Have you ever walked into a room and felt naked? Have you ever shown anyone something you created and cringed? Have you ever felt like running away and hiding in shame?
Being a creative person means being vulnerable enough to enter the room and be naked (creatively) without shame. Elizabeth Gilbert tells us that fierce trust is believing that:
Creative nakedness is like revealing our uncovered self. When Adam and Eve discovered their nakedness, they hid. Just as we hide our bodies, we often hide our work in the same insecurities.
Yesterday I spent the day at a day spa. At one point I was in a shower and the temperature reached boiling point. There were so many buttons and I didn’t know how to turn it off. I called out to the therapist and she reached in and pressed a button. I stood there in all my nakedness, exposed, asking for help, and feeling very vulnerable.
As I write this I realise it was less embarrassing, less vulnerable and less confronting for me to have my body exposed than it has been at times to share my creative work with others. Our creative work is a part of ourselves without the veneer and layers and coverings. I feel like that every time I show my work to an editor, publisher, another, better writer or give one of my books to someone to read. If being comfortable in our own skin is difficult, how can we show our work without feeling inadequate, shamed, embarrassed or less than?
Gilbert tells a story of an aspiring artist who attended a masquerade ball wearing a lobster costume he’d made himself. The room was filled with exquisitely dressed guests in formal evening dress and obligatory elaborate masks. He was welcomed by mocking laughter.
He could have run away in shame and embarrassment. When he stood at the entrance to the room he had a choice. He could run away and miss the party. But he didn’t leave, he stepped forward and joined in the party. He entered room, a giant, red lobster in a sea of high-class socialites and was welcomed by mocking laughter.
When asked what he was dressed as he answered, ‘I am the court lobster.’ He bowed and everyone applauded.
The laughter became shouts of joy. He even got to dance with the Queen of Belgium.
He trusted in himself, his costume and the circumstances and it paid off.
If you are creative you must stubbornly walk into that room regardless,
and you must hold your head high.
You made it, you get to put it out there.
Never apologise for it, never explain it away,
never be ashamed of it.
You did the best with what you knew,
and you worked with what you had,
in the time you were given.’
The room may be more welcoming than you can imagine. Someone may even think you are brilliant. Or you may have to dance alone in the corner. But you’re in the room. You’ve faced your creative fear, bared your creativity and joined the party.
If we wish to live a creative life—the life of the maker—then we need to be comfortable in our creative skin. We need to be confident in our work and walk into the party with our heads held high, even when we feel like a big red lobster.
Big Magic QUESTION
Why is it so hard to share our creative work without shame?
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