Trusting and Feeling Compassion for Our Creative Self
Many people “have squashed their creativity because of their low self-esteem; many more had it squashed for them, before they could ever know about it.” Psychologist Elaine Aron
If we are willing to put our creative work out there – into the world in some way – it will be judged and ranked.
What if our book doesn’t make it to a bestseller list, our painting is not accepted by a gallery, our blog doesn’t show up on a Google page one, or our movie doesn’t get invited to a film festival?
One consequence is we may feel deflated, and question our worth as a creator.
The image above is also used in my article The Power of Self-Compassion – “In a nutshell, self-compassion is treating ourselves with the same kindness, care, and understanding that we would offer to others when they suffer, fail, or feel inadequate.”
Researcher, teacher and author Kristin Neff specializes in how self-compassion benefits us.
The image is also in another article of mine: Self Esteem and Self Confidence and Creative People – which includes a video with Kristin Neff and podcast episode “Elizabeth Gilbert on Self Acceptance.”
Video – Self compassion and our nervous system with Gabor Maté
Sounds True founder Tami Simon interviews Dr. Gabor Maté in this audio excerpt from a much longer free video preview for the in-depth teaching series “Embracing All of You.”
A page for the series says: “The title of the series, Embracing All of You, is quite accurate, with an emphasis on the feeling tone of the word “embrace.”
“The entire series feels like a loving invitation to include every part of our experience in our awareness in a judgment-free way. The series is an invitation to see ourselves clearly and offer ourselves compassion for everything we have gone through to arrive at this moment.”
Register to see the free video Unpacking the Circle of Shame.
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Psychologist Elaine Aron declares that “low self-esteem is about power and influence, the result of rank. Like other social animals, we constantly rank ourselves among others–competing and comparing.”
From her post Ranking and Linking, For Better and For Worse.
That sort of ranking may be true for anyone who is creating, but the emotional impact can be particularly intense for highly sensitive people.
In her book The Undervalued Self, Dr. Aron writes that “in situations in which they are being observed or tested, they may do worse than others and worse than they themselves expect… Further, the highly sensitive are more affected by feedback. They observe and learn from their mistakes more than others do, and this requires them to care about their mistakes more than others.”
From post: Elaine Aron on High Sensitivity and the Undervalued Self – which includes a video by Dr. Aron.
Aron also thinks many people “have squashed their creativity because of their low self-esteem; many more had it squashed for them, before they could ever know about it.
“But we all have it… One of the best ways to make life meaningful for an HSP (highly sensitive person) is to use that creativity.”
Related article: Being Highly Sensitive and Creative.
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