The One Thing to Shift
The Truth About Process-Focused Art
When I work with creative people, there is one perspective shift that I encourage most, (one that the mind resists) : Focus on the quality of the experience you are having in the process of creativity more than the need to produce something.
Most people who come to me either:
a) know that there is something they are meant to do in this lifetime that feels really big, but they aren’t sure what that is or
b) have a very clear idea of what they want to create but are subconsciously terrified of the transformation that it requires to allow themselves to birth that thing.
The fear people experience has a logic to it, regardless if they know it or not. In my experience, when you work with creativity intimately, you are vulnerable because co-creation requires that you release control.
Soul-led creative energy is inherently transformative, so when you make anything, it shifts you in ways you cannot imagine, hence the terror.
I recommend that people focus on the quality of the process over the product for two reasons:
Doing this for myself has changed my life in the most brilliant and miraculous ways and also taught me what I want to pioneer and how I want to pioneer it.
The philosophy beneath this advice is that your life and experience are sacred. The life force that flows through you matters so much more than the result you have been taught to chase.
Another way of saying the advice I share with creatives:
Most creative people feel unworthy of such a title because being an artist has so many highly charged societal constructs around it. So they believe that if they can achieve an external goal, then they are worthy of respect and worthy of living a creative life.
In essence, when we think this way, we believe our art will earn us self-respect, which means that the way we create our work- (until that “goal is achieved) lacks respect for ourselves in the process.
When we create without respect for ourselves, we become drained. We feel owed by the external world. We lose joy in the writing, joy in the drawing, and satisfaction in the little tasks that create a workshop or event.
We forget that creativity is simply a consequence of aliveness. That nature is creative and always in motion and also at rest. That nature includes the cosmos. In forgetting that creativity and aliveness are one and the same, we treat our creativity the way that modernity has conditioned us to treat aliveness: we try to control it instead of getting to know it.
Everything I create is in service to all of us (re)dignifying our relationship with creative energy. I have something incredible coming in the New Year, and I am hopeful you will join me for some special offerings that are coming up this week!
ICYMI: EVENT WEDNESDAY, OCT 30TH: 6 PM ET: CELESTIAL CONNECTION
This Wednesday, I am offering a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony to connect with the visiting comets and the minimoon. I will be sharing what I have named “Cosmic Fractal Logic” and taking you on a guided journey to receive your own messages from the sky. This event is sliding scale and you will receive a recording if you are not able to attend live.
Gardeners of the Imaginal - This is an exciting month!
If you are a paid subscriber, don’t forget to vote for topic of the next podcast here.
If you become a paid subscriber, not only do you get to vote for the next podcast, but you are also invited to our monthly mini reading event, which is free with your subscription, and you will receive November’s energy transmissions on the new moon this Friday! (Catch October’s here.)
"the way that modernity has conditioned us to treat aliveness: we try to control it instead of getting to know it." This invited me to take a deeeep breath. Thank you for being a light house for me.
I look forward to reading all you share every week, Xenia. You bring such deep nourishment into my life. You always seem to come through with exactly what I need to hear ;) Thank you <3.