CREATIVE JUICES ARTS & PAINTING FROM THE WILD HEART

ONE MAGIC QUESTION TO MOVE YOU THROUGH CREATIVE BLOCKS

Chris Zydel, MA

The creative process is a journey, and like any journey there are times when things are going smoothly and you are just humming along. And then there are the times when everything feels frustrating, blocked and in a tangle. The sticky times are never fun, but what makes them even worse is when you buy into a popular belief about creative congestion that sounds something like this. "If I were a real artist everything would always be effortless and I would never come up against any obstacles. So the fact that I'm struggling means that I am doing something wrong."

The truth is, creative blocks happen. Stopping, starting, frustration, ecstasy, agony, despair, triumph, agitation, pleasure, movement and monumental blockage are all part of the creative experience. Wrestling with your creativity demons is a great way to have high drama and intensity in your life without losing your integrity, your marriage, your reputation or your good credit rating. And it's what makes creativity so much fun! When you are painting or writing or playing music you are in relationship with a primal force, like a hurricane, that blows hot and cold, then whips you around and throws you out the window. And your job is to get your self up, climb back in over the ledge, and say, "OK, cool. Let's do that again!"

It's important, especially when you are stuck,to stay in the game, and to keep your butt in the chair. You never want to give up on your process when you hit one of these tight spots because what feels like a suffocating creative narrows is always a creative birth canal. And learning to work your way through the anxiety, boredom and the blankness of not knowing what to do next is always a great way to build your creative self confidence.

If you are feeling immobilized, it's very likely that you have lost contact with your  self and what is most important to you. When that happens you need to get back to the first rule of maintaining creative juiciness. Simply follow the energy. If you are stopped it is likely that you are caught up in your ideas about what is supposed to be happening. You are probably off in the fantasy future or hanging around in the long gone and quite dead past and are no longer in the dynamic, living present. When you are in your head fretting , preparing or planning you immediately lose connection to your endless supply of raw, creative power.

In some ways this should be the easiest task, because following the energy just means asking yourself the question, "What do I want to do NOW? What do I want to paint or write or dance NOW? In this very moment, what will allow me to feel the greatest sense of excitement and aliveness?" But we are trained to be suspicious of what we really want. If we want it, it must somehow be wrong. We must be serious artists and not waste time on frivolity and feeling good. If we are not suffering we must not truly be doing art. We get bogged down in trying to figure out what we should be doing, and looking for what will gain us the most approval, brownie points and pats on the back.We end up asking all the wrong questions, and then feel shut down and uninspired and wonder why we can't be more creative!

A creative standstill is never a catastrophe. Rather it is a priceless opportunity and invitation to wake up to the present moment and reconnect with your hearts desire. So don't be afraid to ask that one magic question that will open your creative floodgates again. What do you want to do NOW ?

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

CREATIVITY TIME BANDITS: Making Wise Choices for a Fulfilling Creative Life

by Chris Zydel, MA

In my work as a creativity coach I talk with many, many people who want to be more creative, either as a way to deepen their spiritual practice of self nurturing or who have a specific dream that they long to manifest, like writing a book or forming a rock band. But too often something gets in the way. And the major culprit, as they see it, is that they are too busy and don't have enough time.

When these folks tell me that they don't have time for creativity, they trot out the unassailable list of essentials that obviously need to come first as the reason that they can't have the creative expression that they so achingly desire. They point to things like the need to feed themselves and their families, to exercise, to pay their bills, to care for their children, or to go to work . But these honorable and necessary tasks are rarely the culprit in stealing the energy needed to fuel a passionate and creative life.

What stops the majority of people is usually not so straightforward and irrefutable. The real bad guys that suck the juice right out of our creativity are most likely to fall under the heading of non-essentials. We have all frittered away enormous amounts of time watching bad television, mindlessly surfing the internet and sport shopping. Engaging with your creative process ALWAYS wakes you up and even though our souls really do want that much genuine aliveness, it is also scary, so we will blithely waste our time and energy finding any number of ways of putting ourselves into a  stupor.

The second category of time stealer's comes under the heading of putting others needs ahead of our own. There are, of course, circumstances when that is necessary. But it is particularly insidious when we allow  our valuable and limited time to be swallowed up based on a false sense of duty or responsibility that exists only in our imagination.

For example, I offer creativity retreats at some of the most beautiful places in the world, and I needed an assistant for one that I was facilitating in New Mexico. I asked a friend of mine, another expressive arts therapist, to be my assistant, which meant she would pay the minimal expenses and help me set up and take down the studio. Other than that she would be free to participate fully in the rest of the workshop. She said that she would really like to take me up on my offer but a cousin who she had no relationship with and didn't even really like all that much was MAYBE going to be in town that week and MAYBE would like to go out to lunch with her . I just looked at her completely flabbergasted and said " In my career as a creativity coach I have heard some sorry excuses about why people won't let themselves have creativity in their lives, but you have just come up with the LAMEST excuse I think I have ever heard!" Luckily she was not only a good friend but also pretty self aware so we both cracked up laughing and she DID come on that retreat and had a fabulous time.

When you are choosing how to spend your precious life energy, ask yourself the question, " What really matters to me at the end of the day or at the end of my life? " One of my favorite barometers is the  deathbed test, which goes something like this. When you envision yourself in the last days, or hours or minutes of your life, are your final thoughts going to be something along the lines of , "Gee, I'm sure glad  that I reorganized my sock drawer for the 10th time, or that I played internet solitaire until I got carpal tunnel syndrome, or I will always fondly remember the time when I took that last load of clothes that I never wear anymore to the dry cleaners."

Or are you going to have a glowing memory of the risk you took in setting aside some time for yourself to paint or write or make music ? Will you be savoring the recollection of the exquisite excitement of putting color on paper, of watching your own words turning into an original story,the sweet pleasure of sitting at your piano or with your guitar, strumming away, playing well or badly and singing your fool head off, consumed with the joy of allowing your voice to be  heard out in the world ?

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

WOMEN, PAINTING AND POWER

by Chris Zydel, MA

I'm standing in my studio, watching ten women painting in silence with exquisite focus and concentration, and the energy is just humming. All of a sudden I hear a groan from one of the women and the words "Oh no, I hate it. It's so ugly". I smile, feeling a sense of great relief and dread.

Relief because another woman has just blindly stumbled into her gateway to creative freedom.Dread because I know the resistance and arguments I am going to be coming up against as I try to talk her out of destroying what she deems ugly and to even to begin to take the radical step of accepting what she has created with curiosity and compassion. I have to be quick here because women are nothing if not stealthy and crafty and will waste little time in eradicating the evidence of what they consider unattractive art.

This is a class in what's known as intuitive painting or process painting. The purpose of this kind of painting is to learn to listen deeply to yourself and to then courageously express what you find , without censoring anything, in a spirit of spontaneity, surrendering to the creative process . It's very different from typical art classes where the primary focus is on developing technique and ending up with a pleasing product. This type of class uses art and painting as a way to get more in touch with the inner world of soul and psyche. The focus is exclusively on exploring and expressing that internal process.

This road is difficult for most women, because even though many of us have done some kind of self investigation and recognize the value inherent in that search, we are still fighting an uphill battle against a very strong cultural bias that teaches us to place the greatest value on what is outside of us. We are taught that feelings and an inner life are fine as far as they go, but what is truly worthwhile is how we look, what we own, who we know,  and where we find ourselves on the economic and status hierarchy.

The mysterious stirrings of our soul,the needs of our hearts,the messages from our bodies,and the genius of our intuition, are STILL, even after all of the battles for liberation that we have fought, denigrated and considered trivial, somehow not really important,not realistic or grown up. In the world of the process arts the world of emotions and dreams,imagination and feelings are staunchly defended as sacrosanct and even given center stage.

The women in my painting class know the rules of intuitive painting, one of which is that they are not to destroy anything or cover up what they have done just because they don't like it or have a negative reaction to it. They know what they are attempting here is an exercise in radical self acceptance which means embracing everything that comes out of them especially if it makes them uncomfortable because there's "gold in them thar hills" of the psyche that they can mine to great advantage if they are just willing to stay with the discomfort.But the urge to disavow the abomination of a perceived ugly painting by making it disappear can be overwhelming.

There are four words in the English language that you should never use in reference to a western 21st century woman if you don't want to get your teeth knocked out .Those four little words are ugly, fat, bitch and selfish .

Each of these four words addresses an issue of great importance for a woman, and what they all have in common is that they are keys to unlocking the door to our forbidden feminine power. And one thing you can count on is that each of these four issues will show up eventually if a woman seriously gives herself over to making her own art. Which is one reason that women often shy away from the creative process.

These words have extremely negative connotations for a woman and have been used to denigrate and control us for a very long time.The charge around them is so intense that as soon as we hear them we throw up our hands, recoil into a place of shame, close our eyes and back away from them as if they were Kryptonite and we were Super Girl. Since we are unwilling to be curious and explore them, we never get to see that in actuality these four words describe very positive qualities and archetypal energies that we desperately need if we are going to be complete, whole, actualized and effective feminine creators of our own lives.

One of the biggest internal obstacles to reclaiming our power is a potent archetype at work in most women's psyches that can be called the Inner Good Girl. The Good Girl lives for approval and she garners that approval by keeping women small and safe and non-threatening. She is not interested in growing up and is content to remain eternally immature and young. Ultimately, she is the one that keeps a woman from being able to develop and flourish as someone who is strong and potent,gutsy and capable of taking authority over her own life. And the Good Girl never wants to risk being fat, selfish, ugly or bitchy!

If a woman takes her creative life seriously, if she makes a commitment to herself and devotes herself to her creative work, she will eventually reach a crossroads where she has to confront  the Inner Good Girl and the list of Good Girl rules if she wants to continue creating with passion and authenticity.

We all know what those rules are.  Smile, smile, smile, be sweet and nice, never get mad (or even annoyed),look pretty ( which of course includes being thin), smell good, be clean and neat and always be pleasing and accommodating. Don't be loud, stay in the background. What you think or feel is not really all that important. Don't upset anyone. And never, ever make another person uncomfortable. If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all. Never rock the boat. In the Good Girl world perfection is an attainable goal and you need to work relentlessly, tirelessly, exhaustively, to be the absolute best mother, daughter, wife and friend you can be, all the while berating yourself because you inexplicably and continuously fall short of the mark.

When a woman starts her creative life she brings these same attitudes and expectations to her art. She only allows herself to paint pretty paintings that are perfect in every way. Paintings that are nice and make people smile. She is unwilling to risk disturbing or intense color or imagery; nothing that is too strong or stands out too much. But painting in this way eventually leaves her feeling bored and stifled. Pretty can be wonderful as part of a larger repertoire, but if it's all you are allowed to do it eventually becomes both a noose and a cage.

At a certain point in her creative process a woman needs to be willing to ditch the Good Girl by breaking the Good Girl rules. But breaking those rules leads a woman into the territory of the shadow side of the Good Girl, the dreaded yet fascinating BAD GIRL!

The Bad Girl is alive and well in most women's psyches and is the part of us who is sick and tired of the long list of restrictions that hem in her wild and juicy self. She is feisty and bold, full of audacity and unafraid to go for what she wants. She is adventurous and courageous, and enjoys the excitement that comes with taking positive life-affirming risks.

But our relationship to her has a strong shame and shadow element so she often gets expressed in way's that end up hurting us. She is the one who eats the whole container of the mint chocolate chip ice cream in one sitting, who doesn't return necessary phone calls to annoying family members, who spends money that she doesn't have on clothes or shoes, and who has inappropriate relationships with men or women that aren't good for her.What I am presenting here is a way to reclaim the Bad Girl energy that is affirming and positive. To recognize that what we have been calling bad are actually disowned parts of ourselves that need to be brought back home.

The Selfish Girl: Unafraid of putting herself first, of being needy and proud of it, of nurturing herself, of conserving her own energy, of filling her own well, willing to have limits, making her own self care her first priority, willing to be her own good mother, willing to take time just for herself, willing to confront and overcome her guilt about taking care of herself.

This is the first bad girl to show up when a woman attempts to have a viable creative life, and the first one I see when a woman walks in the door of my studio to attend a painting class. I hear over and over again from these women how much they have lost themselves in taking care of everyone else. How tired they are of putting everyone else's needs first and that they have come to this class because they want to do something just for them, something that has no visible benefit to anyone else.

I wholeheartedly support them because for a woman to be creative she needs to be willing to take time just for herself. She needs uninterrupted time when she enters her studio, sits down at her computer or her easel, and sees what wants to come. She lets herself get dreamy, does nothing, stares out the window, is seemingly unproductive, inviting the muse to enter her, and inviting the often secret and mysterious movement of her soul to express itself.

She faces herself through her art and begins to find out who she really is. "What do I think? What do I like? What do I really want?What moves me, brings me pleasure, makes me feel alive.?" It is a me, myself and I time , a time that needs to be treated as sacred and inviolable in order to allow those creative juices to flow unimpeded and to eventually turn into a raging, rushing river.

However, it's usually not long before the telephone rings or someone taps (or sometimes pounds ) on the studio door with the cry of "I need you! And I need you RIGHT NOW!" It could be a friend, a child, a mother or husband, a work obligation, or a pipe that has just sprung a leak. All of a sudden, somebody else's needs become more important than her need to be creative, and the woman is faced with the eternal female question." Do I once again close the door to my studio and turn my back on the needs of my own soul? Do I once again prove how reliable, dutiful, compassionate , caring, self sacrificing, available, loving, responsible I am , at the terrible price of my own creative self? Knowing that I have the small, and getting smaller consolation of being able to say "Well at least no one is going to be able to call me selfish!"

The Ugly Girl: Willing to buck the tide, to be her own unique self, to not always conform , to step away from the need for approval, to be willing to risk censure, to step outside of the box of what is acceptable as a woman in this culture, willing to be weird, different, unique, outrageous, bold.

The most common lament or desire that I hear from my women painting student's is "But I just want my painting to be beautiful." or "Why can't I make it more beautiful", or " I don't like it because it is not beautiful".

For most women, beauty is a need, a deep irrational hunger, and an unconscious compulsion. Our identification with the need to be beautiful is so great and so ingrained that we rarely, if ever, question it. Beauty is the key to the magic kingdom of well- being, happiness and success. It is the source of our value, the guarantee of love, our only legitimate access to power, and on a very deep level has meant survival itself. Because so much is at stake, the pressure  a woman feels to be beautiful and to create something beautiful is enormous.

Our whole relationship to beauty shows up painfully and clearly in the painting process. While she is painting, there is always some beauty standard- whether she is aware of it or not- that a woman is trying to live up to. Maybe the ideal is of a painting that is neat and flawless where no mistakes or messiness, no drips or uneven lines are allowed. Or the idealized vision may be one of a painting that is balanced and symmetrical, a paragon of elegance, grace, and impeccable good taste. In this version of perfection, all the colors must match, and can only be in the range of muted pastels with the overall effect being soothing and pleasant, like a well put together design in a home and garden magazine.

Whatever the ideal, the energy put into achieving it is relentless. When I watch a woman paint I am always amazed by the passion she has for endlessly fussing over and fixing her paintings.  Spontaneity is out of the question. She just takes it for granted that her painting must be well thought out, planned, and organized , and under as much of her control as is humanly possible. She is used to not trusting in her own innate beauty, and expects that the quest for beauty will entail nonstop work. She never questions the ceaseless dieting and exercising, the hours spent shopping for just the right outfit and the worrying over her skin, her hair, her nails. She always has and always will fall short of the beauty mark and just assumes that beauty is something she will continually struggle for and rarely, if ever, achieve.

The really sad thing is that she sees nothing wrong with this fretful and anxious approach to her self and to her artwork.This ceaseless and ultimately hopeless striving for the unattainable ideal is just the norm. It's really the only thing she has ever known.

These narrow constraints of beauty that a woman finds herself tangled in are always some variation on the Good Girl creed. These socially accepted standards are based on a definition of beauty that is related to being nice and non threatening, to not standing out too much and conforming to an established norm that is pleasant but not powerful. Beauty is related to compliance and convention, to following the rules and to fitting in. The Good Girl beauty ideal means that it's not OK to just be herself, warts and all. She needs to clean herself up and make herself acceptable.

When a woman is painting, the Ugly Girl often sneaks in as a mistake or imperfection, a smear or a smudge, something messy or uncontrolled.When the woman tries to clean up the mess, she finds with increasing horror that the muddle only continues to grow. She is constantly having technical calamities. The paint drips or runs, she can't control her brush, chaos reigns, and it seems like there is nothing she can do to make it stop.

She is desperate to get back to pretty. In risking spontaneity, she has found, to her horror, that she has created something that appears harsh or loud or imperfect. Or,even worse, something grotesque or malformed. She frantically tries painting more safe images, more flowers, rainbows, peaceful landscapes . But the flowers develop sharp edges and dark colors and grow completely out of control , the rainbow colors  become wildly fluorescent , and the landscapes becomes populated with darkly mysterious shapes and figures .

At this point she has stepped out of the confines of charming and attractive, and into an unfamiliar landscape of the wild, the untamed  the unkempt and disheveled. This is often the beginning of a relationship to the inner Wise Old Woman archetype, also known as the Witch. This is the face of the deep feminine that doesn't care about appearances . After all, the Witch walks around with missing teeth and warts, and obviously doesn't care what other people think. This is an awakening of the aspect of a woman's soul who is no longer a slave to approval and who has begun to walk down the long road away from woman as product and commodity.

The Fat Girl: Willing to be big, be visible, to come out of hiding, to be a woman and not a little girl, to take up space, to be hungry, to say what she wants, to know what she wants, to be full of herself, too big for her britches,to be a full adult, unafraid to say yes! A fat girl isn't afraid to take up space and to take her place in the world.

  In my studio I offer high quality paper that is of ample size, but students can tape the sheets together to make even larger paintings. It's a heady time when a woman can let herself spread out and take up some real space,when she can make a HUGE painting, one that can sometimes cover an entire wall.

Creating a giant painting is a dizzying and terrifying prospect, and a woman often needs lots of encouragement and permission to take this step. In fact I usually need to nudge her a little. She will start with saying something about MAYBE needing to go a little bigger with her work. She feels something pushing on her, wanting to come through, and so she will ask if it's OK to use two pieces of paper instead of one. I generously offer to get the paper for her but come back with four pieces of paper, instead of the asked for two. No matter how "nice" she is, at this point she is more than willing to make a fuss, to strenuously object about how it's too much, she could never fill up that much paper, she doesn't have enough to express, she couldn't possibly take up that much room in the studio.

But as I continue to calmly pin the four pieces to the easel, nodding supportively, yet ignoring her increasingly frantic protestations, I see the gleam in her eye. She wants this opportunity to take up space, to proclaim herself in living color, to be unmistakably seen, but is trained to not give voice to this desire. I watch her as she struggles with the forbidden excitement of the challenge, the possibility, the sheer daring of it. The door to a secret longing is creaking open on long unused and rusted hinges, opening to her hunger to be big, to be bold, to be outrageous, to be visible as completely and utterly herself.

The Bitchy Girl: Willing to be fierce and powerful;  unafraid of her own anger, unafraid to speak up, to take a stand, to have limits and boundaries, unafraid to say NO! Unafraid to combat abuse,  refuses to be treated badly, willing to break connections and walk away from toxic relationships if it means protecting your own wild and precious self.

Another major crossroads occurs in the painting process when a woman realizes how angry and enraged she feels and she lets herself express it on paper for everyone to see. However, the feeling of anger is so taboo and so threatening that it will usually sneak in the back door as just a little color.  Some red or black appears on the page and then slowly or by "accident"  grows larger than the woman had intended .

As this continues , the artist begins to feel a little uncomfortable. She will stand back from her now unruly painting with a puzzled frown and turn to me , saying something like " That looks awfully angry,"  followed quickly by, "You know, I'm not really angry. I don't get angry. A little frustrated maybe, but never angry." This is a very precarious moment in the process. I have had women actually walk out of the room to get away from this intimation of anger, put on their coat and announce that they really must leave now. I am generally able to coax her back to the painting for the rest of the class, but once she leaves I will often never see her again. The reality of her own angry feelings is just too scary, the prohibitions too strong, and all I can do at this point is hope for her that someday she will be able to feel safe enough to take that deep plunge into her own passionate and furious heart .

For the woman who is ready to take that terrifying yet thrilling dive, admitting that she is indeed angry can allow an amazing intensity of feeling to come flooding out. All the years of saying yes, yes, yes when she wanted to say no, no, NO to unreasonable demands, to abuse, to putting her own needs on a perpetual back burner, come out on the paper in a frenzy of paint , of color, and of image.

For one woman it comes out as a bright red background, with black words painted simply and starkly to read "I AM SO PISSED OFF!'". For another , it is a large image of a woman with wildly flying red hair, bellowing open mouthed and brazen " What the $#%@ about me!!!"

A 60 year old woman, who has been married to a Methodist preacher for 40 years, surprises herself by painting a warrior goddess in hot pants, with a Colt 45 in one hand and a cake spatula (to be used as a whacking weapon when necessary) in the other.

The paintings sometimes depict images that are recognizable out of myth, such as a snake haired Medusa, and sometimes are expressed as a whirl of color and chaos, populated by weird, otherworldly creatures sporting very large, VERY sharp teeth. But what they all have in common is that they jump off the page with the ferocity of emotion portrayed. There is no mistaking the intent behind these paintings which is some version of " I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

I recently read an article in a marketing journal that was warning advertisers away from using the words power or powerful in ads directed towards women. The writer of this article was not questioning the issue of women's fear around power, just stating an obvious ( to him) fact that women won't buy things that are associated with the language of power.

We have a long history as women around being disempowered and victimized, and we have internalized  this fear of power, of our own power, for way too long. We are living in times of great change and uncertainty and it is critical that we reclaim our birthright of strength, authority and creative vision to take advantage of the opportunity that we have to recreate the world as a place where our most treasured values can survive.

There are many ways to face and to heal this power wound, and approaching it through our creativity is just one of them. But it's a good place to start. As my women student's and I have learned over many years, it's quite possible to experience courage, transformation and self love by wielding the business end of a paintbrush. And breaking our long allegiance to the Good Girl and allowing the Bad Girl an honored place in our lives is not only healing, but makes life a lot more interesting and fun! 

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

WHO IS THIS INNER CRITIC AND WHAT THE HECK IS IT DOING LIVING INSIDE MY HEAD?

by Chris Zydel, MA

I came across a startling statistic recently, which is that more than 90% of all children consider themselves to be creative yet only 10% of adults see themselves as having any creative capacity.

So what happened? How do so many of us lose our connection with the basic truth that we are all born creative and that it's not meant to just go away once we get our adult badge?

Have you ever noticed that there is a voice inside of you, constantly on patrol, which is advising you to not trust or believe in yourself? Telling you, over and over, that you are not good enough, talented enough, smart enough, CREATIVE enough? The voice of criticism, judgment, invalidation and shame that makes you feel like you are somehow intrinsically defective and just basically not OK?

Well that, my friends, is the voice of the inner critic. It is not the voice of rationality, or reason or reality. It is not a voice that is just trying to be helpful.

This voice has one job , and one job only, and that is to make you feel bad about yourself. Period. To make you feel bad enough about yourself so that you won't go ahead and do the thing you really want to do, which is to express yourself creatively. So if you are trying to do something creative and you start to feel bad you can bet your bottom dollar that it's the critic at work.

For example, if the last time you painted or drew something was when you were 4 years old, guess what? Even if you are now 35 years old, when you screw up your courage to finally take hold of a pencil or a paintbrush, you are most likely going to pick up where you left off and draw or paint like a 4 year old. AND THAT IS OK. Really. To be able to create you need to give yourself permission to start exactly where you are and 4 years old is as good a place as any to begin. Except it's not OK to the critic.The critic expects, even though you haven't touched an art supply in over 30 years, that when you finally do put that brush on the paper, your finished piece should come out looking like it was done by Michelangelo. Which is, of course, preposterous. But the critics main currency is not rationality. It mostly deals in manipulation, intimidation and fearmongering. It doesn't really need to make sense. It only needs to convince you that it's RIGHT.

So how is it that you find yourself so raptly listening to and believing a voice that is essentially the voice of a raving lunatic?

Inside most people’s psyches there is a huge imbalance of power between the real self (the source of your creativity), and the inner critic. The inner critic was formed when you were about 2 years old, so in that internal psychic landscape you are still a child and the critic is a scary adult authority. You believe this irrational voice because at the moment when the critic speaks, you have become the 2 year old, the critic becomes the adult, and the inner child believes everything ,no matter how unrealistic, that the adult is telling it! As soon as the critic says “Boo” that inner child just collapses into fear, shame and self doubt.

There is a debate that I often hear about the best way to deal with the critic. Many people are proponents of the theory that you have to befriend the critic, that the poor thing is only trying to do it’s job, and just needs a liitle compassion and understanding. And once that happens it will become the domesticated critic, willing to go off happily into some corner and weave baskets or be a crossing guard for children. The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t want to recognize how DANGEROUS the critic is, dangerous to your self esteem and dangerous to any hope of a happy, healthy creative life. And that the critic will remain dangerous until the internal power balance is rectified.

You need to grow up, gain some power, and develop some cojones before you can effectively deal with the critic.You need to learn to use your teeth, to growl, to become dangerous yourself. To become the fiercely protective warrior, who will not allow ANYONE, including some punk in your psyche, to knock you around and abuse you. You need to be able to learn to say NO! NO I won't listen to you, NO I won't let myself be limited by you, NO I won't let myself be defined by you. You have to be willing to be ruthless and forceful. To say things like shut up, buzz off, get out of my life and never come back. But before you can stand up to it you need to be able to recognize it for what it is. The critic is not, and never was, the voice of your true and essential self. THE CRITIC IS NOT YOU! And that even though the critic speaks with great authority it DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS TALKING ABOUT!!!! . Again,the number one thing to remember in dealing with the critic is this.... its only job is to make you feel bad.

The inner critic is born out of a deep place of fear. The critic thinks its job is to keep you out of harms way at all costs. To keep you protected, shielded and secure,which it does by not allowing you to venture into uncharted territory. But to stay protected you also need to stay small, stay stuck, stay where we are, because where you are is safe. Where you are is FAMILIAR. The critic's job is to keep you from ever leaving what is familiar and usually that means never trying anything new, never experimenting, never making mistakes, never being confused or unsure of yourself, no adventures, no going out on a limb or taking risks. All of the types of things, in fact , that are ESSENTIAL if you are going to be creative. The critic also has a huge problem with the unknown. And if it ever does consent to leave home, it wants to have a clearly marked map, again anathema for the creative journey.

The paradox is that it will stop at nothing to keep you safe. It tries to scare you into safety. It thinks that if you go off-road without that map that you will die somewhere in the scary forest. So you find the critc acting like the parent who’s 3 year old child just ran out into the street. “Don’t you ever do that again. What is wrong with you ? Are you stupid? If you ever do that again I will kill you”! The critic won’t let you grow up. it doesen’t trust you to take responsibility or think for yourself. it convinces you that if you take risks that you will end up in major disasters.

The critic is also the part of you that knows what the rules are in your family, culture and society. It's the part that keeps track of whether you are being a good person, an acceptable person, a grown up responsible person. Since we are talking about the creative realm, the critic is also the part of you that knows (or thinks it knows) what the rules are about being creative or being an artist. The critic as art god!

The inner critic has definite opinions about what good art is, about who is talented and who is not. According to this voice, who is talented is certainly not YOU! A person who is capable of making art is not the person who looks back at you from the bathroom mirror every morning. The critic can certainly convince you that you making art is a monumentally bad idea. It whispers in your ear that you don't have any good ideas, no real capabilities and that you trying to be creative is a total waste of art supplies!

Now this voice can be very convincing and daunting. It knows exactly where your weak spots are and how to reduce you to a state of quivering, nauseating anxiety. It has spent its whole life inside of your psyche and has been studying you exhaustively, so it knows what will really get you going and what messages you are likely to ignore. It's not going to try and get you where you feel confident. It is only interested in your vulnerable, psychic underbelly.

For example, I am a very warm, friendly, outgoing person who has a large dose of compassion as part of my nature. So if the critic would say to me " Chris, you are an incredibly cold and uncaring person and you will probably die old and alone", I would just look at it quizzically and say "Huh? What in tarnation are you talking about!" There's no place for the accusation to stick. I am very comfortable and relaxed around my relational capacities.

But it's a different story when it starts in on my writing capabilities, saying things like," What do you think you are doing? Why are you even bothering to write? You have nothing original or interesting to say,other people have already said this better than you ever could, and you never even learned where to put the commas!"

Suddenly I start to feel my gut clench and anxiety crawling up into my throat. I begin to pant, my eyes start to bug a little and I am responding internally with something along the lines of "Oh my god, OH MY GOD, you know it's right, it's right, it really knows what it's talking about this time. This is ridiculous, I should just stop this before I add to the ongoing travesty of trying to put my own original words and thoughts on paper. AAAARRGGHH. I should just STOP RIGHT NOW!"

Now at this point I have two choices. I can either quit writing and go do the dishes, vacuum the dust bunnies, raid the refrigerator, call my Aunt Hilda, (who hasn't heard from me since the last time I tried to sit down and write), organize my sock drawer... you get the picture. Anything to stop me from continuing writing. Or.... I can smile and say "Cool. I must really be on the right track. I must really be challenging myself to grow in some deep way otherwise that darn critic would not be so interested, so hell bent on getting me to stop. It must be very threatened right now." So I bare my teeth in a particularly nasty snarl, face it down once again, and continue writing.

I have also learned over time to see the critic's showing up as a good thing, because it only really goes into high gear if I am breaking new ground and taking some big creative risk. It is still extremely unpleasant, and the show is always the same (for an art god, the critic is actually not all that creative). I always feel nauseous and anxious and like I want to run out of the room, but I have learned to recognize this voice for what it is. It is a firebreathing dragon that you need to battle every time you challenge your internal status quo. EVERY TIME! Every time you try something new or scary, every time you take a chance creatively, every time you try to reach beyond your familiar territory, your inner negative voice will be right there trying to get you to stop with the same bag of tricks. You would think that over time the poor thing would get bored, but the good news is that if it's something that you expect, then you can much more effectively deal with it. You won't feel blindsided or betrayed every time it shows up. It's helpful to have the attitude of "OK,OK here we go again. Well, let's get the heavy breathing over with so that I can get on with what I really want to do which is to CREATE!"

This attitude is not the attitude of the scared, cowering child. It's the attitude of the sometimes haggard, beleaguered adult, who knows that reality has its share of difficulty and unpleasantness, but feels confident in being able to deal with it. It is the grownup part of you that is actually powerful enough to handle the voices in your own head. The part of you that is fierce enough, and courageous enough, to stand up to the critic and defend you. Who knows that it's OK to feel scared and unsure at times, and also knows that what's truly important is making every effort to stay true to yourself and live your life from your essential core.

The most obvious form of the critic is the inner voice that says things like you're no good, you have no talent, that is stupid, ugly, trite, kitschy, why bother, you'll never amount to anything, you're not as good as other people ,you'll never be creative. It's the voice of never, that's impossible, it's hopeless, you'll never make it anyway, you're too old, you have no talent, you should have started this years ago.

It's important to recognize these messages for what they are. They are not the truth, they are just designed to make you feel bad, to paralyze you, and to keep you from taking the next step, writing the next word, painting the next stroke. However, one of the reasons that the critic is able to maintain its stranglehold on your creative self esteem is because it often gets a helping hand, and from a most surprising quarter. The critic gets tons of assistance from the person who you would think least likely to support it. That mystery person vigorously nodding their head and agreeing wholeheartedly with the critic? Hey, wait a minute ...it's YOU!

It is a truly amazing phenomenon watching someone passionately defending their critic. "But it really IS ugly", I hear people protest, as I stand in front a painting they are working on, a painting that is exploding with life and energy. At that point my job is to model for them a firm, unwavering stance in dealing with the little monster who they are still certain is only trying to help. .. I always tell them that I have never seen an ugly painting, which is the truth, because assessments such as ugly don't mean anything anyway. I remind them that this voice is just a way to.... one more time, MAKE THEM FEEL BAD!!! But no, no they are absolutely convinced and I can see them beginning to wonder if maybe I am just a slightly deranged person with monumentally bad taste. In these altercations, I always make it clear to my students whose side I am on, informing them in no uncertain terms that I will never, EVER agree with their critic. Confident in the knowledge that if they stick around long enough and experience me championing their unique creative process a few thousand times that my faith in their creativity will eventually rub off on them.

Another thing that I hear from people is the refrain of "But I want my art to be really GOOD! I don't want to lose the inner critic because then I'll just paint bad paintings, or write bad songs etc." But, truthfully, when you say we want something to be good what you are actually saying is that you want to make something that someone else will like, so that you can gain approval, and once again be safe. At the huge price of losing yourself. Since "good" is really code for pleasing some external authority, it is a pretty meaningless concept outside of the pint-sized world of the inner critic. So, since you can't create something good (or bad for that matter) you need to focus on what you can do , which is to create something that is authentic, dynamic, alive and full of energy. FULL OF YOU! But the critic can't help you with that, because to create something dynamic, authentic and alive, you have to BE dynamic, authentic and alive, which is the LAST thing the critic wants.

Often people confuse the inner critic with the voice of discrimination, analysis, or evaluation, but they are not the same thing. When I am writing, I make certain choices regarding what words I use, how I structure a sentence, how I put things together. So I am thinking as I write, as well as feeling, but above all else I am having fun. I feel creatively engaged, sometimes frustrated, but never scared or shamed. The voice of that kind of appraisal is not mean or cruel, it doesn't make me feel bad! However, I have to watch out because when I am involved in that assessment process the critic can try and slip in with its tricksy ways.

For example, I have beaten off the most recent fire breathing dragon and am now happily writing and looking for a word to express what I want to say next. I come up with something that has energy and aliveness for me such as when I chose the word "dangerous" to describe the critic earlier in this piece. I can hear the critic coming in (although at this point I don't know yet that it is the critic), saying something like " Don't you think that word is a little too intense? People are going to think you are over the top, too much, kind of weird and out there". I find my finger hovering over the delete key, getting out the Thesaurus, trying to find a word that's more to the critic's liking. I'm starting to feel just a little tiny bit crummy. Just a whisper of feeling wrong and unacceptable. It's not too bad, really, just a small leak in my energy, but because I am so focused on the critic right now I catch it." AHA!" I say, " I smell a critic rat gnawing away at my self confidence, at my own authentic creative flow and I won't have it. I will use that word dangerous, even if you don't like it."

Now I still feel a bit uncomfortable, because I am going against the " authority", ("What if it's right this time...."). However, if I'm going to be teaching about this stuff I need to walk my talk, but even more importantly, I know that giving in to the critic, even in this seemingly inconsequential way ("It's only ONE word after all"), is a slippery slope. I like to think about this process as learning to feed the creative soul (which means listening to and trusting your intuition) and starving the critic, so every single time I give in to those fearful demands or suggestions, I am feeding the critic. And as I slowly fall asleep to myself, as I'm unconsciously shoveling the food of my attention and acquiescence into it's voracious, plug-ugly mug, it starts getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER, sucking the creative life force right out of me and before I know it, I'm organizing my sock drawer.

CREATING A CRITIC FREE ZONE

You need to make a conscious choice to take the critic on, because it's not going to just go away on its own. You can avoid confrontations with the critic but only by staying in the circle of limitation and safety that doesn't challenge it. If you want to grow creatively you need to engage directly with the critic.

There are two different archetypes you need to recruit to help you in your battle with the critic. The first archetype, the warrior, is the part of you that is capable of setting boundaries and is effective at self defense. It is not interested in putting up with B.S. (either yours or the critics), is willing to be angry and assertive, and will do whatever it takes to prevail and to win. You need to develop your warrior self because you are safeguarding something very precious, the treasure of your unique, authentic, creative self. The warrior energy is essential to fight the dragons of conformity, fear, low self worth, learned helplessness, underachievement, and victimization that manifest when the critic gets the upper hand.

The second archetype is that of the nurturing, all accepting, cheerleading good parent. This is the aspect of yourself that believes in you unconditionally, who stands by you no matter what, who hears the still small voice of your creative intuition and encourages that voice to become loud and confident and strong. It is the part of you that loves and values everything that you create, just because you created it, and not because it will make you money or get you on Oprah!

Engagement with the critic is always difficult and requires commitment, focus, intention and discipline as well as specific strategies and tactics. One of the primary goals in critic work is differentiating between yourself and the critic so I've included a few tips and exercises that can help you with that process of separation.

Give it a name. It can be a descriptive name like Stinky or Killjoy or Blowhard or a real person's name. The important thing is to distinguish it in your own mind as an independent entity.

Draw, paint or sculpt your critic. Really get in touch with the energy of it and don't be afraid to make it big and ugly and wicked. Have fun!

Make a list of all the different messages that the critic gives you. Writing them down allows you to get some distance from them, observe patterns, and begin to see the absurdity of these communiqué's.

Write a letter to your critic. Using some of the messages from the previous exercise, fight back. Tell it off. Stand up to it. Practice being fierce and angry." I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!"

Involve yourself in a creative project and then purposefully search for the critic. Be very vigilant. Go on a critic hunting spree! Practice being the predator, not the prey. When you find it... well, I'm confident by now that you know what to do!

Choose a day where you refuse to engage with any critical assessment of yourself about anything. And I mean ANYTHING!!. When you hear any internal criticism whatsoever, be relentless and JUST SAY NO! As you go about your daily routine, every time you hear the critic speaking, say out LOUD something like shut up, get off my back, leave me alone, I'm not listening. Using your own voice in this way gives you an energetic power boost that helps to break the critic's spell.You may appear to be a nut basket to those you are living with, but it's better to be a little kooky than to spend the rest of your life caged and contained by that voice.(Make sure that you let your domestic companions know what you are up to so that they don't think you are talking to them!)

Ask your friends and family to help you out. If they hear you saying something critical or disparaging about yourself, give them full permission to bring it to your attention and to command you to stop. This could become a very popular activity with your tribe as they will really enjoy having a legitimate reason to boss you around!

One of the critics more clever disguises is to manifest as some kind of physical distress such as overwhelming tiredness, a splitting headache, backache or nausea right at he point when you are getting ready to tackle a creative project. So instead of sitting down in front of your computer to write, or standing in front of your easel to paint you are compelled to lie down on your couch and take a nap with a cold compress on your head! People are often surprised to learn that these symptoms are just another demonstration of the critic at work. If you push through the physical discomfort , and continue with your creative expression, you will be astounded at how quickly the headache, tiredness or nausea disappears.

The critic also shows up as procrastination, (I'll get to it tomorrow) excuses, (but I just don't have the time) and putting other things first (my grandmother, cat, pet goldfish really needs me now), anything to keep you from getting started on a creative venture. You need to recognize these undermining tactics for that they are and bring the warrior self in to carve out some inviolate time where you make your creative life a priority. Draw up a schedule. Put your creative time on the calendar and practice not letting ANYTHING interfere.

Don't compare or compete! The critic loves to point out how this or that person does whatever it is that you want to create better, or more brilliantly than you. When you are in the critic's thrall you have no capacity to judge your own work. For example, this article keeps getting longer and longer and longer. When I started this I had no idea I had so much to say and it just keeps coming. So here I am feeling pushed around and bossed around by this muse of mine, this voice of my intuition that I am now wishing had stayed "still and small", and all I can do is surrender. I want it to stop, to leave me alone but it wants what it wants and I am only it's often sullen, sulky, whiny instrument. But I'm the best it's got right now, and I need to honor that. if I don't do this it won't get done, because the truth of it is no one else can do this like I can. I'm not saying that no one else can write about the inner critic or difficulties with the creative process. Lots of people have done so and will continue to do so in a myriad of whiz-bang and wonderful ways. But no one else can say exactly what I have to say in the way that I can say it because they are not ME! I have my own take on this that it is important for me to express it even if the critic is trying to tell me that someone else has already done it better, and no one really cares what I think.

Surrounding yourself with critical people. A surefire recipe for creative paralysis is having both internal AND external critics.So one of the critic's favorite tactics is to enlist a posse of people to help it with its job of making you feel bad. You can identify these folks by their habit of always seeming to find fault with your creative expression. What you need to flourish and grow creatively is to surround yourself with a wildly enthusiastic audience who applauds every creative move you make. If you have people in your life who can't be your cheerleaders, then ditch em! OK, OK, so maybe you can't just ditch your mother. But you must never, EVER show these naysayers any of your creative efforts. Not ever. I really mean this.

Catastrophizing: If you are going through a challenging patch creatively, feeling stuck or bored or scared, the critic will jump in with doom statements like "It's always going to be this way. This will never change. In fact it will only get worse. You should just quit now." If that doesn't work and you continue plowing ahead with your creative project it will pull out the death and ruination card." If you stay on this path of creativity you will lose your job. Become a bag lady. A plane could crash into your house. You could die of some horrible rare disease. In fact ,what is that weird pain you are feeling in your left toe? " Of course all of this is completely ludicrous, but the critic is counting on years of training in slavish devotion to anything it says to blind you to the ridiculousness of these statements.

Demanding that you do the impossible. The critic loves to set you up for failure by giving you creative assignments that you couldn't possibly fulfill based on a skill level you couldn't possibly have and then berating you mercilessly when you fall short of the mark.

Too much, too big, too scary, too, too! Whenever you hear the critic saying you are too ANYTHING, turn it around and try to be even more of what it doesn't want you to be. The critic says what you are doing is trite or kitschy? Fine! Pull out all the stops and show that old judging mind what kitschy is really all about. Gleefully make it jump up and down. Practice being too much.

Always, always, ALWAYS be very suspicious of the critic's motivations for giving you a particular message. Whenever you hear the critic mouthing off always ask the question "WHY? Why is it going after me now? How have I threatened it, how am I getting too big or powerful or otherwise stepping outside of my familiar box?" Never engage with the critic in an argument on its own terms. The only interaction you should ever have with the critic is some version of telling it to take a hike. Remember... it is not rational , so don't interact with it as if it is. Giving it that level of respect feeds the critic and diminishes you. You can't win an argument with a crazy person... even if that crazy person is lurking inside of your own head.

And finally...the critic will never go away. This process of fighting back is not meant to ultimately get rid of the critic because that just isn't possible. The inner critic is just one aspect of your unruly monkey mind. It's part of the hardwiring in being human. So there's no shame in having to deal with it again and again. You need to have compassion for the struggle, and recognize that although you can't get rid of the critic itself, you can change your relationship to it, so that it is no longer running your life. And after you've kicked its butt about 5 million times, you can then begin to have compassion for its scared, misguided, annoying self!

BEYOND JUDGMENT Ultimately, the creative process is all about love. It's about loving ourselves and learning to practice the art of what I call Radical Self Acceptance. Which means accepting all of who we are without judgment. We are not here to learn how to control ourselves more effectively. We are here to learn about and respect unconditionally the vast mystery of who we are. The truth of it is,we don't get to choose how our creative gifts manifest. Your creative style is as distinctive as your fingerprints and as much out of your control. You don't get to decide how many whorls you have on your thumb, or your height or your eye color or the sound of your voice. That was all part of the original packaging and your creative gifts are included in that. That is why comparison is so damaging. If you are doing it right it will be a surprise- even to yourself! The creative process is ultimately a process of self discovery, but you aren't going to discover much or anything new if you are constantly lurking fretfully over each and every brush or key stroke . Each of us is fantastically unique, with gifts that are so necessary to be shared, gifts that we need to fully claim during our too short time on the planet. No one can give what is your gift to offer, and it is a crying shame that we waste our time and our precious, wild lives on staying scared and small. The most important thing you can do is follow your heart. Go where your excitement, your curiosity and enthusiasms lead you. The bottom line is that God, the Goddess, the Great Spirit has a mission and a plan for you and your creativity is the way that you can access that plan. We need you. We need each other. And you need to trust that your creative expression is valuable and necessary in ways that you may never fully understand. So stop listening to that whining critic voice and let your creative juices fly!

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2006

About the Author:

Using counseling, astrology and the expressive arts, Chris Zydel, MA, at www.creativejuicesarts.com, has worked with hundreds of people over 28 years, to help them joyfully grow and expand into their full creative potential.

Just Say "Yes" to Your Creative Self

by Chris Zydel, MA

How many times have you told yourself, “I want to be more creative in my life” and how many times has that ended up on your New Years resolution list along with wanting to exercise or eat better, with similar disappointing results.

Well, I have good news and bad news for you today.

The good news is that you are already creative. There's nothing you need to learn, nothing missing from your basic makeup nothing at all inadequate about you in the creative realm. In fact you are immensely more creative than you could even begin to imagine. You came fully equipped as a creative being, on the day you were born. Along with a beating heart and pumping lungs, came the ability to create. In any capacity. In any realm.

Now, I can hear the wheels already turning. “Oh sure, I can be creative when it comes to making my kids lunch, or maybe doing some creative accounting with my checkbook. But that's about it. I haven’t tried to do anything remotely artistic since I can't remember when, and believe you me, it's really for the best. I have no talent. I'm just no good at being creative.” Sound familiar?

OK here comes the bad news. You can be creative, in any area you choose. If you can pick up a pen or brush, you can write or paint. If you can move any part of your body you can dance. If you can squeak, you can sing. Now, I know I promised you bad news and this doesn't sound too bad yet. Your right. This isn't exactly the bad news. The really bad news is that you can do any and all of those things.

But you have to give something up.

Something very near and dear to your heart.

You have to be willing to give up your belief that you are inadequate, and you have to accept, totally, no holds barred, everything that comes out of you. Every word you write, every stroke you paint, every movement you move has to be held with an attitude of absolute love and honor and respect.

Whoo boy!!! Now I can really hear those brain wheels whirring. In fact I think I'm beginning to smell smoke! “What? Well, obviously she really is crazy. I mean come on!! If I accept everything that comes out of me, I'll just be kidding myself. Anything that comes out of me will by definition be absolute drivel. I am not prepared to make a total fool out of myself, and that's exactly what would happen if I tried to be creative. I'm telling you 'I HAVE NO TALENT.' Mrs. Bobblycrow in the 3rd grade told me so, and I'm just glad she gave me a heads up.”

OK. So here it is. This is exactly what I am talking about. This is the bad news. This is what has got to go! You have to be willing to give up your attachment to this voice. In case you haven't noticed, this voice is not exactly the voice of love, honor and respect.

This voice is not on your side.

You see, the real trick to being creative is not about talent. I mean don’t you just wonder if when little Bobby Zimmerman (AKA Bob Dylan), started twanging on his guitar, and then started singing, don’t you think one of his “friends” came up to him and said “Bob, I'm just trying to do you a favor here. You know the songs and lyrics are great. But that voice.... I mean, Frank Sinatra you are not,” and I'm sure Bobby said to this friend "Phooey on you. You're right. I am not Frank Sinatra, I'm Bobby, and I intend to sing." He believed in himself. And he let his creative muse fly.

Why do you think that voice is so strong? Where does it come from, and why do you believe it so unquestioningly? Why would most adults want to believe that they are truly not creative? If you give a 4-year-old a pad of paints and paper they never refuse you with “I'm sorry, but I have no talent.” Any self respecting 4-year-old grabs that paper out of your hand and gets right down to it because they love it and need it. It's an essential part of being human.

The reason you believe that voice? You've been brainwashed!!! We have all grown up in this western 20th century culture where everything is a commodity, competition is rampant, what is valued is money and celebrity. Making art has been reduced to something that a few people are considered to be good at and the rest of us get to watch TV!

So we have all been hoodwinked into believing that creativity is only worthwhile if it makes us famous, or we produce something that can be sold. Which very conveniently distracts us from the true purpose and potential power of our creativity.

Our creativity was given to us, by a very compassionate and benevolent force, as a way to access and express the deepest parts of who we are. It is connected to our internal guidance system, also known as our intuition, that leads us with unfailing accuracy to make positive, optimal life choices. It is a powerful tool for healing on both spiritual and psychological levels. And it keeps us viscerally connected to what is passionate, vital, and meaningful in our lives.

What a deal!

So next time you hear that voice of the creative naysayer whispering in your ear, just smile, pick up that paintbrush, or pen or dancing shoes, and remind yourself that it really doesn't know WHAT it is talking about. It's just a little misguided. And you have to make up for lost time. You have a lot of creating to do! So get busy!!! Your creative life is waiting!

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2005.

About the Author:

Using counseling, astrology and the expressive arts, Chris Zydel, MA, at www.creativejuicesarts.com, has worked with hundreds of people over 28 years, to help them joyfully grow and expand into their full creative potential.

Nancy Mills interviews Chris Zydel

Nancy Mills, the founder of the Spirited Woman Approach to Life, has put together a fun, user-friendly blog, www.TheSpiritedWomanBlog.com, where you can subscribe to her fabulous free newsletter, sign-up for the popular Spirited Woman Workshop (we've hosted several at Creative Juices Arts), connect with other spirited women, and tell the world why you feel you are a spirited woman.

Nancy recently interviewed Chris.  Here is Nancy's introduction to the interview, followed by the interview itself.

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SPIRITED WOMAN Q & A with Chris Zydel

by Nancy Mills

Last year I led a workshop in Berkeley, and one by one, these enlightened and remarkable women walked through the door. Chris Zydel was one of those women. Tall, charismatic, with a smile that lights up a room, Chris really got into the workshop, and told us about her pretty amazing life. She left Pittsburgh about 30 years ago, drove solo to California, started her own house cleaning business, put herself through graduate school, got married for the first time at 44 to a man 13 years younger, and basically lives her life to the fullest.

Chris, 52, is also the dynamic owner of Creative Juices Arts, a thriving “creativity center” which is housed in this grand (and very cool!) old Victorian house in Oakland, where she teaches wild heart painting classes, leads women groups and healing circles, does counseling (she’s got a Masters Degree in Clinical Counseling), and is an evolutionary astrologer. She also takes women (and men) on wonderful growth retreats in Hawaii, Santa Fe, and Northern California.

One of the major threads in her life is her work with creativity and it’s use as a healing tool. Basically, a renaissance woman of creativity – she paints, dances, writes, cooks, is a photographer, therapist, and healer – Chris works in all forms of creativity, teaching others to create such things as spirit boxes, collages, and masks. Her radical approach to teaching creativity is just that – radical – and it deserves attention from one and all. And I think after reading what she has to say, your eyes will be opened to a new window into your own creative soul.

Now, as I said, earlier, grab your creative crystal ball and read this totally inspiring interview!

Q. Chris, what is the basic philosophy of Creative Juices Arts?

A. Creativity is part of our hard wiring. We are born with it, and it is part of our natural birthright. Our basic philosophy is that creativity is something that is really essential for spiritual and psychological growth and self-awareness and that it is an under-utilized tool for psychological growth and self-awareness. We provide the environment, the support and the permission for people to be creative and to learn to use it for the goal of healing and for the goal of getting in touch with their inner world and inner life, not just focusing on product, or technique, or skill. We support people in recognizing that creativity is not just about being commercial and making money, it is really related to the capacity to re-new yourself, and to regain your passion and intensity of life.

Q. What does it mean to paint from the wild heart?

A. Again, there’s that whole inner world and that whole inner life that everybody has – that connection to your soul. And that connection to your soul is something that can be very wild. And there’s that whole inner world that is mysterious – it’s the world of the unconscious, the world of the dream, of the dreamtime, and in that world you can do anything without consequence. So you can paint yourself having anything that you want. You can paint yourself flying or as a goddess or just really letting your imagination fly and your imagination flow exploring all the different wild places inside of you, because that sense of wildness is something that we are not encouraged to have. Within that wild heart painting you can do whatever it is that you want.

Q. You say you’ve developed a radical approach to teaching creativity – what is it?

A. What most of us learn about creativity is that it belongs to just a few people. Few people get to have talent, or be the artist in the society, and everybody else’s job is to just sit around to be passive, to be observers, to be the audience. So part of my radical approach is the notion that everybody is creative and you don’t have to have skill or talent, the way our culture defines it. Creativity is not skill. Skill and technique are very different from creativity itself.  And the final thing is radical self-acceptance, which is what I encourage people to do when they are being creative and to accept everything that comes out of them without judgment. To create and express with an attitude of absolute acceptance, which allows people to experience a great deal of self-love and also encourages them to embrace all the different parts of themselves. We work a lot with the voice of the inner-critic, and how you learn the difference between listening to your own intuitive and that critical voice that shuts you down and stops you from being creative.

Q. What advice would you give us to get in touch with our intuitive, creative self on a daily basis?

A. The main thing is to make the commitment to do it and to make a decision about what it is you want to do. You want to choose something that you feel drawn towards. But, first of all I would advise you to make it simple. Do something like writing – because you can easily get a pad of paper and a pen or get some crayons or get some chock pastels and a piece of paper and just start doing art that way. Or another really nice thing to do – instead of doing a writing journal is to do a visual journal – get a journal, some crayons, a few magazines, maybe you do a little bit of collage – and you do it every day – maybe 15 or 20 minutes – just so you are doing it every day. And then the next thing that is really important is to practice curiosity, being curious about what is coming out of you rather than judging it, because the judgment is the thing that kills creativity. What I tell people is that I can’t teach them to be creative, all I can do is to tell them how to get out of their own way.

Q. What if someone considers herself creatively challenged?

A. Feeling creatively challenged, you are really listening to the voice of the critic, and that voice is telling you, you can’t do it. That voice says no. It is the voice of limitation. So creativity is really the way out of that – it breaks you out of that box. If you’re thinking that you are creatively challenged – it’s not really about creativity per se, it’s really about ways that you are thinking about yourself and keeping yourself small. What I would encourage you to do is to face that voice down and say, no, that’s not true.

Q. Tell us about your personal growth creativity retreats – what are they like, where are they and what do women do on them?

A. These are one of my favorite things. I hold them in really beautiful parts of the country so that you’re surrounded by the land and the beauty and the inspiration of where you are. I have three a year. One is in Hawaii in May, another is in New Mexico in September, and the third one is in northern California in January. They are relatively rustic – there are no phones, there is no television – it’s not like going to the Holiday Inn (she laughs) when you go on my retreats – but it’s a way to really go on retreat, because you’re not being stimulated by the outside world. The retreats mostly focus on painting from the wild heart and I encourage a sense of community – it’s usually between 10 and 14 women, so it’s relatively small. One of the ways I do that is every morning we do movement to music, and then we do a circle. Everyday we spend 2-3 hour sessions painting, and then we have time during the week for people to go off and play and explore. I also offer throughout the week a group process and then I do something that I call show & tell or talent night where people come up with some form of creative expression themselves.

Q. Chris, why do you feel you are a spirited woman?

A. I feel that I’ve really lived my life and done what I wanted in my life on my own terms in a lot of different ways. I’ve taken a lot of risks. I haven’t had a real job since 1977. I’ve worked for myself the whole time. I started out with a house cleaning business and used the money from that to subsidize my training as a healer, and then I went back to graduate school, became a therapist, and did various expressive arts trainings. I’m married to a man that’s 13 years younger than I am, and I feel very happy with the choices that I’ve made and feel like I have a very dynamic, colorful, full, rich, fulfilling life and I think that’s a definition of a spirited woman.

THANK YOU CHRIS. YOUR CREATIVITY ROCKS THE UNIVERSE.