Ultimately, what we long for — what everything longs for — is to be accepted and loved.
And, what we fear the most is to be turned away from, shunned, rejected, abandoned — left feeling the void where we believe no one loves us, where we believe we are not lovable, where we even believe that love does not exist.
We are not meant to be rejected or abandoned. That isn’t how love works. Love does not reject itself unless it has forgotten that it is love. Love does not reject itself unless it has turned away from its true nature — and it does that by arguing for its own unlovability — by judging itself as unlovable.
Let’s look at it this way…
We do not reject ourselves unless we have forgotten that we are love. We do not reject ourselves unless we have turned away from our true nature — and we do that by arguing for our own unlovability — by judging ourselves as unlovable.
Life IS love. Life is love in motion. Love offers itself to the world in a myriad of forms. Life IS the expression of love into the world. When life remembers its nature, it cares for itself, in all forms. When it forgets, it abandons, rejects. Rejection and abandonment are born out of a turning away from love — at its root a turning away from one’s own nature as love. At the root of rejection and abandonment is this deep judgment of unlovability.
This is not judgment as in ‘proper discernment’ but rather judgment that ‘decides’ what is being judged is not acceptable. At the deepest level, the belief that something is unacceptable is the belief that it is not lovable.
Let’s take this into how we create and how we engage with the creative process.
Judgment is what destroys creativity.
We can have the most glorious, beautiful, really good idea one minute and then the next minute pass judgment on it with enough vehemence that we destroy it. It dies. We all know how that feels. (Sometimes, we destroy them completely. Sometimes, it happens in little bits as we are creating. It can be how we stay in a creative stagnant loop.)
We destroy our own ideas — with a heaping amount of judgment — before we can even begin. We destroy other’s ideas, others destroy our ideas, and the culture/society likes to destroy them all if they don’t fit into the status quo. It’s how we keep ourselves and others in check. It’s how we keep ourselves and others engaged in the game of power-over and control rather than stepping into our true power — power from within — the power of creativity — yes, the power of love.
Yes. At its root, creativity is love and it is life.
So what do we do about this destroying of ideas, the kind of ideas that we dream of bringing into reality?
In a very basic way, I can boil this down to four things done in succession, over and over, until we know them and live them.
1. We come to realize, on a deep level, that we are creative and that we have the capacity to create into reality any idea that through us. We might not know how, but when we know the power of the creative life force within us and come to really trust it, we are willing to be in the unknown with regards to how and embrace our capacities to get from idea to completion through the process.
2. How do we trust our capacities and our ideas? We have to name the Voice of Judgment for what it is. It was created out of the fear of our perceived unlovability. It is the Voice of Judgment that fears it is unlovable and will do anything to keep that story alive. Because of the Voice of Judgment, we don’t risk, we don’t speak up, we don’t offer those wacky ideas that are actually the gateway to an incredibly innovative possibility. The Voice of Judgment is dysfunctional by definition. We all have one. And we all have a functional voice of objectivity and discernment, too, that is not clouded by this kind of judgment. The secret is learning to know the difference between the two. One powerful clue is that we feel really bad when the Voice of Judgment is working in us.
(By the way, the Voice of Judgment is toward ourselves, toward others, others toward us, society/culture toward us, us toward the culture, and finally, judgment that judges the judgment.)
3. We have to find a way to no longer give the Voice of Judgment power. This is actually a very creative process. If we understand, though, that at the heart of it is a deep belief in its own unlovability, then ultimately what heals this and helps transform it back into love IS love. This is why as a coach I hold a deep space of love. Not sappy love but fierce powerful love — much more fierce and powerful than the Voice of Judgment. The heart of Transformational Leadership Coaching is transformation and deep transformation happens in a container of acceptance, empathy, compassion, and mindfulness — all of which come out of love.
Now you might say to yourself that love doesn’t belong in a coaching relationship. Not many coaches will come right out and tell you this. But after fifteen years of coaching deep transformation, I have found it is the one thing that DOES support true transformation. And if you want to be more creative, more collaborative, happier, more successful, and in healthier relationships, you must undergo the process of transformation that brings those parts of you that once felt unlovable back into a state of knowing that they are loved. That is how we free consciousness — with love, not with more judgment.
4. Lastly, once the Voice of Judgment is quieted, we can then listen for the next most obvious step in the creative process. Each step appears with trust in the process, a true realization and acceptance that we don’t know the next step, and a willingness to listen to the creative voice within.
Opening in this way to your deep creativity can take time. It is helpful to have a guide — someone who both knows how to guide this transformation process and knows the ins and outs and intricacies of working with the creative process — which is really the life process, relationship process, etc.
And what are the outcomes of quieting the Voice of Judgment and trusting in your creativity?
It’s really about coming more into balance with the brain. Learning to hold both sides of how we humans are — the left more rational side (no longer clouded by judgment) and the right creative, compassionate, collaborative side strengthened by relaxing the judgment.
It’s also about greater joy and peace; more ease in decision making; a willingness to move forward with dreams long held; and the capacity to be more vulnerable and trusting in relationships, beginning with the most important one — the one with yourself.
And, truly, at the end of the day, it’s about wholeness. Coming to know yourself as an accepted and lovable whole-being because then you can love your life as it unfolds with all of its human intricacies.
If you’d like to know more about how I work and what I offer, take a look around and schedule a consultation session with me. I offer both personal coaching and transformational leadership coaching, as well as organizational consulting work on creativity and leadership.