by Tara Joyce | Sep 30, 2014 | Cultural Creativity
We don’t really have a problem with peoples imperfections. We don’t really hate the dark aspects we each contain. It feels like we do, but our feelings can be misleading sometimes.
It’s easy to point out and judge another for the things that aren’t perfect about them. If you decide to take on this job, your list will easily become a mile long. We are not perfect, and you’re always going to be able to find evidence to back this truth up. No matter the person.
What you really have a problem with, when you find yourself angered by another and their imperfections become so glaringly obvious to you, is the lack of responsibility you feel that person has over them. Your pissed because they are not being aware of the dark things about themselves and their behaviour, and how it affects you. You feel they are not being responsible in their doing.
If I was to own my darkness and be up front and responsible for the ways in which I am imperfect and how they affect you, how would that change your anger towards me, and towards the imperfections I hold? In my experience, you no longer mind my imperfections so much, nor judge them so harshly, because I am aware of them and responsible to them. It wasn’t my darkness that was getting you, it was my lack of responsibility towards it.
If I own my stuff, if I am aware and shine a light on my darkness and admit my contributions, you may be left with some anger towards my actions, but in owning my part I’ve created the space for you to own yours and/or move on. In being responsible for my imperfections, I’m not in conflict with you over them. I am free to admit what I did and who I am.
When I own my darkness, does it not make it harder for you to hate and blame me for it?
photo credit: Sergio García Moratilla
by Tara Joyce | Sep 25, 2014 | Cultural Creativity
The flow doesn’t arrive until you break past your barrier. Your barrier appears as that “thing” you feel prevents you from starting. And that “thing” is the part of you that resists the activity, that says you can’t do it. You can.
Once you start, despite this feeling of being blocked and unable, you will find your groove. You will get into your flow. Once you’re in it, from there, it becomes hard to stop.
Our flow feels so good that we can begin desiring it non-stop, without realizing that without our wane, our time of reflecting and in-action, our flow would be of little value. We need both growth and fallow. Wax and wane.
This is the wonderfully contrasting experience of dancing with our flow — it’s hard to start and hard to stop.
photo credit: malavoda
by Tara Joyce | Sep 19, 2014 | Cultural Creativity, Innerpreneurship
Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” – Daniel Gilbert (@DanTGilbert)
You’ve got plenty of room to grow. We all do. No matter our position, we are each a work in progress. We are doing it badly until we are doing it well. The real point is that we are doing it at all.
Your feedback can help me to do it better though. To do so, your feedback does not need to be complimentary but it does need to be respectful and acknowledge that I am a work in progress. I am complete in my imperfection.
Human beings are creators and we need to acknowledge and respect the unique creative process each of us has. And our individual journey to (re)discover it. Like you, I am in the process of creating myself and becoming takes space. So let’s do ourselves a favour and remember that it’s hardly ever a finished product we’re providing feedback on, rather we’re perceiving something or someone still in the process of becoming.
photo credit: Kevan
by Tara Joyce | Sep 12, 2014 | Cultural Creativity
Do you notice the way it feels to leave the world you’ve worked so hard to create — here and now — for some idea of who you think you should be?
In those moments, what is it that you’re grasping for? Do you feel overwhelmed by a desire to be more, to do more, to have more? I know I do.
When we’re feeling less than, we’re in the midst of a painful conflict between being more and being who we are. It’s only in returning to the present moment and ourselves that we again trust in our innate ability to be grounded. Simply no larger or smaller than we naturally are.
photo credit: Sagisen
by Tara Joyce | Sep 8, 2014 | Cultural Creativity
For the sake of my personal and business health, I must not get caught up in the now, Now, NOW-ness of anyone or anything else. It doesn’t need to be NOW. I don’t need to hurry. Despite what I hear, and how I (sometimes) feel, there is no race to get to where I’m going. There is only NOW. There is only this space I currently find myself in.
I do my best when moving at my pace — at the speed and energy that pleases and works for me. The rest of the world can have their pace, and I can remain confident in mine. For the truth is, I have all the time and space I need. There is no race in becoming the best me.
photo credit: David Blackwell
