Finding Your Voice

Expression of any sort has always been tricky for me - and I would guess, for many of you as well.  Even if just in the place of business, allowing our true nature to show is a journey into unknown territory.

It is essential to be conscious of what we are expressing throughout our days.  (What we are allowing into ourselves, how we process it, and how we "put it out there".)  When I discuss creative expression, it is just that: Expression that is created.  Expression can be very dry, very routine, very conditioned.  In tune only with those around us so we can create a comfortable social situation, but not in tune with our true voice.

Creative expression is consciously created, at least on some level - it happens when we first get out of the way of ourselves.  When we allow the universal voice (collective unconscious in psychological terms, God as understood by some religions, a pervasive energy of sorts in scientific terms) to speak to our soul.

Without censoring that voice (through fear - oh my goodness, I can't do that!, through intellectual thought - well that just doesn't make sense!, or through countless other filters we've picked up through our years), we create.  We allow that voice to be heard through our voice in how we speak to others, through our fingers in how we handle the food we are preparing, through our bodies in how we hold ourselves and allow or constrict our breath.   

Creative juice isn't confined in a paint jar.  We can express ourselves creatively - dancing with the inner voice that longs to be heard and the outer world that cannot be ignored - through everything we do.  Wearing your hair differently, coming up with a different greeting to meet others, directing your thoughts in a symphony of responses to the most mundane of situations (stuck at a red light, perhaps?).

 That being said, it is sometimes easiest to speak with our creative soul when doing something with no perceived right or wrong...such as pulling out crayons and just scribbling.  As we learn to hear the voice better, we can converse in situations where more filters are usually present.

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As I grow into celebrating my own flow with life, I too am finding my struggles, my obstacles, my filters.  Some of these are walls that will take quite a while to scale.  Others....well, others just require a change of perspective that I find much easier to do these days.

A few days ago in the midst of a Fearless Painting project for BIG, I got paint on a shirt that wasn't meant to have paint on it.  I'm on cycle two of laundering it to see if the paint can be removed.

Funny enough, I'm not angry about it.  I probably  will still wear this shirt, with pink paint on the sleeve.  In an odd way, it is a recognition and quiet celebration of being an artist.

Yesterday, after pulling the shirt out of the washer and seeing the paint still there, I decided to take my awareness of this new voice to the paper.

In many ways, this is where my art...my life... is going:  A celebration of the mundane and divine voices mixing, dancing, conversing, sharing stories.

(And in full honesty, I'm still not happy with the colors.  I love that I finally used some fabric in my work and I adore the message...this just may have another reincarnation on another sheet.  Those are my kiddos handprints at the bottom, by the way!)

Today, Friday, a new day.  Millions of new opportunities to silence the conversation as I plod through the day and get school shopping done, decide how to handle the fights between the kids, navigate the toys that are scattered around the house.  Millions of new opportunities to keep the conversation going as I give nose-kisses to the kiddos, sing loudly in the car, let the tears fall when I sit with the pain of lost friends, braid my hair, paint fearlessly, and live.