A few weekends ago I enjoyed guiding a group of muses in a Painting with your Muse workshop here in Toronto where we had the perfect weather -it was pouring rain outside. I say it was “Perfect” because rainy days are known to limit our choices of what to do. In that sense it was “perfect” to calm any fears that taking a day for yourself to do art is frivolous and could be spent doing something more “important”. The fact that these muses had decided to take the day for themselves by coming to the workshop and making that commitment to their creative selves was a testament to their trust in themselves and the need to give creative expression the space to breathe. Vital for keeping your creative connection open: a belief in your own inner artist; a trust in the importance of your own creative expression; and a commitment to nurturing those beliefs into being through practice.

 
The need for Permission once again presented itself as a common block to creative expression. Even though space and materials were not an issue, permission still tried to hold back muses from their creative expression. Given that the choices of doing something else were limited, permission to create wholeheartedly persevered.

Often it is the things we have control over that hold us back from creative expression. Whether the internal critics block us with their taunting and fear mongering, or the external circumstances of time and space appear to limit our opportunity or choice to create. Ultimately we have a say. We can control these “blocks” simply with a decision to commit to our creative selves. Permission is key.

How do you allow for permission to create to prevail?