Deliberate Invention

Sometimes the very patterns holding us back were planted long before we knew we had a choice. But what was learned can be unlearned, and the loop can be broken.

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We really are magnificent, multifaceted creators, though we’re not always conscious of what we’re creating. Our beliefs, repeated reactions, and choices can be shaped by influences so subtle that we recognize them only long after the fact.

Psychologically speaking, we can carry all sorts of traumas, ideas, programs, and conditions into adulthood, instilled when we were two-year-olds… and likely even earlier, right back into the womb.

Much of this conditioning resides beneath our conscious awareness. It can surface in our thoughts, reactions, and relationships, sometimes accompanied by aches, chronic pain, chest tightness, restlessness, anxiety, indecisiveness, and a host of other things. To begin healing, we must first bring these patterns into awareness. Witness them. Recognize them. Own them.

Ordinarily, we’re not in the habit of talking to or listening to our bodies. We train them, beat them up, feed them, rest them, and stress them, often quite forcefully.

Nor are we in the habit of observing a thought, feeling, or reaction and questioning its origins. We suppress or medicate it, fight or resist it, shame or guilt ourselves over it, or try to ignore it completely… and push through.

Our understanding of love and acceptance can be shaped early and stay with us for a lifetime. Messages that seem parental and caring at the time can take root as unconscious seeds, growing into enormous, twisting, thorny bushes that encage our hearts and minds. They consume our time and energy, robbing us of confidence, creativity, flow, joy, and resilience.

Artists, I think, can be particularly susceptible to these patterns. We may develop unconscious programs that keep us “failing” at what we love to be or do, regardless of our chosen medium. In effect, we end up confirming the old messages: Life is hard, so why make it harder? Art isn’t practical. Don’t risk your security for a dream. And so on.

But what happens if we succeed? What if we follow through, bring a project to completion, and experience the rewards? We might then have to face the possibility that the people whose love and approval we desperately wanted never truly approved of the path we chose. Somewhere inside, we may have come to believe that following our own calling means risking their love.

This is where self-sabotage takes hold. Whatever success means to you, we must become aware of the ways we stand in our own way. That means facing the existential tumult and spiritual battles within, rather than allowing old, unexamined beliefs to keep making our choices for us.

Maybe what they said was true, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe those messages were conscious, maybe they weren’t. What matters is that right now, you hold a key you didn’t have before, for a lock you didn’t even know was there.

The loop can be broken.

Love your life