Recently when I put the question out there “what gets in your way of creating?” One of the responses  was “life”.  This isn’t the first time I have heard of life getting in the way.  To feel so overwhelmed by all that is going on in life that to take the time to create for the sake of creating seems frivolous. It is all too familiar to me.

There have been many times that I have struggled with this very same thing. But what gets me through is knowing that this answer that life gets in the way is a lie.  Do life events sometimes mean we don’t take time for our own art expression? Absolutely. There will always be lulls in our creativity. There will always be exceptions to fitting our creative time in. But they are exceptions not the rule. If we believe that we never have time we won’t have time. Because we won’t bother to look for the time or set it aside.

I have said before how important it is to plan ahead. Especially when we have busy schedules. But also when we have a lot of unstructured time. We might kid ourselves into thinking we will squeeze it in some time but the truth is, if it is not a priority it will get lost or left to the end when time has run out. Why do we continue to do this dance then? We seemingly want to create but in reality we avoid taking the time?  While there may be many reasons, all of which can not be covered in the span of this post, they are I believe related to one main factor.

Fear is what blocks the way most of the time. There is the fear of what we might encounter; judgement by ourselves or others about our art. Fear of being disappointed, of not living up to expectations we may have of ourselves.  Fear of failing, usually because we have boxed our creativity into a narrow definition which we feel compelled to fit into.  Perhaps we have felt that we disappointed someone in the past when we created, and we hang on to this unrealistic expectation.

Another reason we might avoid is fear of change. We may have become used to the excuses,  resigned to not making the effort to find the time, complicit in accepting we don’t have time because we fear the change. We fear  the unknown, the shifts that may happen when we shake things up and do things differently.

The good news is it does not have to continue this way.  You do not have to accept the lie that there is no time.

The first step is showing up.   Intellectually, you can remind yourself why having time for your creativity is important:

These are some of the things that creative expression can offer.  This is especially true when you are feeling overwhelmed by life, creating something new from the soul of your being can help you cope, can give you new perspective and can comfort you.   This is exactly why taking time for yourself and your creative expression is important. And yes there are opportunities to be creative everyday. In the way you approach your work, meals, the day-to-day “mundane things”. But I’m talking about taking time to express yourself creatively for the sake of  your own well-being not for the sake of an end product. When life is overwhelming accessing  creativity can help balance life by supporting through the struggles and reminding us that that there is more to life.

So, the fist step is showing up, being true to your self and your needs, then throwing out any notions that get in the way.