Today I’m remembering a teaching that Clarissa Pinkola Estes shared with us this fall, at a seminar called Seeing in the Dark, the Death and Resurrection of the Phoenix:
“You’re going to suffer either way.
From not doing your creative work –
and from doing it.”
For many of us, creativity isn’t a giant mural on the city wall or a technological invention. Maybe it’s the way we decorate our house, or the way we connect with our friends. Maybe it is deciding to wear a big red hat, because that feeds the soul, even though it’s not in fashion. If you want to wear a big red hat, and you don’t wear it, you suffer. You suffer from not fully being yourself. If you do wear it, and someone makes fun of you, you suffer. So why not wear it? Feed your soul.
(Besides that, I promise you, in another mile, or two, or fifty, or 500, there is a member of your tribe. You’ll recognize her because she is wearing an equally magnificent red hat. But you won’t find her by sitting at home, hatless, hiding your light under a basket, trying to fit in.)
Last night I dreamed I was in old Paris, walking with my client, a 6′ tall ex-heroin addict in a leather jacket. He was taking me to see the horses. He watched over me while I was sleeping, and when I woke up, he told me how, when I was asleep, each soft and tiny breath gave out oxygen, all through the night. Just like the trees! That’s when I knew that he loved me.
Often, our creative life springs out of a dream – and just as often, it 
comes from a wound, or a piece of unfinished business. It’s worth going into the pain of it, to bring forth beauty. It’s worth the risk. It’s worth speaking about the things that light you up, because someone is waiting for you to share your truth, through your art, through the way you live your life. Perhaps many people.
Have you given up your creativity? It’s a lie that you’re “not creative” – we’re all creative. It’s time to wake up and remember.
Do you remember what feeds your soul?
“It doesn’t matter how long you have been dead. You can come back.
But you have to pursue it. You can’t just wait for it to happen.” -CPE
I know a lot of people who have suffered from addiction. If you think you have nothing in common with them, try giving up sugar, or your favorite food, for a week or two. One of the most precious gifts I keep on my dresser is a medal, “5 years addiction free,” given to me by one who went into the darkness and came back again. I received the gift because of the support I gave, without even knowing it. And I am uplifted, whenever I see it, because now you and I are part of the story. It helps me remember how much is possible. For all of us.
The man in my dream, who had overcome heroin addiction, had gone into the land of the dead. A place of darkness. Not knowing. Someone who goes down to the land of the dead – and returns – brings back the life force – has much to teach us.
He brought me to the levy, on the beautiful west coast of France, where my people come from, a place where the great ocean waves roll in, and meet the land, and are turned back, splashing and jostling. A place of protection.
Not every space is safe. But we can find these spaces if we try. In some cases, it is necessary to create them.
Often we don’t speak of our wounds, our challenges, our obstacles – even our dreams – out of fear, or shame, or because we don’t want to complain, or because we’re afraid no one can relate to the pain we have been through – in our families, our schooling, with our children, in our financial life, our creative life. We think our wounds “disqualify” us. Not so. As Brene Brown says, it is through our vulnerability that we connect. Through our willingness to say, I have been there. Not through pretending to be perfect.
The point is not to wallow in the past, but to find the updraft, the inspiration, the lesson learned, the way you found strength you didn’t know you had. That too is food for the soul.
You’ve already helped yourself to the pain of your story.
Your creativity is the way to help yourself to the gift of your story. Would you rather suffer with it? Or without it?
Namaste,
Erin
