The Importance of Honoring Your Process

I am grateful to Karen, my blog partner, for writing about the importance of "taking time for our passion". Her writing coupled with my blog post on "creative process need processing?" and coming across something I wrote several months ago, prompted today's topic: honoring your process.

I easily get sucked into the "shoulds" and "have-to's" -  I find that rather than being competitive, I am comparative - which I think might be worse. I expect that I "should be" just like everyone else, moving at their pace, in their time, and in their way. If I am not successful with my objectives, then I have missed the mark, failed somewhere, am not as good as the other person next to me. When learning something new, I berate myself if I don't "get it" immediately. phew...gnarly critic!

Re-reading what I wrote several months ago makes me question the beliefs I mention above. I had been working on a new business prospect (ongoing) and thinking about my creative process; I wrote the following:

"I suppose something I realize about my process, and frankly, I rarely accommodate, is that it takes me a while to decide on a trajectory. For example, when I made the white spiral piece, it took forever to decide and design, so too did the metal, gold piece and the umbrella. I seem to need time to ruminate, to allow. I feel like the world moves way faster than me. With the mundane, I can easily keep up, but when it comes time to listen to my inner voice, that takes time. Things need to simmer and stew. I need time to consider and contemplate. It is critical that I allow myself that time. No need to compare, or compete, or keep up. I must allow myself to move at my pace, and be ok with it."

It is easy to say all this, but it is so much more difficult to embrace and apply.

I recently took an assemblage class, and experienced a tremendous amount of anxiety because we were supposed to finish building a piece within the duration of the class. I was freaked out! I hadn't even decided on which materials I wanted to use, let alone figured out how to put them all together. Moreover, I hadn't really thought about what I was getting myself into when I signed up for the class. It is so much fun to gather materials and imagine the possibility, and usually, I don't take the time to consider the work involved; all the more reason to embrace taking time!

This brings me to Karen's post. Karen, I embrace your challenge of "taking time for your passion", and the way I intend to do it is by taking time throughout my weeks to reflect, let things stew and see what comes up. Perhaps I will do more stream of consciousness writing on specific topics. Maybe I will walk the labyrinth with a question concerning a project I am working on. Perhaps I will just sit and be. Now mind you, I already do morning pages, and meditate; what I am suggesting is different. It's different because it will be topic specific, intentional.

I may or may not choose to share my progress every month. I may just wait until the autumnal equinox to let you know the outcome. I haven't decided yet, I need time to let it swirl around in my brain for a bit before I figure out which way I want to go with, either way though, you will eventually find out.

Practice Engaging Your Inner Wisdom: What about you? Do you move more slowly, needing time for things to settle in before making a decision? Do you like to think about the myriad possibilities before jumping in? How do you work? Perhaps you could take time to write about what works, and doesn't work for you. Do you do Morning Pages? Morning pages are Julie Cameron's (author of the Artist's Way) prescription for emptying ourselves, so that we have room to fill ourselves. She encourages that you write 3, one-sided pages a day, upon waking - stream of consciousness, don't lift your hand from the page, keep writing even if you don't know what to say pages - these shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. You might want to ask yourself a question before you start writing. Please let me know what you think, how you process, and what you're up to. It helps me with my experiences!