Entering the Theater of Your Own Creative Process

And the secret to seeing what’s really on the screen

Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash

The creative process is a most mysterious one — the inner journey a person takes to transform an impulse, idea, or inspiration into a manifested form that other people can enjoy.

For most of us, the creative process begins with the undeniable recognition that we are being called to express something — to give shape to the invisible.

Usually, the beginning of this process is intoxicating. The sky’s the limit. Anything is possible. All systems are GO. Whoo hoo!

In time, however, things change. Our muse, once pristine, now has warts and we enter into the phase sometimes referred to as the “messy middles.”

Where once everything seemed clear, now nothing is. Confusion, distraction, and procrastination rule the day. The light at the end of the tunnel? Now more fluorescent than divine.

Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash

This messy middles phenomenon is not only common, it’s predictable and has been going on for thousands of years. All journeys have obstacles. Every fairy tale has it’s Big Bad Wolf. Obstacles are not the…