Permission to Hurt

Any meaningful creative project you embark on will eventually hurt you. In order to make great things, you have to let yourself be exposed to the hurt and develop the ability to negotiate the discomfort that will be thrown your way.

While being able to make something from nothing is rewarding, the most valuable aspect of the creative progress is the self-reflection that making interesting things forces us to do. The questions we ask ourselves during the creative process are almost existential in nature: what am I here to do, exactly? What unique perspective can I offer others? What is it that I am good at? In what ways am I limited? The process of making art is therefore not just one of technical or creative progression, it is a path towards personal development.

Our projects are actually similar to our personal relationships in many ways. In order to transcend what is tangible in these spheres we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and only when we grant ourselves this permission do we open doors to truly meaningful relationships or great creative outcomes.

We have to let ourselves say 'I made this thing with my heart, hands and mind, and I'd like to know what you think of it.'

We have to let ourselves say 'you are an important part of my life and I'm grateful that you shared these experiences with me.'

These statements are entirely predicated on vulnerability. It's more comfortable for us to leave them unsaid because what we do not say cannot expose us. But by not putting down these defences, we chose to limit ourselves to only the ordinary things life has to offer rather than aspiring to the extraordinary parts of the human experience.

Give yourself the permission to hurt. Let yourself be frustrated, incompetent, embarrassed, confused, rejected or powerless. Do this knowing that these feelings are not forever and that only by accepting them can you fully understand the most amazing things that life has to offer you.

In Keeping Secrets

Keeping secrets is hard. As early as high school, I remember feeling a sense of tension within myself between aspiring to be a frank and open person while trying to remaining somewhat unexplainable to those that didn't know me particularly well. Those approaches seem almost mutually exclusive to me today, which explains the confusion I felt about this during that time.

The passing of time breaks down pretensions and gradually reveals the underlying and most fundamental aspects of your personality. The deliberate plotting and planning of the early stages of identity formation often fade away once the school gates are slammed shut for the last time. Trying to be enigmatic may have seemed useful to me but it was in conflict with the core of who I was and it certainly isn't something I've grow into particularly recently.

So why do we choose to keep some things from other people? We withhold information to protect ourselves. Keeping secrets can, perhaps temporarily, protect the way we are perceived by others. We can also withhold information to protect those close to us if we feel that sharing would be burdensome or cause pain to the people who care most about.

I have always found myself compelled to tell people things. Personal things, embarrassing things, things better left unsaid. I share the way a student drops a heavy backpack when they arrive home from school. My routine is part a healthy process of reflection, part unhealthy self-depreciation. Why else would I share that it took me thirty car trips from the old place to my current flat before I could find my way without the GPS? That's the sort of thing that could have easily stay buried, but know you know.

There can be no doubt this is partly a selfish practice. I unpack thoughts to lift my burdens, to quiet the rattling in my head. When something is outside of me it is easier to examine with critical distance. These tendencies are likely a net positive for my psychological health, but it's certainly not without its drawbacks.

Lately, I've been trying again to hold onto things a bit more. It is important for me to be able to bring this aspect of my life into balance. Discretion can be a skill just as it can be a crutch. I'd certainly advocate living an open life, but like anything else we need to know when to use the different tools that are available to us and to make sure that we're sufficiently skilled in using them when we do.

Tools

When life seems stable, spend time sharpening your tools. Your tools are the techniques that guide you through life's most difficult and demanding moments, like loss, loneliness or anger. When these moments of vulnerability eventually come to pass, training ourselves to respond in a constructive way can make the difference between remaining in control or collapsing under the burden of negativity.

In these moments, these sensations want to overwhelm us. They encircle us like zombies in a horror film; they try to suffocate us like a snake might. These restraints prevent us from processing events as we might with a clearer frame of mind. So we either choose to develop the ability to maintain our perspective or become engaged in a self-perpetuating cycle of despondence.

The world's finest athletes and artists spend hours developing their skills. They hone their decision-making abilities and develop instinctive behaviours in situations that mimic their respective performance environments. Developing the capacity to maintain a healthy vantage point when experiencing something traumatic is no different.

Understand how you are feeling

The most important tool you can develop is an ability to identify when you're in a heightened emotional state. Fostering emotional self-awareness will allow you to observe when your decision-making has become clouded and put you on the path towards changing that.

A useful strategy is to articulate how you feel in a given moment to yourself in a clear and direct way. For example, I am feeling very nervous and anxious.

The way to develop this is conceptually simple but incredibly difficult to execute. There is a lot of writing online about the concept of mindfulness, and this skill is essentially what mindfulness teaches us. If you've never heard of it, start reading here at Wikipedia). Mindfulness strategies include simple breathing exercises and guided meditation. Mindfulness is the foundation for everything else we discuss here.

Know your tics and tendencies

Once you sense when you are heightened in these circumstances, use this knowledge to your advantage. Being able to anticipate potential difficulties gives you an opportunity to get out in front of dealing with them.

I am feeling nervous and anxious. I experience this through an elevated heart rate and butterflies in my stomach. This may be related to the public speaking engagement I have tomorrow.

Develop strategies to counteract those tendencies

Once you think you've established when these feelings arise, why you feel them and whatways it impacts you, find your own ways to move forward. Armed with these new insights you will be able to observe but still push through those difficult responses and achieve that which is required.

I am feeling nervous and anxious. I experience this through an elevated heart rate and butterflies in my stomach. This is likely related to the fact that I have to speak in public tomorrow. But I know that I am well prepared for the presentation. I have also practiced some breathing exercises to lower my heart rate and allow me to perform the task well.

The two strategies mentioned above were to prepare for the speaking engagement effectively and to practice some breathing exercises before taking to the lectern. If you succeed, congratulations, that's genuine bonafide personal growth points you've earned there. You still could fail, but having some strategies in place is far better than the alternative.

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We have the capacity to make headway in the manner that we negotiate the ups and downs of our lives in the same way we might refine our golf swing or piano playing. The sorts of awareness and strategies we need are forged in times when we aren't under serious stress, so we should continue to build on these processes in those moments.

Start small. Identify something that annoys you and when it emerges, practice stepping back from the edge of that feeling. People will cut you off at intersections or chew loudly within your earshot, but the way those pressures impact you is defined more by your attitude towards it rather than the nature of the event itself. Practice this and before you know it, something far worse will have happened and the tools you'll need to be able stay composed will be right there.