I have recently re connected with something I did as a teenager. I used to play and teach younger children how to play the steel guitar. When I married many years ago, I locked my guitar in the closet. You see, if I tried to play it, my husband would make damaging remarks about my lack of ability and how I would never get it right. This mirrored messages from my father that I was "stupid" and as a result I gave it up. I was young then and not very strong emotionaly. After many years of life changing therapy , I am strong now and just over a year ago, my passion called to me. It took awhile but I found a wonderful patient teacher and I am playing my beloved instrument again. I am much older now and I find my husband has seen my progress and treats my playing with new respect. My music teacher just had me record two pieces which I still have difficulty believing that it is actually me playing. I still struggle with nervous anxiety when I play in public which I have done twice. However the emotional opening up of this denied part of me is changing my life. The timing is right and I am passionatley experiencing the great joy of music that I once locked up but now have freed.

I'm working on a little creative writing project, a total piece of fluff and silliness (and I mean that in a good way), and I'm struggling to stay with it. It's just for fun and it's early days, but all sorts of feelings are coming up. Right now I am feeling tired and sleepy, and it is so tempting to walk away and just drop it. This is a very familiar thing for me, to start something with lots of positive energy and enthusiasm and then to decide before I'm really even out of the gate that it's pointless, it's dumb, why bother, who cares. The air goes out of my balloon (I think someone else wrote that on this issue! Good image!)

Years ago a professional artist told me that creativity is all about saying Yes Yes Yes! It is so hard to find the energy within myself to sustain the creative effort. No No No comes much easier, almost with no effort. I have very strong critical voices inside my head that want to crush my child-like exuberance and silliness. I know that these voices come from my childhood, they are my parents' voices. And yet, my parents also got a kick out of my silly skits and funny stories. I got both positive and negative feedback from them. It's good to remember that.

I don't know the solution to sticking it out...sharing the struggle helps though!

Performance Anxiety! Let me talk. I must talk about it. I perform on amateur level. I love to tap dance.I absolutley love it but........... before the performance oh my! During the rehearsals  the fear takes over. A whole new experience begins. My psyche begins its own terrible dialogue. It goes like this: "What if you lose your timing and can't get back into synch with the music. Your whole number will be ruined!" The biggest threat is the following one: "What if you forget the routine?". I am an older dancer who began dancing six years ago. I always fear forgetting the steps. I forget other things in life now so there is always the chance that I will forget the steps. I fear judgement if steps are missed or forgotten. Although I tell myself that no one will no if I make an error as long as I keep moving, I am my own worst critic. I an involved in a large performance once a year in June (it is fast approaching), while I am backstage at the auditorium, the terror battles to take over my body and all the messages play! However, once I am on the stage performing, It is as if I have transitioned into a different time and space. I am in love with my creativity as it flows through my body. I feel so free! All of my fears dissolve and I am in an almost dream state. The music, the dance take over my being and all my stresses dissolve. I see the people there to watch my performance and I am transcended into a wonderful place.

I am now more familiar with what happens for me when I prepare to perform. I have learned that it is the preparation that begins to cause my apprehension. Although it does not remove what I go through, the knowledge of my "performance anxiety  routine" helps me come to terms with it.

As I continue to dance into life as it expands for me, I realize how vital to my very being my dancing has become. I can't imagine living without it. It would be denying a part of my soul.

Stage Fright feels like an ever-evolving process for me. I've been performing for many years and my anxiety about it ebbs and flows at different times in my life.

The best advice I've ever received about performance anxiety was from a friend who is also an experienced performer. She suggested that I reframe my nervousness as excitement. And I tried hard to do this. "I'm nervous - I mean, excited," I would say for days before each show.

Tomorrow night I have a performance and I was really anxious about it earlier in the week. I felt afraid that no one would come, that my original work isn't any good and is not interesting to people. Then, yesterday morning, when I was rehearsing, I realized that I LOVE my work. The ideas and feelings I am working with lately are so personal and moving. I feel tapped into deep currents of thoughts and feelings that run through the whole world. And, I began to feel truly excited about performing. Not forcing myself to frame it in that way, simply feeling it.

I have worked towards this step in tiny increments with the help of many supportive friends in my community of fellow artists and fellow seekers. Today, it just feels so good to be in this space and I wanted to share my joy with you.

I joined with a group of women yesterday in a commitment to spend the entire day creating new work of any kind. At the end of the day, we gathered at one of our homes to show and share our work - there was drumming, songwriting, collage, painting, sculpture, energy work. It was a moving and enlivening experience.

Something that particularly interested me was that our host put a beautiful, cheerful sign on the door and a streamer running across it - the sign said "Congrats! You're crossing the finish line". Every one of the women who arrived came to a full stop in front of this loving celebration of accomplishment. I said, "Oh, I'll leave it for the next person." Another said, "I don't want to ruin it, it's so sweet." Each of us had to be given permission by our host to break through it, assured that the finish line could be easily recreated; there were plenty of streamers and tape. 

As it happened again and again, I saw how women raised in Western cultures are trained to balk at glory, at moments in the spotlight. We defer to others when we see a moment to shine and seek permission - is it okay? Is this really meant for me? Do I deserve it? Time to relearn the answers to those questions: yes and yes and YES!

Negative voices..

Following your posting on Maureen Jennings book on creativity. I did attend some of Maureen's wonderful creativity workshops in the 80's.

Negative voices do stop/stunt growth. Those voices echoed through my life growing up as a child attending Catholic school and as young adult trying to make sense of my family's lack of emotional support and living with the darkness in my culture. However, in my mid-twenties I attended a summer series of creativity workshops given by my therapist. It really changed my life and for the first time in my life in an unconditional setting I was able to express myself. With the support of my group leader and her loving encouragement this amazing setting allowed me to open up. The change for me as well was developing a warm relationship with the participants which gave me encouragement and I became confident about myself as a creative being and was able to express my own individuality - that summer I experienced a rebirth of my spirit.

I have sung all my life. I sang in the church choir. I sang karaoke. I sang in the shower. I had good pitch, but I just couldn't get the volume, so it was a pleasant surprise after several years in therapy that I started to notice a difference. As I came to be more in touch with my feelings my voice became richer. After doing anger work with my psychotherapist, I found that it opened up my chest. I was a afraid of my anger. Anger belonged to my father. My therapist encouraged me to express my anger using a mat and pounding it with my fists and screaming. At first I could only do a little. Each time I would look up and my therapist was still there and I had not destroyed the her. Allowing myself to feel my anger in the safety of the therapeutic environment was great. I no longer fear anger. I love the deepness of my voice and how open my chest is, now that I can accept my darkeness as well as my light. Being a "good girl" all the time was restricting my breath and limiting my voice.