Virtual Advent Calendar:

Being creative doesn’t mean

that you need to go to extremes to impress people.

Sometimes all it takes is to see things from a different perspective

and to present it to someone from a new angle.

That is the secret to creativity.

Nothing fancy or far off concepts to understand.

It has taken me my entire life to try to understand this

and get to the place of admitting that yes, I am an artist.

I always had trouble with that word

because I would constantly compare myself to others:

“I’m not as good as so-and-so,”

“Mine never turns out right,”

or

“I could never do something like that.”

It was as if these lies discounted everything I was capable of,

not to mention debilitated my talents because I was too scared to even try

lest someone compared me to another, leaving me to feel inferior.

Isn’t it funny (and by funny, I mean sad)

 how easily we can succumb to a lie for a very long time?

And the common thread each lie you believe in is the ability to

compare yourself to something you shouldn’t:

Someone other than yourself.

That comparison virus can really destroy so much good in our lives, can’t it?

Just think of what we could be capable of doing

if we stopped looking around us and started to see what was within.

Sure, to some people, they see this post and think,

“Big deal, so she cut some bread with a tree cookie cutter and threw some cinnamon on it.

What’s so great about that??!,”

but for me, I choose to think:

“What a deal! It’s french toast in the shape of a Christmas tree.

How great is that??!”

Nothing fancy.

Just the ability to choose to see something with a different perspective,

without the violation of comparing myself to someone else’s french toast post.

Choosing to not compare ourselves

allows those nasty voices telling us that we are:

Ugly.

Fat.

Not good enough.

Unworthy of love.

Terrible at drawing.

to disappear and allow them to be replaced by

affirmations telling us that we are:

Beautiful.

Just right.

Enough.

Lovable.

Artists.

Maybe this holiday season, we can make a promise

to be a little more gentle on ourselves and stop the cycle of:

criticizing,

critiquing

and comparing

ourselves to something (or someone) we shouldn’t,

and start accepting the idea that we are

brilliant and creative.