We can think, write, and read pretty words, feel good words like love and light, angels, and manifestation, but it all comes down to the nitty gritty work.

We can talk all day about our dreams and cut out pictures for our vision boards and light candles at the altar, but it all comes down to the nitty gritty work.

I'm as "airy fairy" as the next person, but I honor the balance. I can plan and dream and pull oracle cards all day, but the beautiful stuff isn't going to make it happen. 

It's the grungy, sweaty, blister-from-holding-my-pen work that will.

In college I had a crazy art professor who was obsessed with low-budget Noir films and art pieces that involved wrapping islands with colored plastic. He was always laughing maniacally and saying things like, “She was crazy like a fox...all the way to the bank!”

Despite his crazy passions and odd quotes, there was one gem he passed along that I'll never forget – creativity is fearlessness. I wrote it on a piece of paper with different colored markers and pinned it to my bedroom wall to remind me to be creatively fearless.

So what does it mean to be creatively fearless?

It means writing with abandon, uncovering your scars on paper, painting your gratitude, and dreaming big, beautiful, cosmic-sized dreams. Putting everything out there and creating from your heart is bravery. Never hold anything back.

Swim against the current if you have to, create your own path, even if it means upsetting people or shaking up society.

I wrote a short story in college that “disturbed” some of the other students in my writing workshop class. It was about a teenage girl who became obsessed with a rock star and severely depressed. I wrote it in two days and it came from a very tender place in my heart, so when I overheard a classmate talking about how weird and crazy I was for writing the story, it hurt, but then I realized my words had hit a nerve. They spoke a dark truth and needed to be released.

Speaking our truths is vulnerable. When we put our heart in our hands for everyone to see, it can make others uneasy, even angry. There's always a chance of getting hurt, but that's fearlessness.

To be creatively fearless we must be ourselves. There's no room for comparison; stop comparing your blog writing to others, stop comparing your artwork to your idol's artwork. Just be you - one hundred percent you and let everything shine through.

That is what the world needs – creative spirits who aren't afraid to be themselves, speak their truths, even if it's ugly.

Fearlessness is not perfection, it's not always beautiful, it's not always an amazing first draft. Fearlessness is participating in crazy creation. It's putting your heart and soul into whatever you do and holding it up to the world and feeling no shame.

To move past the blocks, we must be fearless. Get the words on the paper, no matter how horrible the sentences sound. Fall down when you dance, get paint on your hands, smudge it on the canvas.

Stop worrying about how it looks/sounds/feels and if people will accept it. Be a maverick, an alchemist, a beacon of inspiration and change.

Creativity is stirring inside us and there's no reason to keep it locked away. Be fearless, be bold, be unique, be you. 

♥ a stocked pantry ♥ sweater weather ♥ tea & books ♥ fuzzy boots ♥ $1 candles ♥ making pumpkin pie pancakes ♥ art date with my love ♥ a lime green lizard & a sunfire orange cardinal ♥ God's peace ♥ getting paid to write ♥ reading Witch Baby for the millionth time ♥ blueberry mango scones ♥ every sweet moment I'm able to devote my time to my dreams ♥ a dog who's always willing to cuddle ♥ a room of my own ♥ spontaneous laughter ♥ aha moments ♥ sleeping in ♥ hearing "I love you" ♥ rainbow toe socks ♥ fresh veggies & fruit ♥ chai lattes with fresh ground cinnamon ♥ listening to old chick metal & singing at the top of my lungs ♥ bean & cheese breakfast tacos ♥ watching dragonflies ♥ learning dirt's good for you ♥ working in my pajamas ♥ stillness & quiet ♥ this white feather I found (finding feathers means you're on the right path!)

Here's something I do, and I suspect many people do...

worry about things so much that I concoct a whole story in my mind and make myself sick thinking it's already happened.

Laura Toller Gardner wrote a blog post about this, aptly called, Vivid Feeling. This kind of feeling can create good as well as evil. Such is the case of worrying and creating disastrous stories in my mind. Then I get all emotional and cry and cry and cry because my world is crumbling and I'm going down with it...or whatever the horror story happens to be.

Julia Cameron mentions this kind of worry in her book the Prosperous Heart. She recounts a conversation she had with her minister who told this story:

"It's amazing to me how our expectations can change how we feel. Yesterday, I lost Snickers in the field behind the church for an hour. I thought I would die of fear. I was designing the 'lost dog' sign, trying to figure out how much I could afford as the reward, imagining crying myself to sleep - and then I thought, 'What am I doing?' I teach this stuff! I tried to imagine how happy I would be when Snickers was back in my arms. Five minutes later, he was."

How many times have you done this? Imagined all the bad stuff that would happen until it made you sick? This week has been full of it for me - partly because of hormones and partly because some old ghosts (that apparently I have not gotten rid of) have come back to spook me. But today I had that "What am I doing?" moment. 

When the mind starts whirling and your thoughts get twisted, here are some things to remember:

• The past doesn't predict the future.
• There's no use in worrying about what you can't control.
• Expect miracles.
• Imagining the good is just as easy as imagining the bad and it doesn't give you that ick feeling.

I'm practicing...no...living these things today by releasing the past and the people/situations that hurt me, by  putting my energy into imagining the best, most joyful story, and by focusing on today, which is all I really have.

How do you banish your mind monsters?