Shae Hadden

resistance

Creative Resistance (aka Procrastination)

By

I’m going to write my book. I think I’ll just start tomorrow.

I find it intriguing how we can excel at transforming our creative urges into creative resistance. It takes imagination to turn fear and self-doubt into rationalizations for why we can’t or shouldn’t start creating. This ability isn’t exclusive to artists. Most human beings can come up with at least one or two variations on the resistance theme. (The variations are endless—which actually proves our innate creative abilities.)

For example, we can have lots of troubles that we have to deal with first—before we get to that creative project.

We can distract ourselves with self-medications or obsessions with someone or something else.

We can convert everything that’s happening in our life—or the lives of those closest to us—into a big drama.

We can focus on others and criticize them for what they have or haven’t done.

Or we can quite simply fall victim to the “busyness syndrome”.

Creative resistance is an art form.

The reasons why we don’t create don’t really matter.

What really matters is how we switch art forms.

 

Creative Commons License

This blog post by Shae Hadden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Image by Rizal Deathrasher from Pixabay

The Edge

By

Every vision we create has an edge—a boundary that defines what lies ‘in our sights’ and what lies outside our sights. When we call up a vision, we also call up what is not the vision. The edge between what is and is not what we’re committing to making real is where we can learn and grow.

My energy and attention have been primarily focused on making a book about being coached become ‘real’. What I haven’t seen (until now) is that, to bring it into existence, I also called forth things that resist this creative act. Things that, if I choose them, could pull me towards shape-shifting and altering my vision so that it conforms to what already exists, to what is normal, sane, reasonable.

So often we stop engaging with our vision when we get to this edge. We give up. Or we steamroller ahead and “stick to the original plan”. We disconnect from what’s wanting to emerge in us and through us.

In doing so, we miss the opportunity to look at and explore the places we couldn’t see or that we didn’t want to see before we declared our commitment to creating something that doesn’t exist yet. We miss the opportunity to look at what we most need to engage with to grow. This is where my coaches are invaluable. They help me see my learning edge.

“If you limit your choices to only what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.”
Robert Fritz

So now I’m looking at everything that’s showing up that is not related to my book. And pondering whether the possibilities I’m seeing need to be made real now…or later…or not at all.

I’m pushing at the edges of my vision, expanding it to include all of my life.

Creative Commons License

This blog post by Shae Hadden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Dancing with Uncertainty

By

“Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.”
William Congreve

It’s amazing how many years I’ve coasted along without taking time to re-focus and get clear about what I want in life again. Ever since I can remember, I longed for the security of living a pre-planned path, of having my life happen in a specific way. But deep down, I really wondered who this person called Shae was, why things didn’t always work out the way I’d planned, and what I was doing that was wrong. Ah, youth!

It pays to be clear—at any age. And clarity, especially in times of uncertainty, is an access to power. Being clear is the first step towards choosing freely.

For a while, I thought it was information that was missing for me to be clear. So I focused on learning. I eventually discovered that, more often than not, when it comes to fundamental issues in our lives like personal and relationship concerns, data doesn’t cut it. Relationships take two, and the only person we can ever change is ourselves.

The challenge is two-fold:

  1. We’re hardwired in our culture to resist change, and
  2. It’s extremely difficult to confront ourselves.

For a long time, I thought there was something ‘wrong’ with me because I couldn’t get my chosen path in life ‘right’. So I tried therapy for a little while to figure out what was unresolved and unhealed from my past and make things ‘right’ in the present. But what I really wanted to do was shift the future I was living into: a future that looked very much like my past. The future is not normally the domain of the therapist.

It wasn’t until I met and started working with a master coach that things began to get clear for me—including what I wanted for my future.

Now the various coaches I have relationships with have my permission to ask me the difficult questions I tend to avoid. I know they won’t provide me with answers and silver bullets. But they do help me observe my thoughts and review the outcomes of my actions without blaming me or making me wrong. With them, I feel safe looking at different perspectives and possibilities for my future. They are trusted partners with whom I can engage in generative dialogue without fear of manipulation or coercion.

Now, being attached to a specific way for my life to happen seems limiting, even dangerous.

I’m dancing on the edge of uncertainty as if it’s as sharp as the edge of this glass canoe.

And here’s where things get REALLY clear.

Creative Commons License

This blog post by Shae Hadden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay

Staying Power

By

“Burning desire to be or do something gives us staying power – a reason to get up every morning or to pick ourselves up and start in again after a disappointment.”
Marsha Sinetar

My author friends warned me about writer’s block. They had me read books about dealing with my own resistance to writing. They quietly shared about the weird things that happen in your life to teach you what you need to know for your book. The “Why did I ever begin this?” doubts. The setbacks. The life challenges that interfere with your plans.

Experienced all these. Thanks. Enough already.

But no one talked about a crazy madness that compels you to move forward, someway, somehow, no matter what happens. When all reason and logic says stop, put this aside, do something else, take a break. Step away. And you just can’t.

The Universe seems to conspire to have it that way with this book.

The very minute I thought of throwing in the towel this week, a publishing company called my cell with an invitation to contact them about my book. (Thanks very much, I already have a publisher.)

And then I had a wonderful conversation in which a businesswoman told me she doesn’t even think in terms of failure. She just keeps learning…and eventually succeeds. What great coaching!

Tomorrow, this book is the reason I’m getting up.

Creative Commons License

This blog post by Shae Hadden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Image by PatternPictures from Pixabay