Next Lifetime – Erykah Badu + Cherry – J.J. Cale

An increasingly paradoxical complex I find residing more and more inside of me is joy and grief simultaneously.

As a kid (lowk a teenager too, not just a jit fr), I used to think that “positive” and “negative” emotions were mutually exclusive. Sensations that didn’t permeate. But the older I grow, the more I find variations of both residing inside me.

I kinda took a step back (Ski Mask the Slump God/X reference, btw) from writing this past week because I let the intertwined feelings of gladness, blues, and everything betwixt immobilize the energy in my creative channels (so lame, can’t believe I let this happen again). Alas, we cannot rewrite the past, for we can only shape our future. And that’s the beauty of creativity: it’ll always be there when you attune yourself to notice it.

The entire concept harkens back to the black-and-white thinking that I’m steadily working overtime to tear down in my mind. I used to beg for mercy from the nuance of emotions and feelings, clandestinely thinking that if I could pinpoint or name the emotions in their exact state, they’d somehow be easier to stomach, to sit with. But something I’m actively learning is how to sit with my emotions when I can’t always label them. Neither eliciting pleasure nor despair, their full immediacy brings the depth of presence to the forefront of my mind. A level of presence that can make me feel everything, everywhere, all at fucking once.

You don’t have to be happy to feel joy; you don’t have to be sad to feel grief. There’s a vast vacuum of emotions in the grey, in the abstract. I would almost be more comfortable if I could name what’s lurking in the middle. Yet there it is again, the desire for what’s comfortable, what’s familiar. But is there really more security in what’s absolute or just more familiarity? The importance of sitting through your emotions doesn’t become exempt just because you can designate them, ya know?

I’ve also hit the point in this project where I have either published or half-baked (I have like 4–5 entries that are half done. #Need to get better at executing all the way in one sitting, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, y’all.) a lot of the thoughts/themes that I knew I wanted to explore on my blog. Which, in turn, is making me feel creative doubt encroach from the corners of my mind. I never want my blog to read like reheated nachos. The desire to express and hash out fresh ideas keeps me thinking creatively, but it can easily tip into a stifling disposition surrounding writing. I also think (I can hear my therapist’s voice as I type this) that I need to practice showing up in creative spaces when I don’t feel “perfect.”

I recently had a conversation with someone about striving for perfection, and it made me realize that I see it as unhealthy because my definition of perfection is so rigid. I’m going to start viewing perfection, especially in my creative endeavors, as input-focused. I’m much more susceptible to falling into a negative, self-deprecating cycle when I base my expectations on my final product rather than on how I show up during the process. My need for a “perfect output” (so inherently contradictory, because viewing perfection through such an uncompromising lens hinders exploration and play, which will limit your ability to explore your creativity through the given medium. AKA placing self-limiting beliefs on your creativity. AKA creative suicide.) suffocates my desire to express. (HEY! STOP DOING THAT BTW!! :)) Placing such a stringent expectation on the output does nothing more than seize the levity and fluidity from the creative process. Not to mention the fun!! And that’s why I didn’t write anything I liked all week. On the contrary, when I came to this computer at 10:30 PM with nothing but the intention of moving my emotions through their energetic passageways, I wrote a blog post in 30 min, succinctly conveying the contents of my mind from the past week. Funny how that works, huh?!

Truly do #love when I come to my keyboard feeling like a tangled wad of yarn and leave feeling like a more manicured sphere. 

Action Items:

1. Keep sitting with your emotions, even (and especially) when you can’t name them because you only get better with practice + the only way out is through.
2. Perfect = showing up to the fullest extent of your current capability. Perfect ≠ the solitary physical manifestation of an idea. 
3. KEEP BEING KIND TO YOURSELF AS YOU TRY! What’s the fun in getting everything right your first time around?