Run with Your Creative Power

We tend to shrink from our creative power. I can be in the middle of a great writing binge, where I'm really in flow, and start thinking, "I need a cup of tea." It's all I can do to resist it, unless I am aware of what's happening. So I do these little negotiations with myself, kind of like what happens when I run and my body wants to stop. "Okay, if I can make it to that next turn, I'll rest." Then I get to the turn and do it again. "Okay, if I can make it to that tree..." etc., until I've forgotten about stopping and get to the end of the run.

It seems so easy on a run.

In writing, I have these same little dialogs, and do the same negotiations, and while it's not as simple as running, it does work. "Okay, write two more pages and you can have some tea." It's such a silly, little thing - but I so want that tea! And before I know it, just like with my running, I have forgotten my physical "need," or the tea, and have written five pages. "Okay, now I need a reward. Time for sushi!"

And I go out for sushi.

Anything that involves your will, your endurance, that involves pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone is about not shrinking from your own power. To shrink is to hide, to escape, to talk yourself out of running that day, because it's too hot, or out of writing because you don't feel inspired, or you have too much to do. I hardly ever "feel" like running. I generally have to make myself do it. It's often the same with writing.

But with writing the excuses are far more elaborate. What most often happens for me is I get myself so "busy" all day with all the stupid, hidden, domestic "to do's" like taking out the garbage, or doing laundry, or making lunch, or taking my car to the shop, that by the time I start writing it's 10 pm, and I've got tons of ideas, but I literally can't keep my eyes open!

I am a spiritual person, and a theist (a poly-theist, in fact). So I think of my "Creative Power", that is, my inclination and talent to write and create, as a gift from God (I will use the singular form for a more universal application). If I think of writing as an offering, to my God-Self, to the God that drives this creativity in me, than I am simply giving God that which He/She most wants from me: To create. To manifest. To listen to my Creative Power and run with it. I have to remind myself that this is what God wants me to do, that this has to do with God's purpose for me. When I am not doing it, I am not doing what God wants.

The little rewards I give myself are nothing in comparison to the offerings I make to God when I write. And God helps me when I do. So don't shrink from your Creative Power. Listen to it - it's there for a reason. You will feel all the better for doing it, and can always reward yourself later.