CREATIVE FRUSTRATION

Copyright Bela Johnson, published in Inner Tapestry, January/February, 2005

Do you suffer from creative frustration? A blocked desire to express something essential to your being? Perhaps this longing asserts itself as a pervasive sense of melancholy, as though if only there was something you suddenly realized you should be doing, you might rally to the task. It does not matter what we do for a living nor what we feel we are accomplishing in life. From time to time, many if not most of us suffer feelings which, if they could speak, might say something like, Is this all there is? We don't have to be artists to feel creatively blocked. How we hold ourselves back from following our innate creative urges could fill volumes, perhaps numerous as the works instructing us on how to spark that creativity, once again. Some of these ideas and practices work better than others, but too often we find ourselves at the same crossroads between creation and stagnation. How can we reclaim the visionary within, when we least feel able? It may begin with something as simple as breathing.

Let's consider for a minute inspiration, a word meaning both something that stimulates the mind to create as well as the drawing in of breath. Perhaps therein lies its secret meaning. Within this single word, we find a powerful catalyst for reclaiming the imaginative spark we feel we have lost. It is well known that when we are stressed, some hold our breath, even causing us to sigh over and over. Others respire in a much shallower manner, encouraged by hours of sitting in a body designed for motion. This chest breathing cuts inhalation off to the lower abdomen and thus restricts the flow of energy to the lower body. When we withhold breath or vital life force in this manner, we keep it from seeking a ground through us into the earth. We begin to feel less animated. Indeed some of us may feel so little vigor that we slip into something akin to depression. What underlies this lassitude may be a form of soul sickness, and no one describes this better than Shaun McNiff in his book Art Heals, "Art does not profess to rid the world of suffering and wounds. It does something with them, realizing that the soul is truly lost when afflictions cannot be put to use."

Yet what meaning has art to one who feels no creative pull? How can we reawaken that sense of wonder we all felt as children, the feeling that everything from a cloud to a cooking utensil is potent with magic? Julia Cameron in her soul-stirring The Artists Way offers, "For those of us who have become artistically anorectic yearning to be creative and refusing to feed that hunger in ourselves so that we become more and more focused on our deprivation a little authentic luxury can go a long way." She then goes on to define luxury as having nothing to do with "...penthouse views, designer clothes, zippy foreign sports cars or first-class travel." She speaks instead of the luxury of time... "time with friends, time with family, above all...time with [oneself] with no agendas of preternatural accomplishment."

Let the time allocated to self be luxurious rather than time spent checking out by watching television or staying busy doing routine tasks. Begin with the breath, letting come what may and being with whatever arises. Chances are, if we are attached to attaining some kind of peace, chaos will ensue. This may appear as disordered thoughts or perhaps a loud noise outside. These distractions can be a function of the Trickster, which we've spoken of before (Hanging in the Balance, January 2004). This is an aspect of the unconscious mind which Dr. Larry Dossey describes in Healing Beyond the Body. The Trickster energy emerges when we become too rooted in a singular way of thinking or being, wanting what we want and not welcoming what is. The Trickster provides the chaos needed to get us unstuck. McNiff says if we welcome this chaos, welcome our fears and resistance and stay with the rhythm that ensues, if we stick with our process and listen to our breath and body movements as opposed to the mind's expectations, we will move into our creative being, once again. "Stuck," says McNiff, "is being somewhere other than where you are."

It is also important to know how we provoke these inventive energies. If we can work with how we flow best rather than to try and fit ourselves into a creative mold, expression comes more freely. Some of us need the discipline of setting aside daily time to create. Most art, music or writing teachers encourage and even demand we do this. "Writers write," preaches writing teacher Larry Donner (portrayed by comedian Billy Crystal) in Throw Mama From the Train. And most of us do. Yet Larry himself remains stuck in what is commonly referred to as writer's block until he reclaims his passion for life, spurred on by his student Owen, played by Danny de Vito. Larry needs Owen's zany Trickster energy to spark his creative buzz. A regular allotment of time set aside for inspiration does not mean that we sacrifice our spontaneity and joy for living. In fact creativity feeds from the stuff our lives are made of. If we deny or suppress this engagement with life itself, we eventually reach an impasse which can go on indefinitely, lasting months or even years. We may become sick, depressed or worse. The longer the need to create goes unsatisfied, the further away from our essential nature we wander until the return demands a healing journey of sorts. In this case, a system such as Cameron's twelve-week program to reclaim our creativity may be most helpful. Yet we can always return to the breath. Setting aside time each day to sit with ourselves and breathe in awareness is essential to moving what is stuck.

Others of us work best when staying with our internal process, listening for inner promptings from the depths of our being while remaining actively engaged with intentions directed toward the appropriate step in our creative endeavor. This too requires discipline, albeit discipline of a different sort. For if the fine thread between the inner amassing of creative energy and its outer manifestation is broken, we remain stuck in the dream and risk losing its expression. A finely tuned inner attentiveness is required of us, where we follow our muse no matter what must be laid aside at the time she arrives. This approach is certainly not for everyone, and seems to most often call to those of us with the planet Mercury in significant astrological placements. Mercury is, after all, the winged-footed messenger god who has been dubbed, among other things, the Trickster himself, the Alchemist, and the Magician. Mercury rules the mind and is elementally quicksilver. For those of us with strong mercurial energies, trying to force and discipline ourselves to a daily schedule of creative time can cause great mental stress and even a mental breakdown. The challenge is to stay in touch with our vision in this unique way, and again the breath is a useful tool to help us remain creatively in sync.

When we go with the flow, we create our lives, moment-to-moment. In Garry Ross' movie Pleasantville, David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are all too aware of the messy complications of modern society. David sits in front of the television, watching reruns of Pleasantville, a spoof on such Œsixties shows as Ozzie and Harriet. Jennifer is a self-described slut. A t.v. repairman (Don Knotts) suddenly appears onscreen, giving them a magic remote control. When they find themselves transformed into Pleasantville's black and white world as Bud and Mary Sue, their ingenuity reveals its limits and ultimately transforms not only these two but all that surrounds them. At first, Jennifer thinks that it is simply passion that converts the two-toned characters into color. Eventually though, she realizes that this new dimension of life is imbued with something more subtle and meaningful. When the characters begin to honestly reflect on feelings and longings, when they begin to challenge the status quo and create life with heart; when they begin to live soulfully, their world becomes awash with brilliant color. Creativity, lived through them, changes their whole world.

Everyday places, people and things become food for artistic expression if we observe them openly and with care. Yet if we do not allocate regular reflective time for ourselves, if we fill the hours with the demands of others and/or anything but our own creative endeavors, we starve the artist within. Let's not get caught in the inner dialogue which reinforces I am not an artist. I am not creative. Nature is constantly reinventing herself, and we exemplify the human aspect of that natural world. We are all artists. Creative expression, and the key here is ex-pression, the actual acting out of this impulse, gives soul a place in the manifest world. No matter how we express what is unique to us, whether it be a small flair to setting our table, the unique colors we choose when we dress ourselves for the day, or a work of art for its own sake, we can make a statement that impresses originality in the corner of the universe we call home. Again from McNiff, "Artists are not always healed people, but they can teach us how to engage the transformative aspects of emotional upheaval rather than experience the madness that occurs when imagination turns against itself."