Whether you are a writer, artist or a business owner, understanding the function of the soul of what you are creating will save you a lot of headache AND heartache.
Because you wouldn’t approach a canvas without a paintbrush, or a notebook without a pen, or a battlefield without a weapon..
So why approach a creative process without understanding the most important tool of all?
Everything is creation; so if you are wondering how I can generalize to say that writing is just like entrepreneurship, THAT’s how.
For the purposes of this discussion let’s call this: Creative Soul.
That is the soul of what you create, like a book, a blog, a class, a business offer, not the soul of a creation person.
This creative soul has very similar functions to that of YOUR soul. I’ve been reading about the nature of the soul for my Masters in Spiritual and Pastoral Care at Loyola, and the book The Holy Longing by Rolheiser inspired me this week to apply those learnings to the Creative Soul.
The two functions of any soul are:
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Energy
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Adhesion
The Creative Soul, i.e. the soul of what you are creating, also serves these two very important functions.
Now let’s elaborate a little bit more about these functions.
1. Energy.
The soul is the heart of the creative power and energy that allows you to enjoy creating.
The creative process is all about tapping into energy: it’s a flood when inspiration is pouring through your pen, and it is elating when you have that inspiring click in your business creation. It makes your heart soar. It makes your heart beat faster. It makes you smile, gleeful, playful and excited.
Everything in the universe is made of energy, so you are uniting with all that is through the creative process. However, your project has a specific and separate energy from anything else (more in part 2) including separate from yours. That’s what makes it’s Creative Soul distinct.
2. Adhesion
Without something to tie everything together and direct our actions, ideas by themselves are meaningless in the physical world.
This is true no matter how many ideas you have, and no matter how brilliant they are.
Pursuing ideas without the crux could be a gigantic waste of time resulting only in failure.
True artists pursue ideas with soul. The execution of the guidance given by the Creative Soul results in mastery.
Think about it: All the greats in art have a cohesive style that makes things them. In business we call it a brand, and in writing we call it a voice.
The thing that glues all the pieces together into a coherent whole is the Creative Soul.
The Creative Soul is what you have been looking for. It is the key to the lock. It doesn’t even matter what the situation is, the soul always has the answer because it ties everything together that would otherwise fall apart. It is literally connected to every facet of the creative process including it’s full manifestation in form, or what I call the guidelines for “its perfect unfolding.”
So if your process feels scattered or you feel lost right now–then you need soul.
If you can’t find the answer to the puzzle or put all the pieces together just right, you probably are missing soul.
Swirling ideas or thoughts don’t translate well into action. This can be the plague of too ideas without a connection to the Creative Soul. Those disconnected ideas can seem enticing or exciting but they can also cause you to go into overwhelm. Overwhelm is a neurological response to being overstimulated that cripples your thought process and is physically uncomfortable as your body goes into fight or flight mode.
Overwhelm is what I call one of the banes of creation, along with overthinking and confusion. All of these things can be an indication that you are missing the soul piece.
Two things can happen if you don’t have that adhesive quality of the soul to help you:
You could easily either sit with all the thoughts and ideas forever as you hunt for the soul and never take any action, OR you could take action in the totally wrong direction that takes you farther away from the soul of your creation.
Do you see how absolutely important the soul is?
It’s essential and it strikes me as nuts that not as many people talk about this.
To be fair I have influences that discuss the soul in business like Hiro Boga, or Tara Marino. But I don’t hear people talking about the importance of the soul in the creative process of writing quite so much. Anyway…
Often times the soul is that missing link that you have been looking for this whole time. Can you believe it is really that simple
Well, it is.
I believe what is more difficult is wrapping our minds around it because it’s really a matter of feeling into it. We need to engage not only our mind in the creative process but also our bodies, hearts, and spirits. We need to connect our soul to that we are getting, in a healthy and productive way with boundaries.
Our cognitive minds don’t understand souls because they can’t feel. Our heart and being understand the Creative Soul once they are able feel it and identify it’s distinct and cohesive qualities.
Putting it all Together
My job is connecting people to the Creative Soul, i.e the soul of their creations, including writing books, blogs, creating courses for sale, etc.
I’m like a bridge or a mediator.
Let me provide an example of what happens when we are missing this connection to creative soul, and what happens when we get that connection back.
Last week I talked to a lovely woman recently about a course she was planning to offer, as well as everything she need to do to market it. At first it was clear she didn’t have access to the soul. She appeared confused, asking a lot of questions all over the place, seeking something to pull it all together. She also seemed a little dejected. Overwhelmed. Heavy. Like she had a headache. She might literally have put her hands on her head and exhaled in a sigh of frustration. From her perspective it probably felt hard, and sorting through the conundrums was kind of depressing.
That’s why we need ENERGY and cohesion. Our souls light up when we feel a connection to the soul of what we are creating. Light bulb moment.
By the end of our conversation she was feeling clear, excited and bubbly. We had moved on but she still kept randomly saying, “Yay I am so excited,” in a sing-song voice, doing a little dance in her chair, because she was feeling the energy. Feeling the soul. It fed her the energy she needed, like plugging into an electric socket.
She ended up taking strategic action instantly and successfully in the 24 hours after our talk.
If she hadn’t plugged into the soul of her course launch, she could still be confused and circling right now. She would feel disconnected from exactly what she needed to move forward. That probably wouldn’t have made her soul feel very good either.
This is what my client said about what happened as we talked, “I have had this in the back of my head for months. It was all floating around and then it all clicked into place as I was talking to you. I know what to do now. Yay! I am so excited.”
Not only did I help her know the next step, but she felt that click of the adhesive properties of the soul sliding into place. It gives us a completeness that feels so good, and it also gives us energy to make good things happen.
The next day she put a sign up link out there on facebook and immediately saw that a dozen people had signed up right away.
Attracting Big Opportunities
Not only does your connection to the soul of your creation help you to create more quickly, easily and in a feel good way, but it also feels good to other people around you.
People like creations with soul. The energy and cohesive clarity of it hits people viscerally. They feel it and it’s a draw, it’s a pull, it’s a rope drawing in exactly those people that were meant to interact with your creation.
So if you want more people reading your writing, or signing up to work with you in your business, then you definitely want soul to inspire you as you create.
I hope this article finds you well and inspired.
Stay tuned, as I will soon be announcing a super easy way for you to find out more specifically about the Creative Soul of what YOU are working on so you can feel energized, inspired and always know what to do next.
Thank you for reading!
So far it’s been a blessing to receive your comments and encouragement on these articles. The number of people who seem to enjoy this series is really striking! I believe it’s because of exactly what I have shared: this article was written with soul.
Blessings
Sofia Wren
