Being in a foreign country this week has been already been amazing. There is something refreshing about reconnecting with someone who seems to get lost a lot…myself. As creative people it is never an option to lose site of the artist inside of us. But the problem is all the emotions and experiences we have, good and bad, require us to be vulnerable. In an amazing Ted talk Breen Brown makes this statement: “Let go of who you think you should be so that you can be who you really are.”

Vulnerability is the birthplace of freedom to create. Fear is having an all out war trying to keeps us from a place of vulnerability. We have lived our entire lives attempting to numb vulnerability and when we do this we avoid:

• Asking for help
• Risking rejection
• Facing hard truths
• Accepting we are not in control
• Battling the desire to always be in control
• We avoid being OK

What we lose in this process is that when we numb the negative we numb the positive as well. As creative people when we try to isolate these feelings we limit our ability to really truly create our best art. Because our best art is created from the real emotions we live, not the numbed, dumbed down, wanna-be emotions we fabricate. It’s all or nothing. Good and bad. Purpose and meaning live in the same place that failure, rejection, and mistakes live.

One of the problems is we are consistently looking for certainty. But certainty rarely exists. Especially for people who create and live off the emotions they experience. We try to paint picture of who we are instead of actually embracing who we are! How can we create art that connects when we are disconnected from ourselves in the first place!

Stop pretending. Stop manipulating. Stop thinking this does not change your art. Stop buying the lie you are not enough. Stop believing that if you don’t get back in touch with who you are, with your artist, it won’t impact the rest of us. Stop believing the lies.

It is dangerous. We are going to be rejected. We are going to be hurt and taken advantage of and guess what…that is the exact thing that is going to create the next piece of art that matters to our lives and the lives of others…the piece of art that connects people to God. See, when we are really seen the face of rejection is finally seen. This vulnerable place lets us live. When we accept that who we are, who God made us to be, that the artist inside of us is enough…everything changes. How we act, relate and create all changes. And not only does whom we are change, how people respond and react to us and our creations changes as well.

So today you are enough. Not only are you enough, the artist in you was created to create work today that will allow people to not only see who you are…but see who God is…and that will change everything for you and just might change everything for them as well.