Why You Creating Stuff Matters

Nov 12, 2014

road to Taos

Sometimes I wonder why I write this blog, why I lead writing retreats, why I’m spending time every day writing my new project.

I regularly wonder, “Why are you doing this when the world is dying?!” (By dying I mean climate change.) “People are starving. Girls are being turned into sex slaves. Do something!”

This is a vital question to struggle with. I am glad I am. It is part of my emerging work and the book I’m writing.

And I’m delighted to say that, in asking this hard question, I found a true (for me) and noble answer:

I create and I facilitate other women creating because it’s how we know who we are and what we are capable of.

Yes, I also create and facilitate creating because is makes me so happy, because it gives my life meaning and joy. And that is essential – that is savoring! – and it’s also astonishingly true that when women claim their creative truth, they stand taller and wonder, “If I can create this, what else can I create?”

I believe that is because as women, creating has mostly been denied us. Historically and personally. In claiming our creativity, we take back what we put aside. Deferred. Devalued. Judged. Maybe it was the parent who said, “It’s not safe to go into theater design; you need a profession you can count on if your husband leaves you.” So you completely deferred your desire to create theater settings. Or you wanted a family and then the cultural story of what it means to be a good mother ate up what time you would have had for your violin, your water colors, your poetry. Or perhaps you are more like me and just never thought you were capable of creating what you wanted to create? (Yes, true, part of what my next book is about.)

Either way, when we retrieve what has been lost and revive it, make it ours for the self we are today, we (re)discover our full blazing immense power.

Or another way to say it – to create is divine.

Yet it’s so easy to not create.

To not venture into the unknown.
Which is kind of silly when you think about it because we are always and forever in the unknown!

To believe our creations have to be big, original, or able to be monetized. (That makes me furious.)

To think it’s too late. We are too old, too behind.

To fall into the resignation: what difference will it make?

Here is what I believe – it makes all the difference. I believe women who create are women who will not allow our planet to burn. I believe we are women who will be strong enough to look at how we are living and be willing to change, and to point the way for others to change, because we know the power of our own voices and the power of creation.

Because we have journeyed for what has been lost and discovered how much more is possible. Not just for us but for all the people, especially those without a voice or a choice.

Oh yes, I get that this could be a self-serving wish. I wish to create and I wish to help the planet, ergo they go together. But just this weekend I had lunch with three women I have worked with both on retreat in Taos and in the Life Navigation Course. It was almost too much for me to witness the changes that claiming their creativity has brought – and continues to bring. It made my heart beat so fast. And their changes – leaving jobs and places that were toxic, working toward creating work that has more meaning, creating books that will help others – has everything in the world to do with their happiness and shaping a fairer world.

The point of life is to make something good and beautiful in the face of meaninglessness and horror. To not give away your voice to false gods of cool shoes, Facebook likes, fat bank statements or to cynicism, resignation and anger. Rather to keep feeling, keep creating, keep enchanting yourself and others with the power of creation.

To create is to generate. To be wildly questioning and open. And in doing so, to shift the world.

That’s what I’m preaching today. Hope you will join me in preaching it too.

Love,

Jen

P.S. We’re opening general registration tomorrow in my two Taos writing retreats. If you received this via email from me, at 10 am MT tomorrow you will receive an invite that registration is open. If you are reading this via a link from elsewhere, like Facebook, you are not on my list and will not get an email. If you wish to receive one, please sign up here.

I apologize in advance if you are not able to get a single room or a spot in the week you wish. Let’s plan more retreats!!

Jettison Self-Doubt and Lose the Itty-Bitty-Shitty Committee and Make Your Thing Now

From the national best-selling author of The Woman’s Comfort Book and Why Bother.

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