smug. And I get more panicked and more distracted and less and less able to focus. Which of course makes me feel smaller and less confident and more avoidant. And like maybe this whole project was not such a good idea after all.

This goes on for a while. The length of time I spend wandering around in circles of misery varies with the size of the project. Since the project that I have in mind is pretty ambitious I was able to spend the last two weeks of December (which I had set aside by taking some time off work ), frittering away my precious creative time.

Another really charming aspect of this process is that while I am in this state I don't fully realize what is causing it. I go unconscious. Develop temporary amnesia. It's like I am under a weird kind of spell and I go in and out of forgetting that this is just what happens when I start something I've never done before. I forget that the dragon is doing a number on me and that the reason I am unable to make much headway is that I am feeling powerless and helpless in the face of the fear that the dragon is so good at engendering.

Eventually, something shifts. I get frustrated by and sick of all the inertia which allows me to wake up enough where I can begin to see the dragon for what it is. I will read something or have a dream or a conversation with my husband or a friend that allows me to shake off the poison trance of creative paralysis.

At that point I don't even need to be very heroic. Once the scales have fallen from my eyes the dragon loses much of it's power.... at least for the time being... and I am able to simply walk into the cave and claim some of the treasure as mine. Until the next time that I am abducted into the underworld of the dragon's lair.

It has always seemed so unfair that opening to my creative muse immediately whips my judging mind into a frenzy of activity. For a long while it was a puzzle to me. It didn't make any sense as to why I would be so crippled by fear and doubt whenever I was inspired to create something, which unfortunately for me happens on a regular basis.

But eventually I started to figure a few things out. I began to notice some patterns.

Bringing something new into the world it means going into unfamiliar territory. My creative process is constantly goading me and leading me towards the unknown. It is fascinated by what's around the next bend and what it hasn't experienced. It feeds on experimentation. It is an adventurer that thrives on risk and has no interest at all in repeat performances.

Ultimately what it wants is for me to continually grow and change and to express as much of me as I can in the short time I have here on the planet.

And all that gung-ho, let's just go off willy nilly without a map and a guaranteed outcome makes the judging mind, which is terrified by anything that it hasn't done before, go totally bonkers.

It simply doesn't like strange new things. It's convinced that any foray into places it hasn't been before is just plain dangerous. The unmapped world is full of dark alleys and muggers and maybe a touch of bubonic plague thrown in for good measure as far as it is concerned.

And so it tries to stop me. I know, I know. It's only trying to protect me. It's trying to keep me safe and in one piece.

You could say that it loves me. I'm actually pretty sure that it does. But it's the kind of love that wants to keep me so protected that I'm like a bird in a cage, my wings clipped  and my freedom to fly seriously curtailed. If I let it run the show, I would end up leading a very small and unchallenged life, littered with unused potential.

So I keep choosing to live a life propelled by my creative longings. Which means regular run ins with the dragon. And predictable periods of time trying to struggle out of fear induced creative stagnation.

The best I can do as I make this sometimes arduous creative journey is be enormously kind to myself. To be as compassionate as possible whenever I find myself lying flat on my back having been pole axed once again by the dragon's latest "tough love" attempts to keep me out of harms way.

And to try and remember that the dragon wouldn't be so fired up unless I was really, really close to something wild and sweet and wonderful that will probably change my life in the best possible way.

I have a new intuitive painting student who has been surprising herself by how often she finds herself asking the question "You mean it's really OK to do that?"

This question comes up around simple things like " You mean it's OK to make a mess? Is it really OK to use this much paint? Or to use two pieces of paper if I want to make a really big painting?"

On the one hand she knows all these questions are absurd. I have made it totally clear to her that she has complete permission to do whatever she wants. But it was incredibly eye-opening for her to see how many unconscious assumptions and rules were governing her creative life.

One of the reasons it's hard to be as fully creatively as you might want to be is that we are all riddled with these types of erroneous expectations. We are constantly being bombarded, both internally and externally, with different messages around what is allowable, what is permissible, what fits in with who you think you are and who you think others will allow you to be.

We get pigeonholed. Locked into an identity. We all have a story about who we are creatively. And that story generally comes from what we've been told by other people.

Some of us were granted the artist title. But that designation can be just as inhibiting and suffocating as being told you don't have a creative bone in your body. When you are the "artist" you always have to be proving yourself. You are constantly trying to outrun the critiques. You can't make bad art, you always have to be  original and you don't dare expose yourself as having substandard technique.

Some of us were stamped as "creatively defective". So we never even bother to try and pick up a paintbrush or write a poem because we are led to believe the myth of talent and the even bigger myth that we don't have any.

But there are myriads of other messages that we get around what is allowable creative expression, especially as adults.

One of my favorite activities is to go to a certain local city park where I can be out in nature. This particular park has a wide asphalt trail that winds through the trees and around a lake and is filled with birds and beauty and silence. It's popular but not overly crowded especially during the weekday afternoons which is when I like to be there. I also love bringing my iPod, wearing my Bose headphones and playing music as I walk.

There is one eensie-weensie problem which is that when I'm listening to some of my favorite tunes cranked up to maximum volume on my headset I am inspired to do more than just walk. I'm already pretty jazzed and energized just being outside but then the music makes me want to start toe tapping and even bursting into a little "the hills are alive" tra-la-la-ing , as well as indulging in some of my "I am a rockstar singer" fantasies.

I usually don't follow that impulse, however, because the ironclad cultural message that we all have deep in our bones is that we DO NOT sing and dance out in public on the streets if we are a grownup.

Now, singing and dancing where other people can see you is not COMPLETELY prohibited.

There are certain very proscribed places that it's OK to sort of spontaneously move our bodies to music. It's acceptable to shake our booty on a dance floor in a club or at a wedding. It's still within the realm of acceptable behavior to open wide and sing along with the performers if we are at a concert.

But walking along a trail in the forest and trying out my version of tap dance moves while gamely attempting to hit the high notes on an old Joni Mitchell song? Nuh uh. No way Jose. That is just wrong. If you do something like that you are plain weird. Unacceptable. Not normal. Way far out on the farthermost hinterlands of the bell curve.

However, even though I'm well trained in most popular social mores sometimes I just can't help it. My body simply wants to move when the beat takes hold of me. So I would find myself out there on the trail torn between the desire to appear sane by simply walking in an orderly fashion while fighting off the urge to break into a little impromptu twist and shout and risk being branded as a crazy person.

Occasionally, when I could stand it no longer, and only after making sure the coast was clear by furtively looking behind me and hoping that no one would appear around the next bend in the direction I was headed, I would allow myself to briefly prance and gyrate like Gwen Stefani on stage singing her hit song Hey Baby. And as soon as someone would come into view on the path I would immediately stop my hip twirling and pretend like I was doing nothing more than strolling.

This sneaky strategy was exhausting, completely unsatisfying and at a certain point became patently, obviously ridiculous. I actually like to think of myself as someone who is fairly uninhibited around the whole creative self expression thing. After all, it's MY JOB to help other people gain more freedom around their creativity.

I feel like it's important that I hold down that particular fort, providing some support and role modeling for people to let their creative freak flag fly, hopefully giving them permission to maybe take a few more creative risks. And trusting that if I am seen putting myself out there, it can help other people feel a little less scared and maybe even give it a try.

So I knew I had to change my approach to this whole thing. I knew I had to stop being so constrained by a cultural expectation and limitation that I think is total bullshit anyhow. I had to risk being thought of as weird and crazy. I had to break a social contract.

It was time for me to start dancing in the streets. Or at least on the city park asphalt.

I took the plunge while joyfully jumping around and belting it out to one of my favorite songs by the Ramones, I Want To Be Sedated. Because I was scared, I started my little experiment when I was alone on the path, but when a group of 20 something guys appeared coming over the next hill, I didn't stop.

This was NOT the group I was hoping would be my witnesses on my maiden street dancing voyage. I would have been much happier if it had been a group of 90 somethings who maybe couldn't see and hear all that well. But I knew it was now or never.

I needed to make a stand. And a shimmy.

I was highly uncomfortable because I could feel that it made them uneasy. I could see them looking at me out of the corner of their eye with a WTF? look on their faces that I could easily interpret as being judgmental. And they were also edging away from me slightly as if worried that my obvious unbalanced state could lead to something even more unpleasant than shaking old lady butt.

But we all survived.

They had a story that they could tell about this weird white haired woman they saw making a total fool of herself in the park. And I reclaimed a tiny bit more of my creative freedom to sing and dance wherever I damn well please.