Creative Blocks: A Dance with Our Inner Muse

Maybe you've been staring at the lump of clay in front of you, hoping that perhaps a staring contest would somehow will it to move and shape itself. Or maybe your cursor is blinking at you, hovering over the end of the first sentence of that still mostly blank page, your thoughts not seeming to be able to come together in the way they have before. You stare at it. You wait. You zone out while hoping for that ember of motivation to spark into a flame that ignites your creativity. But there is only stillness. Only silence between you and your medium. If you are a creative person in any way, chances are that you’ve experienced a firsthand taste of the dreaded creative block. You’ve waited patiently for motivation to come, or inspiration, or even a hint of a clue of direction of where you want to go with your creative endeavor. And you may have found that sometimes the more you wait for inspiration to come, the longer it takes, if you feel that it even comes at all.

When it flows, creativity can at times feel like a gift that allows you to channel inspiration effortlessly; a playful, rapturous dance between you and your ideas. You take the lead and your ideas fall into place, like an old dance partner who falls into step knowingly beside you. You know your partner’s favorite steps and they know yours. You know when to push and when to pull, and you know how to alter and slow the dance if one of you begins to tire. Our ability to dance with ease and knowing with our beloved partner can be affected by stress, health issues, concerns, and our external stimuli. The world’s troubles cloud our sight and tire our mind. Sometimes we get too much into our heads, and we no longer enjoy the dance. We no longer enjoy the mystery, that moment of not knowing if our partner will fall into step beside us.

But that’s the thing about dancing. Sometimes we need it the most when we are in pain. Sometimes it’s the only salve for when we feel tired, unsure, unmotivated, and uninspired. Sometimes the mere decision to dance is a rebellious act against everything else going wrong with the world, or seemingly going wrong in our lives. And maybe we haven’t danced in a while, and aren’t sure if we are able to lead anymore. But its not about the skill of dancing. It’s about a partnership with ourselves. With our muse, who has danced thousands of times with us before and has never turned us down, no matter how clumsy or inadequate we felt. Sometimes motivation isn’t what we need to get started, to get past the creative “block”. Maybe what we really need is trust. Trust in ourselves to extend our hand into the void, and remain forever ready for another dance.