I’m working out of my head lately. If you frequent my blog posts you have most likely noticed. And while our heads are important, they are not very moving.

Words without heart, without emotion, fall pretty flat. Even I am not satisfied with some of my posts these last weeks.

The best posts rather are those full of heart and soul. Brimming with raw authenticity these are the ones most loved and commented on; they are the ones that move us.

And I’ve a little secret to share. The only way for me to write from that place is to be in touch with sorrow and sadness.

When I am upbeat and in task mode, there is nothing inspiring to write.

The best writing comes out of my personal depths of difficulty and pain. Not that everything has to be going bad in order to get a good post, but I must be in touch with all that is not right and good.

‘In touch’ being the operative word.

To feel the depths of sadness sets the stage to feel the depths of delight and joy.

Without the stretch the one way, we cannot stretch the other way.

And safety in the middle, that controlled space where nothing is too bad or (god-forbid) too good, results in nothing. We simply are not moved.

We are working out of our heads.

Creativity rather, that place of an artist, comes from that core depth deep inside us. From the guts of our existence and experiences, here is where we find gold.

It is interesting that creativity is what saves us. Studies have shown that when we engage our creativity, regardless of what that might be, we no longer have need for addictions or false happiness of any sort.

Creativity draws from us something by which we are saved.

Its that depth of knowing, of raw reflection and naked frankness by which we come to enjoy life.

For art requires vulnerability and risk and that place where we put ourselves out there.

So in this head space, I’m working to connect with my heart. To feel the vulnerabilities, to name the dichotomies, to honestly see the difficulties, to cry aloud all of which terrifies me…

To enter into grace.

It is the very thing we shrink from the most,

Becoming the very thing which saves us.