bookmark_borderWhat to do when you loath your creative output

How to understand and overcome “creative dysmorphia”.

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Photo by Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash

For some of us, creativity can be both a beloved and much needed companion while simultaneously, acting like an unrelenting berating beast, a harsh judge and critic.

For a decade, I have walked over coals trying to find a place of peace when I create work, whether it’s writing, printmaking or even cooking.

I’ve read almost every book on the fear of art making and creativity and while the advice was helpful and I’d be enthused for a few days, I’d inevitably slowly slip back into loathing my work and by extension, into self-loathing. It was a perpetual cycle of Make. Hate. Loath. Stop. Make. Hate….you get the idea.

I’ve struggled with this for a long time, but I recently had an epiphany. As a beginner, what you produce isn’t going to be anything like the image inside your head, to produce the type of work that requires years of practice. Ira Glass refers to this as “The Gap”. He beautifully explains that you have good taste but the work you produce as a beginner disappoints you. He says a lot of people ‘never get past this phase; they quit.” Hello!

But I take it one step further. Those of us who are highly self-critical, self-judgement, perfectionists, can harbour distorted beliefs and thoughts, but I also think this can lead to literally seeing things in a distorted way, what I call Creative Dysmorphia.

This is a really challenging dysfunction, hard to change, but an interview I listened to recently broke through.

A little background first. Like anyone who grows up with overly critical parents, I believed that making mistakes was to be avoided at all costs, and as I kept making them, (show me a child who doesn’t), I naturally associated this inability to do things right the first time, as a flaw in my capabilities, including my intelligence. You know the internal dialogue, “Are you kidding me! You stuffed that up again? What the heck is wrong with you? Seriously, how many times do you have to be told?”

Anyone who’s had these conversations in their head and done some work to understand these voices, will know that these are not our original thoughts. This is NOT how a child thinks. A child will say, “Oops, I spilt my milk. Ooh, look at how it flows around the table and makes a funny pattern!”

Let’s be clear here. I’m not blaming parents who do the best they can with what they know. Nor am I saying we shouldn’t teach children to take care or avoid dangerous places, people etc. In many households, spilling milk can be a very big deal if you don’t have any money and each drop of milk is as precious to you as gold. But there are gentle ways of helping a child understand consequences. Both my parents grew up with very little money, plus they both had dysfunctional parents themselves, so they did not learn how to inform and educate their children without using harsh language.

While it’s helpful to know this, those early ingrained messages are cemented into our subconscious, and therefore are harder to shift, and finding new ways of changing our deep-seated beliefs takes time and effort.

The other downside of constantly feeling like you’re incompetent and not good at anything, is that for some of us it can lead to feeling not just hopeless, but helpless too. Feeling hope-less means that you no longer allow yourself to hope that things can change or get better, and that includes your own creative output.

When I started learning to draw as a teenager, I was eager and thought I could improve with time. But as the criticisms started to bite hard, I associated my other failings in life, with everything I did. In her book, Change Your Thinking, Sarah Edelman refers to overgeneralising as drawing “negative conclusions about ourselves, other people and life situations.” Common terms include, ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘everybody’. ‘I always mess things up’ is one I know well, particularly when it comes to creativity.

Clearly perfectionism is at play here and because it’s such a hard demon to beat, it can lead to a sense of disempowerment and and so we give up. I write more about this here. And, no I’ve not posted a story in…forever…due to perfectionism and hating my work!

Feeling helpless to change situations as a child also leads to feeling helpless as an adult. While some parts of my life succeeded, eg: work and relationships, the thing closest to my heart, the thing that made me who I am, a creative person, failed miserably. I‘d subconsciously convinced myself that it was better not to try anything creative, rather than discover that my deepest love was unattainable. I was convinced, that I would never be good enough at creative pursuits. I’d believed I was totally flawed as a human being.

So, what was it about that interview that struck a chord?

The interview was conducted by Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard and her guest was Turia Pitt. The talk was called Turia Pitt on determination, defying expectations and taking up space.

Despite learning about how many people overcome challenges over the years, like a slow water drip forming a hollow in a rock, it was Julia’s interview with Turia that finally cracked the concrete in my subconscious brain and let in the light of awareness.

For a start, Julia Gillard is a tower of strength in her own right. As PM, She endured constant critique about her appearance and was subjected to horrid misogynistic behaviour.

Her guest, Turia is also a prime example of grit and determination. She had not only become a successful mining engineer in a male-dominated space but she also defied the odds when at 24, during a marathon, she was caught in a grassfire and sustained burns to 65% of her body.

Turia not only survived but she also returned to work, became a mum and returned to running, her determination helped her defy the odds of not just basic survival, but she has gone on to grow and flourish. Her story was so inspiring it made me reflect on what my own response would have been if I was in her shoes.

I hate to say it, but while my instinct would have been to fight for survival, my response to recovery might have been one of helplessness because that’s all I knew. Self-determination and strength were not qualities I learnt growing up.

So, what do we do when we discover that as children, we were not gifted the most essential life skills we need, to not just survive but to thrive as adults? We read books, get help from a counsellor and listen to interviews with people who show us that there are other ways to respond to life’s challenges.

Well meaning people often tell me that I just need to keep practicing, keep making my art and I will improve. Until now, this kind of advice has not helped because more often than not, my beginner art looks so ugly to me, and I just toss the thing out in disgust and walk away, vowing to never return! But I do. What’s in our hearts will not be denied. The pain associated with these feelings tells me that this is important to me and I have to find a way to remove the shackles.

When I recently reflected on my ‘hate’ reaction to my art, I saw it almost like some kind of body dysmorphia except it’s a “creativity dysmorphia”. Could it be that my brain has internalised so much of the criticism I heard as a child that it now view even my art in a distorted way?

According to neuroscience, yes it does. We all have brains with a negativity bias, but layer this with negative conditioning and of course you’ll double the effect of this bias and distorted way of thinking and seeing.

I’m sure you’ve seen this in action. You’ll be with a friend and comment on what a beautiful day it is and her response? “Yeah, but it won’t last. I heard rain and storms are coming.” Or, say to your friend’s father, “Your daughter is a good woman.” Her father’s response, “Oh yeah? You should have seen how naughty she was when she was a little girl.”

People with a strong negativity bias, are unable to say, “Yes ,it is a lovely day” and leave it at that, or “Yes, she is a good woman” without going to the past and focussing on the negative.

So, my dear friends who have inherited strong negativity biases and negative self-talk, I invite you to use Turia’s or any other strong person like Nelson Mandela, or a survivor of war, injury, or abuse, someone you can relate to, and try to embody some of their strengths and skills. Let’s channel the strengths of our Inspirational Person.

This week I’ve landed a horrid flu and have been feeling sorry for myself, but I remembered Turia’s fight against her horrific burns and I felt a bit ridiculous for whining like a baby. I thought of Turia, had a pep talk with myself, and found a little nugget of strength rise inside of me. I stopped complaining immediately. If a young 24-year-old Turia can do it, so can I.

So how does this relate to creativity? Very nicely in fact. Here’s how I use this new information.

Being aware of my negativity bias and possibly some kind of “creativity dysmorphia”, I visualise myself doing some much-needed and well overdue repairs inside my brain. I see myself culling and replacing those thick negative neural pathways and replacing them with life-affirming, helpful ones. I know those old thoughts were developed to help me as a child, but they no longer serve me and they have to go.

Emotionally this is painful work, but I remind myself of the courage of people like Turia who have to not only fight challenging emotional battles, but physical ones too. Again. If she can do it, so can I.

I don’t want to diminish the pain of self-loathing but in my new attempt at restoring some positive thoughts, I’m making an effort to focus on the gifts in my life, like family, friends and physical health.

So, how to accept and not loathe what you make?

Before I start any creative pursuit, especially the ones I know might trigger me, try the following:

  1. Put on some music that you love. Dance a little and shake out any tension.
  2. Light a candle and take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes if possible and visualise releasing all expectations. You might want to see your high expectations as a prickly seed pod that you place on a large leaf and send it floating away down a nearby stream. Or perhaps you can visualise an elephant stopping on it and crushing it to pieces. Whatever works for you.
  3. Grab an A5 or A4 piece of paper, and in large letters, write, “Whatever comes out of my efforts today, will help me move forward”, and place the paper next to where you’re working. Look at it regularly especially when those icky feelings start bubbling up into your head.

The last point is important. My well-meaning friends and mentors were right, the only way to improve is to practice. At times the work will sing, at other times it will totally suck! But, the key is to nuture that growing seed of determination and strength, channel your inspirational person and keep going!

I’ve realised that as we improve, we will naturally want to push the boundary a little, so in effect, we are constantly beginners. But, each time we master a skill, we are one step further up the ladder. Here’s the thing, the climb upwards never ends if we are to pursue growth and improvement.

Don’t be disheartened by that last comment. It’s also ok to stop and enjoy the view for a while when you succeed at reaching the next step. Just remember that the gift of climbing a staircase is that you are going up, and the view is way better up there.

Accepting even our ‘ugly’ work is essential to improving. Without ‘mistakes’ we don’t know what works and what doesn’t. So keep gently climbing friends and I hope the self-loathing eases and the visual dysmorphia morphs into loving eyes that see things as they really are, not distortions from old demons.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

bookmark_borderLost in time on the telegraph line

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Image: Casey Horner

“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.” – Anne Lamott

One of my goals for 2018 was to sit and eat breakfast, without distractions, and certainly not scoffing my food whilst simultaneously putting on a load of washing, and reading a book. I wanted to slow my life down, and breakfast seemed like a good place to start.

Dr Joe Dispenza says that the only way to change a habit is to change the way you do things, so to have a more mindful breakfast, I changed from eating in multiple places, to sitting on my very neglected front porch. As I re-familiarised myself with this lovely space, I took a moment to look around me.  What caught my attention was the  telegraph poles and their gently swaying wires that weave their way through my  suburb. These tall, lanky poles and wires, instantly transported me to another time and place, to my younger years, travelling those long distances in the family car. It was a time when journeys to a new holiday destination took days to complete. The journey itself was a mini holiday as we ducked and weaved into cute little towns, each with its own unique architecture and personality. It was a time when we would have to stop and eat at a local fuel station diner, as there were no fast food outlets back then. Yes, those drives seemed to take forever, but then, it meant we had more time to just be, the pace of life, slower, gentler. We had time to stop and eat, time to visit the local botanic gardens, or buy some local produce or hand-made wares. Every town and every landscape was unique. These days, car trips are completed in a quarter of the time, thanks to super highways and byways, we skip the smaller towns and gulp our food while our cars gulp up the miles, on monotonous and continues streams of ashphalt.

While there were challenges back in the day, I still look back with fond memories because life was simpler. There weren’t the distractions of social media, 24 hour news cycles, endless stories of disasters. Road trips consisted of big old, spongy, roomy cars, with the voices of bored children drowned out by a static-filled radio station. When the game of ‘I Spy’ had exhausted itself, and our throats were hoarse from loudly belting out our favourite car tunes, there was little to do, but stare out the window. Kids these days might burst a blood vessel at the idea of not having an electronic device to entertain themselves, but I loved looking out the car window in a trance-like state, watching the road’s edges move in and out like a grey wave, melting into the asphalt under our car, and then there was the telegraph poles. I’d amused myself by trying to focus on each pole as it came closer and then zipped past blurring into the backdrop of the countryside. But it was the wires that I loved to watch the most. I loved the way they looked like they’d been delicately draped across each pole, how they seemed to move like gentle waves rising up to kiss the top of the telegraph poles and then slowly drooping back down like a jilted lover, only to rise again once more. It felt like a metaphor for life. Up, down, up, down. Continuous lines that went on, unbroken, no matter how many towns we passed. I was fascinated by how a simple wire could connect people, and before mobile phones, was often the difference between life and death. I would be mesmerised watching the sway of these simple strands of metal, interrupted occasionally by a flock of birds, happily surveing their domain.

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I would often just stare, looking but not seeing, my mind viewing but simultaneously not thnking. I think this is what I miss the most. I was lucky, as a child, it was a time of greater freedom, few responsibilities, of not having to worry about anything, but mostly, it was having time to zone out. It wasn’t a deliberate time out, as we seek to do these days with a scheduled mediation or mindfulness practice, it just happened naturally as a part of everyday life, a time when we lived more slowly and in the moment.

In our ridicouls drive for economic growth, we have created lives filled with endless chatter, input, output, deadlines, manic drives for growth, that there is little time for gazing. When’s the last time you looked at the night sky, or sat quietly watching the sun rise, or simply sat in a park, without a book or device and just watched the trees sway, people walking, clouds emerging and disappearing? I know I can’t remember.

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The other day, I was due to meet a friend for a coffee. She didn’t turn up because she had double-booked herself, so I sat there and wondered, “What do I do now?” I didn’t bring anything with me to occupy my time, because I knew I’d be busy catching up with my friend, and I’d gone to a little extra effort putting on a nice outfit. I thought, do I sit here alone and treat myself to a lovely cup of tea and just watch the café as it goes about its daily rituals, or go home? I didn’t really want to go home because I was in the mood for some social exposure, one of the downsides of working from home. I decided that I was going to test myself to see how I would manage sitting alone, with nothing to distract me. I’ll be honest and say I found it difficult to start with. The not-so-nice part of my mind was trying to tell me that if I stayed, I might look like a looser, sitting there alone, obviously I had no friends! But the wise part of me said, who said there’s anything wrong with enjoying some time on your own, enjoying your own company. Plus, the creativity I’d been trying to foster, I now know, flourishes when I allow myself time be still and empty, creating a space for inspiration to drop in.

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It was such a freeing and inspiring experience, that I promised myself that I would take myself out on a date again. Whether it’s sitting alone in a park, a cafe, or staring at telegraph wires floating in mid air, I understood the great benefits of creating head space. I’m not so great at dedicated meditation practice, but I am able to just sit and stare into the distance, to just be still, with my eyes open, feeling, more than seeing all that is around me. I’ve decided to stop berating myself for not being a great “traditional” meditator and instead, I’ve found a method that allows me to be physically and mentally still. Sometimes I find stillness when I draw or sew, but the body is still active. To be able to be fully present in mind and body is a real gift. It slows down our nervous system, calms our breathing and just gives our neural circuits, a much needed rest.

So, as we watch as the machine slowly wind up after the holiday break, consider making time to if not stop, at least slow down long enough to notice life around you. It seems counterintuitive to take 10 minutes out of our crazy busy days to indulge in a little quiet time, but just like an over-tired toddler, a short nap or break, leaves us refreshed and able to tackle the noise and demands of the rest of our days and weeks.

By gifting yourself time to notice a telegraph pole, or opening your eyes to the magic of simple events in your neighbourhood, you may not only create a little peace inside yourself, but you may also notice how some of life’s simple sights and events, when put together, create that rich canvas  that is the lived experience.

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What helps you zone out and find a moment of inner calm? What have you noticed today? Why not write these in a journal. You might be surprised at how some of the simplest things can bring you some peace-filled pleasure.

bookmark_borderDaffodils and Memories

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“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” – Dr Seuss

This morning, as I woke to a chilly morning, I had a hankering for daffodils. It happens every year when the weather turns cooler. But rather than think of these golden  globes with fondness, I felt melancholy, a deepening pit of sadness, ironic given that they are such a bright and cheery flower. I thought the sadness was due to the fact that I nurture a secret dream of moving to the country, a place with winters cold enough to grow daffodils. Sadly, it’s too warm where I live for these bursts of sunshine to grow. Perhaps my melancholy was just an unfulfilled dream that left me feeling blue, instead of sunny yellow.

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Born a forensic psychologist, I wanted to uncover the thoughts behind these feelings. Why would thinking of such a pretty, happy flower make me sad? As I probed my feelings, I realised that daffodils remind me of a very happy time in my childhood when we would spend school holidays at a family friend’s farm. It was a time when I got to see more of my father, and the pressures and worries of city living were magically erased as we drove past the farm gate. I loved the draughty old farm house, the open fire that smoked like crazy and left us smelling like burnt sausages, the crispy frost that snapped blades of grass in two as we raced to the top of the hill, collapsing on the grass, simultaneous gasping for air and laughing…and then there were the daffodils. I’d begin my daily vigil beside the little mounds, as the hidden miracles pushed and shoved at the earth, striving to burst their sunny disposition from the dark and slowly warming earth. Watching their challenging attempts at emerging from the dark and morphing into a new creation was to become more than just a childhood memory. It became my life’s metaphor when I faced my own challenges and was called to emerge from dark times, changed, from whatever life experiences I was dealt at the time.

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My sentimental feelings weren’t just about childhood memories. There was a deeper sadness beneath it. For 10 years I’ve struggled through a range of ongoing and undiagnosed health issues. More days than I care to remember have been spent in bed, or trapped inside my own home. It’s been as though my own metaphoric daffodils have been continually moving through the dark earth, with unrelenting regularity, struggling to find a way to push out of the dark and into the light, until now.

Through journaling and with the energetic help of a lunar eclipse, I’ve come to understand the sadness. For years I’ve been fixated on physical healing and addressing my anxiety and fear based thoughts, and while I understand where my fears come from and have begun to address these, I’d missed something really important. Underneath it all, lay a deep wound that needed healing. Yes, it’s that onion layering thing, and just like the skins of a daffodil bulb, I was removing the outer skins to reach a core wound.

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Painful emotions are messengers alerting us to disharmony between our heart and mind. For me, the sadness aroused by the daffodils came from the sadness I felt for my younger self, the little girl I once was, and how her life had turned out. Don’t get me wrong, I have so many things to be grateful for, truly I do, but I also feel a sense of loss at the many hours, days, weeks spent in bed or at home, too unwell to join the other mothers at school morning teas, or to travel, to do more than the bare minimum with my children, being unable to extend my circle of friends as I often had to decline invitations to social events, eventually those invites stop coming, and to the woman who I thought I would become and who would change the world. A thought leader, shaker, mover, change maker. I was going to fully embody my Aquarian characteristics, the humanitarian,  the disruptor. None of this came to pass. All that happened was that I disrupted my own world and with great ferocity.

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And so I was stuck, feeling sadness, regret and unsure how to deal with it. I know that in all painful situations, there is often a nugget of wisdom hidden within the pain. What could I glean from this painful memory? And so I began to journal.

What I found was that I wanted was to contact and warn my 10 year old self and say, “When you meet the guy with the weird moustache, steer clear. See that fancy looking job? Don’t take it. Your boss will suck you dry and slam dunk your self esteem. Every time your mother yells at you for making a mistake, it’s not your mistake that’s got her riled up, it’s her own life and frustrations bubbling up to the surface. You just got in the way of some emotionally toxic spray that was unleashed, and sadly, some of it will land on you.”

Then I realised I that all my rumination, worries, sadness wouldn’t change a thing.

Instead I stumbled upon a healing formula for my wound.

  • The past is done! Part of the pain was from frustration at not being able to change the past. Realising that what’s done is done allows some closure.
  • I did the best with what I had. Remembering this fact is vital to healing past wounds. We create pain when looking back from the rich tapestry of knowledge and experience we’ve gained and trying to see a past situation from our current wiser self. If we’d known then what we know now, we’d make different choices, but the fact remains that we didn’t know and it’s why we did what we did, with what we had at our disposal at the time.
    • Healing balm mantra – Apply Daily: “I did what I did with what I knew then. I did the best I could. I send my old self love and know I did the best I could.”
  • Forgiveness. Sigh! Forgiveness is the key to healing so many wounds, yet I find it the toughest of processes to work with. I was blaming my current adult self for stuffing up the potential life of my younger self. That’s crazy I hear you say. How could you have known what was coming? Exactly. This is faulty thinking at its best, then add to it my own peculiar ability to blame myself for everything that goes wrong (see item 2 – doing the best with what you’ve got) and you’ve got little room for forgiveness. In this case, fault finding comes from that sticky toxic spray I mentioned earlier. The one that made me think I was to blame for everything that went wrong. Those toxic remarks from care givers can be tough to dislodge and this is where self love and forgiveness helps. As psychologist Rick Hanson says, …”the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones.” So, it’s time to develop a Teflon brain for negative experiences and velcro for the good ones.

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So with this special lunar eclipse entering our skies and consciousness, I’m going to lay to rest into the dark earth, the old ways of seeing my childhood, mistakes of adulthood and slough off some of that toxic spray. With the new moon, I call in new skin to heal my wound and layer it with love and forgiveness and from this rich soil, new daffodils of wisdom can grow and shine their sunny faces towards mine.

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Image: flikr

What old pain can you heal and return to the earth, and what new nugget of wisdom will you add to your blooming flowers of knowledge and insight?

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