Amplify Your Creative Expression And Expand Your Life In The Process!

Sep 20, 2019 | Creativity

I have an obsession with paint palettes in their own artistic merit. I love seeing colors melting into other colors, tones and brushstrokes that are like a snapshot into the process and energy of the artist doing the mixing. These from Emily Jeffords today are layers of texture and motion frozen in paint that is so satisfying, I’m mesmerized.

Artistic expression — when there are no holds barred on the forms that it takes– is impossible to deny. Whether you like what’s being presented or not doesn’t matter. It’s the full soul expression that I honor, even in art that isn’t my “taste” or “style.”

I love to feel it.

When expression reaches you in uncensored form, you rarely need to think about it. It translates in feeling. It’s an emotional response. We feel the energy behind the words, the paint, the gift, the gesture, the text, the email, the call, the work. It communicates.

It may not be perfect, but it’s very much alive.

When your self-expression is filter-free and your creativity is vibrant and awake, that freedom and power can help you to do so much more and see the incredible effects!

We live in a highly edited age. We see people’s life highlights online all day long. News is curated to our preferences. We see on search engines what we are looking for.

Also, we have, now, a chorus of anonymous and named feedback coming from all over the world. Comments, likes, reactions…

Even if you’re not showing the work you do online, no matter what you do, there’s a sense that being truly vulnerable and speaking up, standing for what you believe in, living how you want to live and being yourself fully is a risk.

And, when it is a risk, we can start calculating to make it less of a risk and lose our voice in the process.

When I started doing this work online, it was not a “job” of any sort. It was fun. A creative outlet. A place to share my thoughts and ideas I was developing. Tumblr was my first home online. Art, homes, ideas… I didn’t hold back. I also didn’t think anyone was watching.

When I learned that so many people I admired were watching, I froze for a moment. I wanted them to be happy.

Should I change what I’m doing? Should I take it more “seriously”?

I’m grateful for my friends in the arts who reminded me that it didn’t matter who was watching. It mattered that I shared with the same energy, connection and commitment.

I didn’t start censoring myself (yet)… and things grew exponentially.

(@emily_jeffords)

Then, when the blog came along, a universe of Feng Shui in my own ways was born, and with it came the people who started “appropriating” my ideas liberally to try to build their own businesses.

I know that you can’t necessarily copyright ideas, but you can copyright methods. My methods were my creation and I could see them popping up places being passed off as their own.

So, I started holding back as I wrote and shared things. I wanted to prevent that liberal appropriation. I wrote more generic pieces. I didn’t share the stuff that moved me. The blog, for that short period of time, felt like a very hard job. I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t have any of my magic.

It lasted for a few weeks before I said I’m just 100% done. Unethical people can do what they want, that’s their karma. I’m not going to shortchange you or me by giving less that I have to give.

My words came back, my magic came back and, in short order, The School of Intention Feng Shui Training was born so that more people could learn this art and make it their own, empowering homes and lives in their own best ways.

Ease returned. Joy returned. My voice was clear.

It was miserable to be unexpressed. It was stressful, heavy, daunting and limiting. I wasn’t living in my body and energy, I was stuck in my head, calculating how to avoid creative risk.

I’m so glad it was short-lived!

In so many areas of my life since then I’ve been reclaiming my unfiltered voice– in my relationships, style, health and choices in so many ways.

That willingness to be seen, to be vulnerable, is thrilling even when it’s scary.

If I stop and think before I write or make videos or do anything at all about who will say what, who will judge me, who will think something good or bad, how I can be liked, how I can escape from any sort of critique— I wouldn’t create anything.

In fact, my whole method of Feng Shui wouldn’t exist. After all, it was developed by taking creative risks to break Feng Shui out of a paradigm of limitation and superstition.

If you’re holding back your voice, trying to do what you think people will like instead of what you know you want to say, you feel it. And, it rarely feels fantastic.

Even a little more self-expression can open the floodgates of energy and excitement. Even a little more of your style shining through every day can dramatically shift how you feel.

I’m always looking to reach new levels of expression because that’s where more fulfillment, love and abundance are waiting.

It often happens in small steps, one creative risk to the next creative risk.

It’s really less about doing things that are new, and more about doing things with new energy.

As the filters fall away, your power is amplified. You’ll feel the difference and you’ll see the difference. Being yourself is freeing and undeniable.

xoxo!!!

Dana

***********************