Why are passions difficult?

Writing is a lifeblood.  Do you feel that?  There are so many possibilities when you come to write.  The words could promote a cause or they could destroy you.  You can use words to inflict hurt or to empower.  Such power runs through them.  Sometimes I find it overwhelming.  Sometimes, it makes me want to sit back and not write.

I don’t think that feeling of being overwhelmed is unique to writing.  Sometimes, I think it feels safer to sit back and not live.  And by that I don’t mean that I’m not busy.  I am - so busy.  But there’s a difference between doing what is expected of you/fulfilling your responsibilities and doing something which feeds your soul.  You can check off every list and still feel like a dried husk.  Passions are important.  Though you can of course live without them and even be happy.  Nevertheless, if it is missing, there will be a niggle, whispering to you that there is something more.  For others (like me) it was a chasm of emptiness.  When you’re searching for a passion, it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly.  It’s elusive.  That is until you experience it.  So you would think that the moment you find a passion, you’re soaring on high.  Problem fixed - Forever.  In my experience, if you’re writing and it’s a passion, you’ll enter amazing flow states, which feel fantastic.  That will happen.  You will experience the high.

There is another dimension about a passion that I think you need to be aware of.  Sometimes, you’re not soaring in the flow.  Sometimes when you’re doing the drudgery of life and you’ve stepped away from it for a bit or a while, you’ve forgotten the completeness it brings to your life.  When liveliness is in the negative and the medicine you need to improve is not only known to you (aka you know your passion) it is still so hard to take a nip of it.  There are times when I have felt that creativity is too exhausting for me to experience right now.  It doesn’t make sense right?  Writing can bring me out of a slump, make me vibrant and I can’t even look its way.

I bring this up, because today, I didn’t feel like writing at all!  And then when I started, I was completely overwhelmed with feeling that I started crying.  Strangely enough, after all that, I’m now feeling a lot more centred.  My purpose in telling you this is so you’re clear, that passions aren’t always exhilarating, but they do help in another way.  There are times when you go back to it and it uncorks something deep and uncontrollable.  It might mean that on that day or days or weeks even though you’re working on your craft you’re not creating anything, but simply by doing it, it is colouring in the greys in your life.  At those times, simply doing makes you feel better. Truly better. Not the 'better' feeling you get from distracting yourself for hours.

My message today is that those whisperings about what you can do, make and create are important.  You don’t need to turn away from them.  They won’t deplete you.  You won’t be exhausted by exploring them.  In fact they’ll do the opposite and invigorate.  Regardless of who is demanding your time, what others are telling you, if someone is telling you your ideas are stupid or that you’re stupid.  Turn away from them and towards the whisperings.  Take a nip anyway.  And remember: ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’. 

Have the best week my lovelies.

KR Fox