Have you ever felt like you could be doing more with your creative talents and gifts? Maybe this post has the answers you’ve been seeking.

Excerpted from my lagoon blue “Ecosystems” journal on September 21, 2015.

Creative Self-Sabotage

My mind has been in such a funk lately that I feel I must write to make some sense of it all. I haven’t written in this journal in over a month now because my writing has been focused, and [I’ve been] writing “Morning Pages” in a different journal for The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. By the time I’ve written the required three pages, my writing “well” is… not depleted… more like satisfied for the day.

Lately, guilt, self-condemnation, and the like have plagued my mind into thinking I shouldn’t be attempting to write stories, poems, or anything else. I don’t know why I’m so hard on myself and try to sabotage my own happiness. Also, I feel so pulled in so many directions—fiction, non-fiction, short stories, Wattpad and NaNoWriMo contests, new ideas for stories, et. al.

It seems like an endless cycle: Once I figure out how to press on and overcome these issues, something always corrals me back into my discomfort zone as if I’m trying to slip past it and escape—which I am! I finally realized that all these fears I have, and all the “yeah, but” moments I [fall back on as the] answer for every solution, are nothing more than excuses, plain and simple.

So What?

So what if I get started and don’t finish? I can pick it back up later… or maybe it wasn’t worth finishing… or maybe I need to practice—all of which are benefits I can only receive for having started in the first place!

So what if I [might not] win this year’s [2015] NaNoWriMo? At least—again after having started—I now have the skeleton of a new story to work with. You know why else I’m not happy lately? I’ve not given myself permission to “play” for days on end, to experience the thrill of creativity without the constant rambling of my sourpuss inner critic.

I think “So What?” should be my new motto when it comes to fear of failure or fear of creativity. What am I really afraid of anyway? If I’m fearfully and wonderfully made—created—in the image of God (Ps. 139:14), what am I so afraid of that might manifest from within myself in my own creative works?

Buried Talents & Wasted Gifts

Who’s to say my creativity (and the works produced thereof) are not inspired by the Holy Ghost Himself, much like the Scriptures? [Not that my musings are canonical scripture, of course; far from it.] And, if so, am I quenching the Spirit by burying my talents in the dirt (Matt. 25:14–30) where no one will be able to critique, enjoy, or even be changed by them?

What does this sort of treatment of the gifts that God has instilled in me say about how I value them? There is no value in burying your talents and gifts; you consider to be dead what you choose to bury. Maybe this is why I’ve felt so lifeless inside for so long.

I feel the answer is not wishy-washy double-mindedness. Instead, I feel that true repentance is in order. A genuine, dedicated change of direction, attitude, and renewed faith that what God has placed in me He expects—no, demands—it to be released into the world. I must truly commit to change and to knowing the truth, no matter what sort of lies my inner critic—my flesh—tries to convince me of otherwise. With God’s help, this change I declare and repent today!

Amen and amen!

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