I'm Tellin' Y'all It's Sabotage

The past few years I have picked a word to theme my year, to write at the top of the page, to start the day.

I think my word for 2014 may be..... Sabotage. I know it isn't the super inspirational, joyful, high energy words everyone else is making theirs.....but last night I listed out all the ways I self sabotage my own creative process and projects. I need to be reminded that around every corner I have laid a booby trap for my own failure, that it is like the Temple of Doom in my own head! 

Previous years words: Grateful, Thrive, Release, and Breathe

Nothing like that speaks to me.

A recent discussion with my friend Jen about inspiration and creating art, got me thinking. I am afraid of my own dark thoughts. I am afraid what people with think of the creative force inside me. I am afraid that they will be horrified. Really? No. I am the one who is afraid, terrified, paralysed with this fear.

I just turned on Beastie Boys Pandora and first song up? Sabotage. It's a sign.

"I can't stand it I know you planned it
I'm gonna set it straight, this watergate
I can't stand rocking when I'm in here
Because your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear
So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this fucking thorn in my side
Oh my, it's a mirage
I'm tellin' y'all it's sabotage

So listen up 'cause you can't say nothin'
You'll shut me down with a push of your button?
But yo I'm out and I'm gone
I'll tell you now I keep it on and on

'cause what you see you might not get
And we can bet so don't you get souped yet
You're scheming on a thing that's a mirage
I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage" -Beastie Boys

I started the self study I mentioned in the Derailed post. It was thrilling and exciting to realise that I DO in fact know the technical vocabulary of poetry. I DO know these concepts. I remember learning them in my very first writing class. How could I have talked myself into thinking that I didn't? I know this like breathing. I know it in my bones. It flows through me with every heart beat. I got so excited. I started to think.....maybe I don't need to do this study?

Um, sabotage.

I DO need this. I need to work through it slow, go one unit at a time, savour it and do the work. To rush it, to decide that I already know it and I don't need it is my youthful ego sabotaging my efforts....again. A good description of this is two little trolls on my shoulders, one saying, "Danelle, you are a total phony, they will find you out, they will know that you can't do the things that your degree says, they will KNOW." The other saying, "Who cares! You are SO good, a genius, a prodigy, you don't need this bullshit, stop wasting your time with this! You are so unbearably superior, don't even worry about doing the work! It will be much more fun to watch Dexter on Netflix, come on......open the Netflix browser......"

They both hate me.

This is why I fail. My internal narrative is constantly doing this to me. I need to make friends with these gnarly dudes, feed them some of my peach pie and get them on my side. I will be queen of this swamp and honey will have to work. Otherwise, I have a big stick.

So then this whisper of a voice told me that I couldn't use this as my word. It is too dark, to menacing, too much. I needed  to use something else, something happy.

No. Not this time. No mirages, no hallmark dainty thing that will satisfy my sweet side. Not everything is lightness and maple syrup. I have a full range of feelings and even some darkness. It is time to face that and get to work.

What's your word? Do you ever talk yourself down from your own potential and creativity?