A reflective pause…

It turns out that the blog post I wrote in my head didn’t actually make it out into the world. I turned it over and over, running the possible articulation of what I wanted to say through my mind, and then failed to tap it out onto my keyboard, and click on the ‘Publish’ button. Which is actually kind of fascinating for me, considering what I was thinking of writing about… and then never did.

You see, I was going to write about how I’m finding it difficult to choose what to share and what not to? When I needed to play the cards of my creative self-expression closer to my chest, and when to lay them upon the table? I was sitting with my own discomfort concerning how veiled I wanted to be in my creative process as I run through various ideas, picking some up placing them with care into my notebook, and tossing others aside as they prove to be ‘unworkable’. And the longer I sat with the discomfort, the more my own silence swallowed me. Until, as you see, I missed my first day of posting since the beginning of the year.

Even as I write this now, I still feel the discomfort. I still feel the edge of the veil that I can either choose to draw across or drop. Because I do believe that at tender stages of the creative process – the beginning, the ending, and the moments of transition as the direction of flow twists and shifts – need to be protected, need to be respected. For in these moments, there is a precious vulnerability that is absolutely essential to growth.

Where does that deep knowing sit when I have committed to writing here, sharing here, every day? Some days, I will be deeply invested in exploring these new or transitional or dying places in my creativity. And as such, I need to draw the veil. I need to hold the hiddenness holy. Days when the exposure would feel excruciating and, ultimately, extinguishing.

This is coming up for me as I’ve been exploring this blogging practice for 44 days (43 if we don’t include yesterday!). It is perhaps only right that I stop and reflect, review, and respond, rather than ploughing on regardless. This year is about ‘crafting consciousness’ for me. And as such, my blogging practice was intended to support that exploration. However, if it slips into a place of complacency and habit, then it no longer fulfils its purpose. And if it undermines my own creative process, then it becomes a destructive rather than generative influence. Which is really not the point at all!

So, I think I’m going to take this week off, and then circle back around to see where I’m at, how I feel about this process and whether it is still supportive of my journey through 2017. It may be that a different posting schedule is what is calling to be expressed and explored….