Finding creative freedom

As creatives, we don’t get to decide what of our work will resonate with others and what will fall flat. There is no way of knowing which pieces will find an audience and which will die a quiet, lonely death. Create anyway. Share your work anyway. Create some more.

As people who are called to creative work, our joy and satisfaction must come from the creative process itself or we will find ourselves disappointed and frustrated when our work doesn’t get the response we desire. We have no control over the response to our work. All we can do is create and share. The rest is out of our hands.

The audience gets to determine whether or not they find value in our work, but their response can’t be our focus or we will create fearfully. When we create in anticipation of a response, it changes the way we create. It holds us back and stifles our true voice.

The only way to do work that matters is to create it without the audience in mind. What they do with our work is none of our business. Focus only on listening to your inner voice. Create that which your inner voice begs you to get out.

Listen for where the fear and discomfort is, and lean into that space. The work you are most afraid to do, that part of you that you are most afraid to share, that is where your best work will be found because that is the work that only you can do.

Create from where you are most vulnerable and tender. Share that part of yourself that you fear most being rejected for. This is you. This is your work.

As you create and share, your work will evolve and change, and you will evolve and change through the process. You may never become fearless, but through the process of creating and sharing bravely, you will begin to fear less. You will find a new kind of freedom.

The way I (mis)remember it

Our memories are not that great, especially under stress. A couple of years ago I competed in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament. My first match was in the nogi absolute division (all ranks and all weight classes) against a big guy who I just watched beat his first opponent.

We stepped on the mats, shook hands, and started to grapple. I was there to win and he was too. As soon as we came to grips, I knew he was stronger than me, but I was determined to not back down. We both fought on the feet for hand position and, after a minute or so, I secured the underhook I was looking for, tried to use it to pull him into my half guard, but I slipped off and fell on my back.

He started to try to pass, but I established my guard. We battled it out there for a little while, and then he started to attack my legs. I did a good job defending for a bit, but as I turned out to escape, he caught me in a heel hook and I was forced to tap.

But he didn’t stop. He kept cranking until I tapped again. The match was over and I was injured. My knee and ankle were sore. I took a few more matches before deciding to go home. That’s how I remember it and that’s the way I have told the story since then.

Life is funny though. He and I have since become friends. I have visited his academy and he has visited mine. His daughter and mine play together while we train. Tonight, he came to my academy and taught a class.

We were talking to one of the new students about how we met and the match we had. I mentioned having to tap twice and he politely objected, stating that he may have been overly enthusiastic with the submission, but that I only tapped once and he let go of the submission immediately after I did.

We went back and forth for a bit before finally pulling up the match on my phone. We watched the whole thing and, at the end, when we got to the part where he applied the heel hook, there it was, as plain as day, I tapped the floor and then tapped him, and he let go.

I was wrong. I have been wrong for two years. But, up until that moment, I was certain that things happened the way I remembered. I could picture it in my mind. It’s the story I told multiple times to multiple people about how we met, but I misremembered the most important part, the part I thought I remembered most clearly. He pointed it out, I apologized, and then he helped me clean the academy before we both took our daughters home.

Life is funny and our memories are often based more on stories we tell ourselves about what we experienced than they are about the actual facts of the experience. So be generous with the stories you tell. You’ll be happier and you’ll make more friends along the way.

So much to write about

There is so much I want to write about, but I get stuck. I get stuck, not because I have writer’s block and not because I don’t know what I want to say, but because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what people will think. I’m afraid that if I share my experience and my feelings, that I will make others unhappy. 

This isn’t an irrational fear. It’s based on my lived experience. For as long as I can remember, my feelings have been a secondary concern. For as long as I can remember, I have had to withhold, reframe, or filter my feelings in order to protect the feelings of others. For as long as I can remember, my feelings have been held against me. 

Since childhood, my experience, or my interpretation of my experience, has been questioned, ignored, or dismissed outright. My truth has been twisted and manipulated until I begin to question myself. I’ve been made to feel like I’m crazy for having needs, for having a voice, and for wanting to be seen and heard. 

This is not self pity. This is my experience, and this is why I’m stuck. I’m not stuck because I have nothing to write about but because I have so much that I want to say, and I’m afraid to say it. But I have to, not because I want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I simply want to process my hurt in a way that others feel seen and heard, and so that my experience may benefit others. 

My daughter wrote a song today

My daughter and I listen to a lot of music together. Some of it is music that I like, some is music that she likes, and some is music that we both like. I’m just happy that she is open to hearing new music, new to her at least. 

Whether it be funk, soul, or rock-and-roll from the 60’s and 70’s, hardcore punk from the 80’s, hip hop from the 90’s, or some obscure avant garde artist that I learned about from listening to Henry Rollins’ radio show on KCRW, she will give it a chance. That doesn’t mean she likes it or that she doesn’t ask for her music, but she listens. Every once in a while she will even ask me to add one of my songs to her playlist. 

She also asks me about the artists from time to time. Who are they? What are their names? Where are they from? She loves the story of Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins growing up together, being inspired by Bad Brains, and becoming punk legends in their own right. Her favorite part of their story is how Henry Rollins started as a fan and eventually became the lead singer for his favorite band, Black Flag. She loves hearing about it I love talking to her about it.

I hope that my daughter is as moved and inspired by music as I was and am because, when I had no one else and nothing else, I always had a song for the occasion. Music, more than any other art form, has always kept me company. It has made the lonely times less so and the happy times more so. I hope that my daughter finds a friend in music like I did, but she wrote a song today so I’m pretty sure she already has.  

A state of non-pain

Is there a word for not being in pain? The state of being healthy and pain-free is often overlooked and under-appreciated. We don’t notice it because it doesn’t hurt. It’s almost as if we need pain in order to pay attention to our bodies. 

When we are hurt, we pay attention. Pain can be unrelenting in this way. It refuses to go unnoticed. We obsess over it. In fact, when we are injured, if we don’t feel our pain, we check back in on it to see if it’s still there. It’s not that we want to feel it. On the contrary, we check in on it because we are hoping it is gone, but checking in on it only perpetuates the pain.  

Peace and comfort, on the other hand, go largely unnoticed. We take them for granted, at least until they are disrupted by pain. Then, we miss our peace. We crave comfort. We yearn for healing. But as soon as our pain is relieved, so are we. We relax and forget it ever existed. We move on with our lives like it never happened. 

We love to forget our pain. While we are in the midst of our suffering, we make all sorts of bargains and promises. We swear that we will change if we only find relief. Our lives will be different if we are given a second chance. Pain makes us liars, but it is not our fault. We don’t mean to forget. It’s just that pain distracts us from the truth of our complacency and our apathy. 

I’m not sure if there is a word for not being in pain, but I am sure that we should appreciate it more. We should be grateful for every moment we are not hurting, celebrate our lack of pain, and rejoice in the freedom it affords us. It’s a luxury that is promised to no one, and it will not last. 

Anxious or simply exhausted

Have you ever been so tired that you thought you were having an anxiety attack?

I recently drove my wife and daughter to New Jersey to visit family. We had an event to be at by 11am and it usually takes about four hours to get there. In order to account for the unexpected, we woke up at around 5am to leave by 6am.

The trip went smoothly and we were actually early, so early in fact that I has time to stop by a jiu-jitsu academy I’ve visited a few times prior for some morning training before going to our event.

We went to our event, grabbed some food, and then went to our hotel to check in. I tend not to eat or drink very much while I’m driving because food makes me tired and fluids make me have to pee, both of which make the trip take longer.

This, combined with waking up early, and the general stress of being on the road all morning, and I was in a somewhat fragile state. As a highly sensitive person, I had put a lot of strain on my body and mind over the course of the day.

My wife took my daughter to the hotel pool and I laid down for a nap. But as I laid there trying to rest, I was struck by a wave of what felt like anxiety. I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in a long time so this disturbed me, but I allowed it to wash over me as I laid there with my eyes closed.

I began thinking about what could have caused the anxiety I was feeling and I concluded that I wasn’t over-stressed or worried. In fact, nothing was really wrong at all. I was just tired, so tired that my body and mind had had enough.

I had basically pushed myself as far as I could go and now I was feeling the effects of that. What felt like anxiety was really just me being overly tired, dehydrated, and hungry. I wasn’t having an anxiety attack. I just needed some food, water, and a nap.

Growing feet

Did you know that your feet can get bigger as an adult? I had no idea. I assumed that, once I reached a certain age, my shoe size was fixed. Apparently, I was wrong.

For years, I wore size 12 shoes. It didn’t matter what brand or style, size 12 fit me. Then, one day, certain shoes, shoes I had been wearing for a long time, started to feel snug and uncomfortable around my toes, so I had to switch brands.

A few years later, I began noticing that all of my sneakers were becoming increasingly uncomfortable. This caused me to buy my first pair of wide running shoes. That helped for a while, but not for long. So I decided to try a different size shoe. I got a pair of size 13’s and, lo and behold, they fit me.

Many size 13 shoes later and I began having the same problem. Frustrated, I went to get my feet measured at the local running store. The gentleman helping me told me that he wasn’t surprised that my shoes were uncomfortable because they were 13’s and my feet were a half size bigger than that.

In spite of my beliefs, over the past two decades my feet have grown a full size and a half. I attribute it to the amount of time I spend barefoot on the soft jiu-jitsu mats, but it doesn’t really matter why my feet have gotten bigger.

What matters is the fact that my beliefs and my inability to see past them have caused me years worth of unnecessary pain and discomfort, the solution to which was merely asking for help and accepting that I was wrong.

How are your beliefs keeping you unnecessarily uncomfortable?

Choosing to walk

For many years, I was a repair technician traveling around the Washington DC metro area repairing coffee equipment and commercial ovens. With jobs coming in every day that were all over the region, I tried my best to be fast and efficient. But it was rarely as simple as showing up, diagnosing a piece of equipment, and repairing it. I also had to deal with the unpredictable obstacles of traffic and parking. 

With traffic, there was often nothing that could be done. There were a few back roads or detours here and there that I could take, but I mostly just had to trudge my way through it. Parking was slightly different, however.

With parking, especially in the city, I usually had two options. One option was to take the first available parking space, no matter how far away it was, and to walk. This would mean having to make multiple trips between my vehicle and the store for parts. The second option was to drive around the store I would be working in, looking for a parking space for as long as it took to find one as close to the store as possible. 

Quite often, I chose the second option. I prided myself on my stubborn persistence that I was going to find a parking space close to the store no matter how long it took. I’m not sure how often this decision saved me time, but it certainly saved me a lot of walking. 

Here’s the irony. Now that I no longer do repair work for a living, I actually make time to take long walks. In fact, I plan my day around my morning walk and I look for excuses to take walks throughout the day when I can. In fact, I sometimes park far away at the grocery store just to walk more and I take the stairs instead of the elevator when it is reasonable to do so. The difference, as far as I can tell, is why I’m walking and whom I’m walking for. 

Going up slides

My wife and I recently took our daughter on a roadtrip to Philadelphia to do some sightseeing and to eat at a few destination food spots.

On the way back to the car from Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, Isaiah Zagar’s breathtaking mosaic masterpiece and art gallery, we stopped by a local park for my daughter to play for a bit.

As my daughter spun around on the merry-go-round, I heard a mother scold her child for trying to run up the slide. “We don’t go up slides,” she said, “We go down slides.”

This got me thinking about how we view the world. If we only use things in exactly the way they are designed to be used, we are probably going to miss out on a lot of new and interesting experiences, not to mention opportunities to explore and innovate.

Especially as we get older and risk losing our curiosity and playfulness to practicality and cynicism, perhaps we could all do well to run up a slide or two every now and then just to see what happens.

Skipping steps

A few nights ago, I was walking down the stairs in my condo and, as I thought I was stepping down onto the landing, I found myself falling through space.

The floor was not where I expected it to be. Apparently, I had overestimated how many stairs I had gone down and I fell face-first onto the hardwood floor.

Luckily, I broke my fall, something I have done thousands of times on the jiu-jitsu mats, but it still hurt. There I was, lying on the floor, both shocked and embarrassed, wondering how I’d gotten there.

As it turns out, each step is there for a reason. Skipping some may get you where you are going more quickly, but haste comes at a cost.