Overcoming Self-Sabotage
Obstacles On The Creative Path
I believe the creative life is of the utmost importance. Yet, beliefs do not always translate into behaviour. Often the creative world escapes me. Why?
The state I am in when creating is not the state I am in most of the time. Though I experience these creative flow states with great enjoyment, there are competing desires at work. A surfer is not always surfing. The journey to the wave is as difficult to master as the wave itself.
When I wake in the morning, if I am extraordinarily lucky, I might have a shred of creative inspiration simmering somewhere in my brain. If it is like ninety-nine percent of days in Emily’s brain, I awake with an ignited pre-frontal cortex — the part of your brain that makes decisions and plans — aware of many many things more important than wistful, romantic creativity. Creativity is a luxury to be reserved for the times when everything else is done, and there is nobody else around that might be needing company or attention. It could not possibly be that a slow, reflective time of creativity might be the path toward a more rewarding, fulfilling day.
No, this beloved brain tells me that I better get up and at ’em. This is the mind that understands creativity to be filled with objectives. That I must get working on my marketing strategy, I must develop my website, I must find avenues for getting my music heard and paid for. While these are all important elements of a self-run business, they are also all separate from the act of creating. They are not the same as the product that I can be convinced I must sell to justify its creation. There are always things to do, many of them dull and uninteresting, thus creating more and more resistance to engaging in the creative process.
I confuse the two. I confuse the process of building a business with the process of creating. The logistics win against the abstract because I can make a list of what I need to accomplish, while the creative spirit cannot be so easily wrangled into a to-do list.
I understand that experiences of presence and of accepting the inevitable mystery of life yield much more interesting days.
Yet, at the same time I want to know what it is I am supposed to do. I want to know a clear path that I can follow to get to where I want to be. I can be convinced that security and predictability are better than mindfulness and openness. I cling to what is supposed to be. With that perspective, I am in the driver’s seat and must do all I can to make life work out. Assuming all control, I feel responsible for things such as every aspect of my daughter’s development, not allowing for her unique and mysterious independence that develops out of more than just my behaviour.
This pre-frontal cortex, busy-mind-brain is the culprit that can drive much of my life if I am not careful. This is why the creative life is the most powerful and the most elusive tool that I have. How can something be the most important and the most avoided at the same time? Why is it that we run from that which brings us life?
If I knew the answers to these questions, perhaps I would be closer to overcoming resistance to the creative life. Or perhaps I would be spending so much time on asking these questions that I would continue to avoid my creative work. I used to want to know why I awoke feeling acute stress. I wanted to create some sort of pathology that would have a clear path to recovery. However, the less I asked why, and the more I found ways to overcome that stress, I did not care so much anymore about why it existed.
In the science world, one asks questions, and forms hypotheses in order to start the process of answering questions. The problem is, asking questions is exactly what keeps me from answering them.
Let’s say I want to answer this question: Why is it that we run from what brings us life?
I could begin by asking others about their experience to gather anecdotal data. I then proceed to explore existing scientific research about self-sabotage in humans, and where it could originate from. I find studies on the parts of the brain that are activated when engaging in meaningful activities. Additionally, I explore brain activity when engaging in activities commonly employed as a cognitive distraction from one’s deepest desires (Hello Instagram). I might garner insight from those that engage consistently in the creative life, and those that constantly avoid it. I might study a compilation of surveys asking those that engage in their passions regularly how they avoid avoidance. You might finish reading this with a cognitive understanding of why we avoid meaningful pursuits in place of that which is easier, more comfortable, more certain.
While that sounds like an interesting topic, I am not writing to provide answers to one of our many human fallibilities. Rather, the goal here is exoneration of whatever crimes you have committed against yourself to believe that the creative life is just not yours for the taking.
What do we have with our answers except the creation of more questions? If I could explain to you why you are not succeeding, does that allow you to succeed? Perhaps it can point you in a more productive direction, but you are still one step away from the immersive experience of the creative flow state. By reading this you are still one step away.
It is not the answers giving clarity to our questions that make life easier. It is a meaningful engagement with one’s craft that brings a sense of ease and purpose.
After that, it becomes an act of discipline. To find space in that productive mind for the unproductive yet mind-expanding flow. To see the thoughts of self-sabotage, and watch them go. To make the time and space for what you know you have the capacity for. To let yourself be taught by the experience, rather than the reasoning. The more you experience it, the more you will understand the path. There will be no questions, because they will be silently answered in the shift from tension to flow, from dam to waterfall.
