Caring for yourself, first, turns your fulfilling creative future into your fulfilling creative present
Paid subscribers: Read to the bottom to get your free pass to access Radical Creators plus 50% off everything else
(everyone else, sign up here, or become a paid subscriber if you like occasional free classes!)
Last week, I wrote about a simple equation that’s behind a lot of my creative work:
Intention + action = magic
And how infusing possibility and excitement into both keeps me both focused and engaged in my work, even when things feel like they’re crumbling around me.
This has been a big theme for me with clients this week, too!
In this month’s Mycelia Writers’ Coven gathering, I mentioned that creating our own sacred energetic spaces is critical, and that no matter what happens, no one will ever fully have access to the depths of our inner worlds.
In other words, there are parts of ourselves that exist just for us. No one else.
This is especially important for folks (like me) who were raised in authoritarian religious environments, but for everyone who is living under authoritarianism or who is in otherwise controlling situations:
Because a big part of why those systems and situations work is that they make you believe that your inner world is constantly surveilled. That not just every action but every thought is subject to scrutiny, and that there’s no part of you free from the all seeing eyes of god(s), ancestors, or the government (or whoever else).
Doing the work to make your own magic (intention + action, directed towards the things you most desire in this world) is not just a nice thing to do, it is critical, and a non-negotiable needed action to maintain your creative spirit in uncertain times.
I say this as someone who lived for years in an extreme authoritarian environment and came out on the other side: Unweaving yourself from the belief that your inner world is the object of scrutiny is a process, but it is a necessary process.
There are parts of you that exist just for you. Places no one else can access, that house your creative spirit and your power, no matter what happens.
If you aren’t already cultivating a robust ecosystem within those private spaces, now is the time to start (I can help with that, btw).
Building a private sanctuary inside yourself
Intention + action = magic means clearly identifying what you want, putting in the effort to make it happen, AND doing the energetic and mindset work to bring everything together. In other words, your private sanctuary will come to life more quickly if you believe that the work you’re doing will bring it about.
Two of the benefits of this work are building stronger energetic boundaries and discovering your true self.
But you also learn to be more decisive as a result of going by your internal compass rather than the external world: Which also means a stronger, more resilient, and healthy inner world.
Being decisive and listening to your inner wisdom builds inner trust, while building strong awareness of where your energy starts and ends and the rest of the world’s begins helps you learn about yourself more deeply.
Energetic boundaries, and boundaries in general:
Boundaries are, as my teacher Julia Albain says, a way to give back energy that belongs to others and take back the energy that belongs to you. I share lots of different methods for this sort of energy work in my programs, but you may already have a favorite (cord cutting, tree breathing, or my composting energy practice).
There are also boundaries with others, and boundaries with yourself.
Give yourself permission to be decisive:
The world will not end if you make a decision about something, whatever it is. I struggle with being the one to choose what we have for dinner when I’m around others because I worry if they actually want the thing I’m suggesting.
Instead, what I’m learning to do is trust them to tell me what they think (and know it’s not my problem if they don’t), and trust myself to know what I want.
Dinner maybe feels like a silly example, but it’s useful here because it’s a reminder that we often agonize over decisions more than we need, and that most decisions just aren’t that serious.
In my last email, I mentioned Rachel Rodgers’ book, and I use her broke decisions/millionaire decisions concept as one way to help folks think about their own decision-making as creatives.
In our case, you could ask, what are my revolutionary creative decisions? In other words, what decisions are you making right now that align with this creative revolutionary person who you want to be (and who you’ll meet and work with in Radical Creators)?
This might be about your creative work: But that deeply rooted, unapologetically themselves, creative genius inside of you is probably decisive about other stuff too.
They don’t want things nagging at them and sucking away bits of their energy, or to focus all their time on work that doesn’t actually serve their larger goals (yes, I know, we all need to do admin work and busy work stuff sometimes: But that creative genius inside you knows the difference between admin work with a purpose, and being busy and checking boxes for busy-ness’ sake).
If they have a sticky drawer in their house that stresses them out and makes it impossible to get spoons out for dinner every evening, they pull the drawer out and fix it. Problem solved: And one less bit of energy being pulled away from what they want (they may even be more decisive about dinner than I am, too).
This radical creator self, which (whether or not you believe me) really is already a part of you, is making decisions rooted in their intuition and what helps them keep their peace and protect their energy. They know that their work is revolutionary, caring for that work and their energy is paramount, and they’re decisive in aligning their reality with that care.
What is one way you can step more fully into making decisions like your future radical creative self this week?
If you want more, join me for Radical Creators: Free for paid subscribers, $21 for everyone else.
A 7 day meditation and reflection practice starting June 1st, which will have ripple effects in your creative work and life for years to come.
I hope to see you there!
Subscribe to continue reading
Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.
Roots and Branches 