Fearless creativity

Do you really fail, if you try?

I have been thinking about what I fear most: failure or success? My anxious brain can come down on either side. When unused my imagination has a way of turning in on me like this. I think that it caused years of depression. It’s no longer playful but instead hardwired to see what can go wrong. Julia Cameron has written that “the net result is the same” because our fear makes us stop.

And although week nine of The Artist’s Way programme is about many things, what was coming up for me was considering creative U-turns I had made: unfinished projects, broken promises and the reasons that they hadn’t happened. At first writing in my morning pages, I was really petulant. My inner creative child was hurt by the idea that my failures were creative U-turns at all. It’s alright for her, I thought, she’s had things published…if you have never achieved anything you can’t have failed.

And then of course it struck me, not just that my inner child was telling me exactly what blocked me the most: a fear that I would fail. But it also occurred to me the many times I had tried things and they had failed. Then the floodgates opened. Who knew I was still bothered about a school play I didn’t get to be in or that I wanted desperately to put on my own production. Of course I do know because, as I wrote last week, part of my fantasy life includes revisiting drama as well as novel writing. But these hurts I can reflect on also provide a map to steps I might take, although there is a lot of fear. Maybe by sharing the dreams somewhere, I am starting to align to them.

It is not without fear that I share my journey and that is a step forward I think. I think creativity has to have this sense that you are “daring greatly” or it probably isn’t quite the right thing.

I have owned a copy of Feel the Fear and DO IT Anyway for years. Most of my life anxieties and fear of failure have plagued me but this week I dug the book out again. Along with Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. As I come towards the end of this programme, I feel the need to have some books to help me on my recovery ready and waiting. Because while this process is all about creative recovery, it also asks a lot of you opening up, personally and emotionally. I am trying to find ways to be gentle to that upset inner creative child.

What I think that these self-help programmes are all telling me about creativity is to build each day. And be vulnerable so that I step further out of my comfort zone each time. Because afterall, do you really fail, if you try?