Are you trying really hard?
To birth your work? Be inspired? Consistent? Are you trying hard to make money? You feel workouts need to be hard in order to work? In order to get ahead you have to push? Deep down you believe it needs to be hard. You need to be the struggling artist or you’re expecting it to be difficult.
But what if it doesn’t have to be?
Let it be easy
Last week I had a retreat with a private client. I love this woman. She has come to every single retreat I’ve held over the years. She was the one who nudged me to hold my first workshop. Well in February she had an overlapping engagement and couldn’t make the retreat. I missed her but was so thrilled when she called and said she wanted to come for a private retreat.
If you’ve seen me teach painting before, you know I use the Intentional Creativity method. Every time I teach I do the work myself. I create my own piece as a teaching tool. I use it as an example, a way to show technique and do the process together. I also use it to nudge my clients to do something braver by being fearless when painting. And just like my clients and their ah has, boy did this painting have a message for me!
I always first set an intention, an anchor for our work. When I first started my painting, I wanted to know how I could trust myself more. And so I began painting and she showed up on the canvas pretty easily. I didn’t have to try too hard to come up with the design. The colors came easily. Here she was, gorgeous and peaceful. There wasn’t much I need to do.
But something was off. It was too easy.
As I was sitting in front of her on day two, I kept asking her what she needed. Maybe I needed to add more texture. More design. More color. Maybe there something more that needed to come. So I painted some lines in but they weren’t quite right. I had to cover them back up.
I kept asking but wasn’t getting anything. Normally my paintings take a minimum of a month to really work, to refine. I was expecting it to take a long time. But when I tuned in, the message I got was I needed to just let her be. To trust. Trust I knew the answer. Trust I knew when the painting was finished. To let it be. Let it be easy.
Let it be easy.
Wow. I was expecting it to be harder than it was. I was expecting there to be some struggle. But my lesson was so perfect.
What if it could be easy?
Work haaaaaaaaard for the money
I had a similar lesson when I started working as an entrepreneur from home. I thought, in order to get work done and be successful, I had to work long hours. I had to struggle. I worked 10-12 hour days because I thought I needed to be busy. I thought I needed to work haaaaaaaaaard for the money. The thing is, there were lots of times I was making up work or doing unimportant work in order to work. I’d be on emails or social media or doing something to make me feel like I was working. It was the same with this painting. I was trying to find something to make me feel like I was earning it, to make me feel like I was I struggled birthing it. My painting taught me it doesn’t have to be that way.
Can you relate?
What if it were easy? Why does it have to be hard?
I discovered part of me believed by it being a struggle, it was more valuable. It was better.
When I used to work out I’d feel really accomplished after a hard workout. When I woke up with sore muscles, I felt good. The pain showed I was making changes. After I discovered Nia, I found a way to move my body with joy and ease. It wasn’t about struggling or pushing. It was about listening to the body’s way, listening to pleasure. In my joy and pleasure, I still lost weight and toned my body. And it was so. much. fun.
Like a birth, there can be all sorts of ways to create. To change. To work. Birth can be difficult. It can be easy. What do you want yours to look like?
And if you’d like to learn how to jump on the easy creative path, join us this week for An Online Workshop: How to Start, Stick With and Finish your Creative Work
Share below. What are you making harder than it needs to be? What do you want to be more easy?
