The Creative Genius of Loving Your Ache

How loving all the crappy feelings you dare to feel are invitations to create what you love.

We talk a lot about following the path of our desires. But what about following the path of our pain?

What if our ache is not the obstacle to what we want, but the map that leads us directly to it?

So often we avoid feelings that feel terrible. We think they are telling us that something is wrong with us.

But what if the ache of your dissatisfaction is intelligence? What if it is a road sign on your path that says: Dead End. What if it is showing you that somewhere, somehow, you’ve veered off your soul’s path?

I was reminded of this in my art studio this week.

A dull unhappiness was pressing down on me. Because, in that moment, nothing in my life felt like it was flowing in the direction that I wanted it to.

I wanted nothing more than to squirm out of how that felt. And that is what I used to do.

But this time, I didn’t run from it. I held it. I felt it. I let it burn. And yes- it hurt.

But here’s the truth I’ve come to know: The more fully I hold myself with love in the ick without judging the feeling, shaming it or trying to fix it, the more that feeling moves through me and out again, opening up space for what lives underneath it to be revealed:

What I most deeply love and would love to create.

What I want to share with you is this: We can only be delivered onto the shores of what we want to feel by riding the wave of what we don’t want to feel.

So I did this: I went to my art studio. I loaded a brush with black paint. And I let my body move it across a big surface.

There was something primal, even chaotic, about it. I didn’t care that the wild smear of black paint made sense. I surrendered to the messy, fertile power of the feminine: my feeling self.

The part of me that knows creation begins in the dark, wild and unformed places within that most of us were discouraged from visiting.

I didn’t label my feelings wrong. I didn’t tell them that they were too much.

And then gazing at the black canvas, feeling the ache soften and fade, what arose up was clear:

I love to create beauty. I long for the joy of creating from a place of my love and truth.

So I loaded my brush with white paint. And a flower emerged from the darkness.

My favorite aunt once said to me:"You are so good at making beauty out of pain."

And this is what we can all do- when we let ourselves feel exactly how we feel, and trust that the ache is as much of a compass on our soul’s journey as our joy.

Because whether you think of yourself as an artist or not, you are a powerful creator. And the key to being a creator of what you love is this:

Feel ALL of what you feel. Don't think about it. Don’t manage it. Don’t fix it. Feel it through your body, without judgment or shame so it’s wisdom can reveal itself. Only then can it become a creative power.

Dissatisfaction is a signal. A call to presence. To truth. To love. And when we welcome it, pain reveals to us what we most deeply long to create next. Sometimes it will be a painting. Sometimes a boundary. Sometimes a love. Sometimes a life.

So this is what I want to offer you today:

The next time you feel something hard, don’t try to fix it. Don’t judge it. Don’t shame it. Feel it. Move it. Let it speak. And receive its invitation to create what you really love instead.

Because there is beauty waiting to bloom through your ache.