From NO to YES: Empowering Your Creative Process

Yes is a complete sentence

Have you heard the term “No is a complete sentence?” It’s a wonderful concept - you don’t have to explain or justify it when you say no. It's just No. When you start to explain and justify it gives people who are trying to manipulate you or who don’t respect your boundaries an opportunity to break down that no. But it’s just NO. 

I propose that when it comes to your creative life YES is also a complete sentence. You don’t have to justify or squish your creative impulses. Let yourself play and feel pleasure with the materials you love, the colors you love, the ideas you love, the imagery you love. 

Can we breathe that in for a moment? Yes.

When I get an inspiration, I go through this whole routine of justifying it. Defending it. But I can just say YES if I feel a YES!  

What thoughts are you having now? Are you having a lot of “buts.” But glitter makes my art look amateur. But so and so said that my colors were garish. But so and so said my painting was boring. My painting was wrong, my painting was dangerous, or safe, or all the things, all the judgments!

So we say NO, sometimes to our deepest pleasures!

We don’t want to look silly, we don’t want to look like amateurs, we don’t want that feeling of people laughing behind our back or scoffing.

We also judge. We judge what we don't want to be. But its all in us.

We have in us the toddler being given crayons for the first time.
We have the adolescent drawing pretty girls with their hands behind their backs because hands are hard.
We have within us the relaxed retiree learning traditional plein air landscape painting.
We have the wild abstract expressionist hurling paint. 
We have the suburban matron with her hobby room full of arts and crafts supplies from Hobby Lobby.
We have a designer in love with minimalism.
We have the rebel making art with her menstrual blood.
We have the hippie painting giant mandalas and goddesses or magnificent tie dye tapestries!
We have the beginner who needs to use tools like a projector or AI to achieve their vision.
We have the expert who spent years mastering her craft and can’t let go.

I could go on. 

We judge some of them and revere others. We fear being perceived as something we don’t want to be. Our shadow.  I don’t want someone to think I’m just ________. So we say no. 
Not because we wouldn’t enjoy it, but because we don’t want to BE that. We disown that. And when we do that, we also disown everything that persona brings to the table. What does that cost us?

You should make your own list, the creative personas you see out in the world, the ones you like and the ones you dislike.   Which ones do you revere? Which ones do you disown? What does the disowned persona offer that we might lose when we fight the possibility of BEING that?

I’m not saying you have to BE that, I’m just saying that we all usually strongly dislike certain creative paths. There are others we feel neutral about, but the ones that we have strong feelings about, maybe there is some magic in there, or some truth,. You don’t have to become that in order to have the benefits. You just need to stop JUDGING and disowning it, distancing yourself from it. Have some respect for it. You are your own person, it won’t infect you! 
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Is there anything you say NO to that maybe could be a YES? What happens when you try?
We have all those personas inside us, but we can't (and shouldn't try) ACTUALIZE them all in real life. We don’t need to. If we are chasing every little thing that interests us, there is a cost to that as well.

​But give a deeper look to the ones that feel strong.

Questions to explore

1. Make your own list of the creative personas you see out in the world, the ones you like and the ones you dislike. Which ones do you revere? Which ones do you disown? 
2. Reflect on a recent creative impulse where you felt the need to defend or explain your choices. How did this affect your creative process?
3. Consider a time when you hesitated to pursue a creative idea because of fear of judgment or rejection. How did you navigate this situation?
4. Reflect on a creative path or style that you strongly dislike. What might be the underlying reasons for this aversion, and is there value in exploring it further?
5. Consider the concept of setting creative limits for yourself. How do boundaries enhance or inhibit your creative process?
6. Reflect on a time when you said "no" to a creative opportunity or idea that could have been a "yes." What held you back, and what would have happened if you had embraced it?
7. How do you strike a balance between embracing creative freedom and maintaining focus in your artistic practice?
8. Reflect on the notion of judgment in creativity. How do your own judgments and the judgments of others impact your creative decisions?
9. Consider the phrase "YES is a complete sentence" in the context of your creative journey. How can you incorporate this mindset into your approach to creativity moving forward?