Have you ever wondered exactly what makes a creative breakthrough happen? I have...a lot. I got a real blast of insight into this little puzzle the other day, talking to a client I'll call Len.
Len is a lawyer who has always been reliable, responsible, and extremely competent at his craft. But, what he has longed to do more than anything is write. Len's dream is to break free with his writing and relax into it, letting his passion carry him as he lets the words flow. Something his rigidly cast role as a lawyer has not permitted at all.
Recently, however, Len had a breakthrough. At a retreat, he was invited to break a board with his bare hand, much the way karate experts do. Len was mildly intrigued, until a legal form was passed out releasing the teachers of responsibility in case of injury. Suddenly the lawyer in Len was on attack Ð how many people had been through this process and been injured? And how severe were the injuries? How could he be expected to sign this if he didnÕt know what to expect? Len refused to sign.
It was then pointed out to him that the resistance he felt is just what kept him back in life, in general.
At first, Len was annoyed, ready to quit the retreat then and there. (He could always say he had a sudden migraine!) But then his anger melted away as he began quietly running the question through his mind. What was his resistance about, anyway? Was everything in his life always subject to legal analysis? And what was legal analysis if it wasn't always to assume the worst, and hold back passion and impulse in the interest of self-preservation. In short...what was he so afraid of?
Len began to think. Maybe his trouble with accessing his writing had to do with fear. Maybe his whole life was lived out of a fear of bad things happening. Len surprised the group by suddenly being the first to volunteer to break the board. Without a single hesitation, he stepped up to the board and split it in half. The group was amazed, and Len was particularly blown away. In that instant, he'd broken through his fear.
A breakthrough can only happen when the reality we swirl around in (and so seldom see) is clearly analyzed and then chosen or rejected -- even for an instant. In my own work, I've noticed that itÕs the pungency of the question you ask or observation you make that cause this shift to happen.
In workshops, I'm often tempted to hold back, and just be Good Ol' Nurturing Suzanne. ("Sure, it's okay...you don't have to do the exercise.") Yet, that never moves anything forward. If clients are game, it's my job to really get down in the trenches with them and figure out what's going on.
And yet, it's not a matter of getting all muddy and mucky down in that trench as you wrestle endlessly, trying to coerce change. Instead, you have to say the right thing. And that is almost always what you feel in your gut...often the truth that's the hardest to speak.
We shy away from such thoughts because we think we're not up to the job. ("Who am I to say such a thing?Mother would be horrified!") We wonder if we can we really be that brutally honest. Yet, I'm not suggesting you come on like an Army drill sergeant, or one of those old toughies from the est days. (Am I dating myself here?) Instead, I'm suggesting we speak from a place of benevolent honesty; not one of superiority, smugness, condescension, or anything other than plain, simple love. These are the moments that make breakthroughs happen, fully and completely. Best of all, such observations are gloriously simple, and wonderfully true. All they require is that we trust ourselves to say what we know. Just another perfect design in an amazing, miraculous world.
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