Look Up, Dear Friend
Have you heard this lately? You can do it...
Have you said it to yourself lately? Hrm...
No?
Well, if you have been a little critical of yourself lately, let me tell you, it needn't be so.
I know I've been hard on myself quite a bit, and all that negativity certainly didn't help me reach further as I was falling short.
So why do it?
Why push down what so earnestly wants to rise up?
Why quell what wants to grow and embrace the sun?
As creatives, it certainly doesn't make us feel better to miss the mark. It's sometimes the only thing we truly want, is to finish that story because it resonates so deeply within us.
So why work so hard to criticize it? To stall? To talk ourselves out of it?
It might not be that you want to, but that you simply don't know any other way.
Could there be a voice from your past that ingrained itself inside your head? Inside your way of thinking?
A voice telling you it was never going to be good enough?
Those are sometimes the ancient forces that propel us into self-defeating behaviors we're not always consciously aware of.
Yet, snagging onto those moments and being fully objective about what we are doing to ourselves is sometimes the biggest, most important life changing practice we can develop.
Hearing yourself put yourself down and recognizing what you're doing can be a first step in turning an inner Resistance into an inner Reservoir.
Sometimes, we so desperately search outside ourselves for reservoirs to water us and help us over our negativity, while we are inwardly feeding a fire that never lets the seeds inside of us truly grow.
Look up, dear friend.
Feel an inner you looking down and watering you.
Search for a bit of acceptance and gentleness that can come only from yourself.
Even if just to accept your less than perfect nose. Or your less than perfect poem. Or an unfinished project you have been avoiding...
You are a perfect you right now.
And your work in progress is perfect as it is right now.
Not to say it won't continue to get better in time as you refine it and polish it.
It will.
But right now, just for today, it is ok that it is raw.
Unfinished.
It is acceptable that you are still working on it, still searching for the right words, the right colors...truly. It IS okay.
Believe that this is worth you continuing because it is YOU who are doing it. YOU are the only one who can write your story as only you see it from within your mind. YOU are the only one who can interpret this creative project in your own unique way.
The story has worth simply because it is yours.
And even if you are the only one who will ever read it...
It is still worth writing.
And as hard as it is to write, if you lived through it, you know...deep down...you are stronger than the words you are committing to the page.
And the story itself will stand as a testament to your strength.
Your wonderfulness.
Trust today that it is worth it. That one paragraph, that one chapter, even just one good sentence.
It is possible.
You might not even have started yet - might not even have told a single living soul about the project you dream about in your mind.
Yet I know...
I was there!
I was afraid it was stupid, it was not enough...
But it was.
And it still is.
And it will be true for you as well.
And I won't lie and say the sun will come out and the path will be smooth...
Every little step will be a challenge, and days will be foggy, it's true.
That's okay.
That's going to make the effort worth it in the end.
There is time to brainstorm even just a bare bones beginning to your project.
Or a sentence or two.
Who cares if it is not perfect?
It will be real because it came from you. Wonderful you!
If not now...when?
