Building Trust in Yourself
I'm in the enviable position of getting to watch lightbulbs go off over people's heads in Brave Space when they begin to understand that sometimes they can allow themselves to flow in the creative space and do the work they dream of doing. Suddenly their characters are speaking to them, or they are aware of all the sensory experiences of a scene they've been stuck on in a way that allows the scene to flow easily from their fingers. Or they can see the deep structure like a sunken ship they are finally able to explore well below the surface of whatever they are making.
Usually after the surprise and the joy, people want to know how this can happen again. Will this ever happen again? Was it a fluke? How can we repeat this? Well, we all know no one steps into the same river twice, but getting into the flow of creativity is a habit we can make room for and practice. Setting up times to do this can be hard (hence Brave Space, just show up!). But the truly difficult part is to develop within ourselves the permission to trust ourselves.
Trusting ourselves is rarely taught or even discussed, but trusting ourselves is an essential part to a fruitful practice for creating anything you want to create.
Raised female and living a nonbinary life, I was taught to put myself on hold for the culture at large, for men, and even beyond men to make myself silent and small. (Good thing I didn't always listen.) How many of us are trying to be smaller, quieter and less noticeable on a regular basis?
Trusting ourselves is rarely on the lists of ways to improve our lives, and yet it is a vital part of learning to stand up for ourselves, speak up for ourselves, value our instincts and intuitions and feelings, and to develop and use greater agency, take risks, and to create anything!
How can we trust ourselves? For writers/creatives, we build trust by showing up for ourselves on a regular basis. We build trust by doing the exploratory, messy work that doesn't necessarily lead anywhere on a regular basis.
So many of us have no "regular basis" time or ways to practice that. But you will develop a growing habit of trust for yourself if you set your goal to be something you can actually do, and then do it. When I was starting to write, I set very low standards that I could meet. 5 minutes of focused writing time a day. I set an alarm. I rewarded myself for doing it.
Even now I write with a timer in Brave Space or without Brave Space on my own for an hour by the clock every morning and with negotiated alarmed times from 5 to 50 minutes at other times of the day. This has helped me see that I am reliably working on my goals (even if my goal is to find out what my next goal is). This builds trust.
Come to Brave Space to write or make stuff (or journal, or fill out that application you've put off) and learn more about trust!
This week Brave Space meets this week:
Monday at 12 pm ET
Wednesday at 12 pm ET
Thursday at 10 am ET
Friday at 3 pm ET (note different time this week on Friday!)
Set an intention to show up for yourself. TELL ME HERE and I’ll send you a link.
On the morning of the session, you’ll get the link again and the prompt and lots of support during the session, an optional discussion of process afterwards, and an exit email detailing the takeaways.
For a pay-what-you-can fee, suggested $5-20 via Venmo @Emma-Goldman-Sherman (8102 if they ask) or Zelle (to Barbara Goldman-Sherman at emmagoldmansherman [at] gmail … )
COACHING: If you are trying to move forward with your regular therapist and feel stuck, consider my Brave Coaching Group! My coaching clients report it is a great boost to their therapy! One of the primary goals in our group is to learn to create a lived sense of safety, (boosts our ability to trust ourselves). This lived sense of safety we're building can really help therapeutic work move forward. Somatic work and parts work can be done in addition to your regular therapy, and I am offering this work at very affordable rates! Sliding scale of $20-35/group session based on what you can afford. Starts Tuesday 9/12 at 230 ET for 90 minutes on Zoom. MORE INFO 2 spots left!
Onward,
Emma