It has always seemed wildly unfair to me that as soon as my creative muse opens the floodgates to some juicy creative project, almost immediately my judging mind and inner critic whips into a frenzy of activity. 

For a long while it was one of those annoyingly weird existential puzzles. It didn’t make any sense AT ALL as to why I would be so terribly 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 and began to notice some interesting patterns.

Bringing something new into the world means I have to go into unfamiliar territory. My creative soul is constantly goading, pushing, harassing and leading me into the wild unknown. It is totally fascinated by what’s around the next bend and what it hasn’t yet 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 myself as I can in the short time I have here on this incredible planet.

And all that gung-ho, let’s just go off willy nilly without a map and a guaranteed outcome energy makes the judging ego 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 inner critic. 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 inner critics latest “tough love” attempts to keep me out of harms way.

I try and remind myself that my fear based mind 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.

And to remember what I know deep in my bones based on long experience which is that the magical goodness ALWAYS happens … and always WILL happen… whenever I make the choice to allow my creative soul and intuitive heart lead the way.