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Have you ever felt the weight of expectations on your creativity and even your soul? In this post, I invite you to peer into my journey of breaking one link in the long chain of constrictions I wore for most of my life. Hopefully, it'll inspire you to do your own version of it.
In a world where conformity often overshadows authenticity, I was constantly limited by self-doubt and rigidity since early childhood. It took me decades to disentangle the constricting net of limiting beliefs I had weaved.
Writing and drawing have always been a significant part of my life. As an introverted, lonely, awkward child who struggled to find her place in a loud world, I spent much time writing stories and trying to illustrate them. However, the environment where I grew up held the belief that you are either born with the talent for art or you aren't. Early on, I came to the sad conclusion that I was not one of the few chosen ones born with the talent to create art pieces, so I tried to satisfy my need for self-expression by writing short fiction stories.
Among many others, there were three crucial core beliefs in my younger self's worldview: the aforementioned innate talent, everything I tried needed to be perfect on the first try (which would determine if I had the talent or not) and making mistakes was one of the worst things I could do. This trifecta of impossible expectations was closely tied to my self-worth.
I wrote all my stories by hand, with pencils, exclusively on lined notebooks, dutifully adhering to their boundaries and cleanly erasing and re-writing when I had no other choice. But even though I loved writing, and I used to get positive feedback from a couple of teachers, I stopped altogether by the time I turned 18.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The "I'm not good enough" thought was too loud, and even that tiny window of self-expression I had managed to allow myself became too stressful. Also, at 18, I was already trying to find my way to live the life my father wanted for me, which involved a university degree in something important, like engineering or law school, and art in any form was not part of the picture. (For my younger readers, the "starving artist" concept was much more prevalent back then).
Fast-forward three decades, during which I tried several different career paths, including twenty years in a soul-crushing corporate job. Through a series of synchronicities and no small amount of serious introspection, I faced my younger self, who demanded I take another look at my early love for artistic expression through a completely different belief system.
I taught myself to draw in 2014, which debunked my early belief about talent. And then, I started to write again. I took the most enormous, scariest leap of faith of my whole life, and at 48, I left my corporate job without having a clear notion of what I'd be doing for a living. But that's a story for another post.
Whenever I picked up a notebook to write, I was reminded of the rules I had strictly and blindly followed my whole life (stay small, don't make waves, don't stand out in any way, don't stray from convention, etc.), and everything I wrote, whether notes from webinars or journaling entries, had to be clean and neat, carefully contained within the lines. To me, writing was done on lined pages and drawing on blank ones. Full stop. Still, the structured format echoed fears and anxieties from the established norms that kept me from expressing myself in any way that would diverge from the straightforward, conventional path.
I longed to express myself freely, not only in my art but also in my writing. But my stern inner critic (whom I named Ruth; we're actually good friends now! -also a story for another post) kept me from straying too far. I was still very attached to a misaligned identity of convention. Ruth made sure to remind me every step of the way.
When I discovered dotted-lined notebooks, the rigid structure of line pages began to fade, replaced by the gentle guidance of the dots. This shift invited a slight bending of the rules. I even started to use pens in crazy colors (purple ink... wow...) instead of a pencil and to doodle on the margins. I made mistakes and scratched them out. My even, careful cursive began to loosen up.
Then, one day, while visiting the Pittsburgh Carnegie Museum of Art, I saw a beautiful sketchbook with a Goya print on the cover (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters). I bought it intending to fill it with sketches. The pages were blank, after all. But that first blank page stared at me, saying, "Why not?"
At that moment, when I shifted from structured lines to the wide-open space of the blank page, I broke the rules, and creativity started to surge. I have learned that creativity flourishes in abundance when we release the grip. Even my sketches loosened. The blank page was full of potential waiting to be realized—a canvas for my soul's expression. I could write upside down, right to left, in circles, in green or multicolor ink, replace words with doodles, include "bad" sketches, incorrect grammar, and anything else under and over the stars. I could start looking for my unique voice.
I no longer buy exclusively lined notebooks and mostly use blank ones.
I am not saying that simply switching from lined notebooks to blank ones was like waving a magical wand that opened my mind, the unlimited floodgates of creativity, and changed all my childhood programming overnight. I have been committed to my emotional healing and personal growth for many years and have done (and continue to do) the work. I continue to be mindful and address my limiting beliefs when they arise. But changing my writing tools nudged me to embrace spontaneity in my daily life. To try new things.
Changing things, even small ones can unleash a chain of events that could bring us unexpected growth and opportunities.
Your path likely differs from mine, but the essence remains the same: dare to explore your boundaries and expand your perceived limits. Breaking limiting beliefs will open a new reality!
I would like to leave you with a few prompts should you choose to adventure further into your own inner landscape:
- Think of one or two things you have been doing the same way for years.
- What are the central beliefs about yourself that are reflected in these activities?
- How could you change the way you do these activities?
- If you do go through with changing things up, what do you notice about the beliefs associated with the activities? How did changing things up affect those beliefs?
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