I like being creative. It is who I am.
Being true to your creative self and your craft can fill you with both exhilaration and misery. I used to paint things that were designed by non painters. It was an evil process.
"Make this item look like something I am imagining. Discern from my rambling description what greenish taupe looks like and no, I don't have time to pick out a paint sample. It's very similar to the one you did for me last year. I'm sure you will remember it once you get started. Can you have that by Wednesday? My client is having a party and I forgot until yesterday that I should have ordered this a month ago."
I, not being the boss, never got to stab the client with my steely knife or my pointy Windsor Newton. Being one of the "dime for a dozen artists" in my town, I knew that if I did as I really wanted to do, I'd serve jail time and three more talented artists would take my place, because everybody knows, there aren't that many jobs where you actually get to paint for a regular paycheck.
My diabolical boss was sure to let me know that someone had been by with their portfolio sniffing around for a gig, but seldom managed to pass along to me the accolades he received for work I'd done on his behalf.
So you see what I mean. Creativity can be a pain in the psyche, not to mention the ego. I always tried to use my creativity for good, but I had dreams of fashioning a voodoo doll for a number of clients and bosses returning the favor of being a pain in the ass. I don't want to not like people, so I never felt good about all the anger I was experiencing and it colored my creative process and not in an artistic way.
I'd like to tell you how I kept my sanity and sense of humor and my job. I starting using Emotional Freedom Technique to help me eliminate my bottled up rage at my situation and my fear of making an expensive mistake that could cause repercussions that I could do without.
EFT is a type of tapping that you do on certain points of your body, similar to acupuncture, only without the needles, while focused on the emotional upset or problem. The tapping process virtually eliminates the distress one feels before beginning the process.
I learned to tap when I knew I had an upcoming meeting with a difficult customer to relieve my agitation or my negative expectations of the outcome of the meeting. Meetings started to go smoother. If I had no opportunity to tap prior to the meeting, I would tap on all the negative emotions I wanted to dissipate and then I would be able to go on with my work instead of ruminating on my despair.
It seems odd that this simple routine can make such a big difference in the life of an artist or any person for that matter, but it can. Once I started using it in my creative life, my whole life got better. I use it almost every day even though I no longer work in the evil empire.
Emotional Freedom Technique is a tool every artist should have in her tool box. I want to share this tool because creativity is hard enough. Creativity should be joyful, not painfully difficult.
Imagine easier creativity; with EFT, it exists.