What’s Stopping Your Fullest Self-Expression?

What gets in the way of your fullest self-expression?

In a word: conditioning.

When you were a baby, a toddler, and up to a certain point in your childhood, you had no hang-ups with expressing yourself.

You cried. You screamed. You expressed every emotion. Your thoughts and ideas emerged from you unfiltered.

Your curiosity was unbounded and even encouraged.

Playtime was an essential part of your curriculum.

The imaginal realm was how you learned about the world.

In the land of make believe, you tried on roles and personas, you played parts, and then you left them behind.

And then, at some point, it stopped.

At some point people told you it wasn’t appropriate to cry or laugh in certain situations.

You received messages about what was acceptable, expected, and appropriate.

You learned a story of who you are and what is expected of you in the world.

You were give rules and standards for what to wear, how you need to look, what’s ok to say and what is off limits.

Perhaps you learned that there are some things that are acceptable for others to do but not for you, because you’re “too smart” for those things or you have “more important” responsibilities.

This conditioning, reinforced consistently and persistently over time, created your current reality.

It lives within you.

It stifles the part of you that longs to express itself through acts of creativity and art.

And so, today, the realm of make believe and imagination feel off limits.

Curiosity is now a distraction.

Playtime is a frivolous indulgence.

It doesn’t have to be.

Somewhere within you is that child you once were. The child who knows how to fully express, who embraces curiosity and play.

Creativity is not something you do; it’s who you are. It’s in you. It is you.

Every person is creative. By virtue of being alive.

If you doubt this, listen to those stories you’re telling yourself. They are very creative.

We spend most of our formative years imagining what or who we might become in life.

The real work of adulthood is the work of unbecoming.

It’s the process of unlearning stories and rules that told you who are and who you must be.

It’s the process of de-conditioning the habitual actions, thoughts, and beliefs that you’ve carried for years.

It’s the practice of play.