A while back, a conversation Lissa and I had about being a mom and an entrepreneur struck a chord in both of us and produced her wonderful post on birthing what wants to be born. That post produced a moving discussion about the choices we make about where our amazing, female creative energy goes – into babies, projects, passions and work. As I sat with this and let the words of Pinkie wisdom seep into me, a wondrous thing happened I want to share with you. I felt some of the tangle of my personal confusion on this subject begin to unravel. When I told Lissa and Joy they encouraged me to untangle and reweave in public in the hopes that it might be useful to others. And so here I share some of my tapestry-in-progress with you. Blessings to you in your personal struggles and choices as you release your own amazing creative powers. ~Dana
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The need to create
We women are just bursting with the ability, talent and NEED to create. Not just procreate – though that’s obviously a biggie hormonally and otherwise – I mean: CREATE. I wasn’t completely aware of this myself until recently, which is ironic because in addition to co-creating two children, I’ve spent my whole professional career trying to create stuff. This has been frustrating because I wasn’t an artist or a welder or a software developer, I was a marketer. (Marketers don’t make stuff, sadly; we make stuff up.) So, unconscious of the fact I really wanted to create things, I aligned myself with people who did and made a career out of launching new products into the market and advising organizations on how to take advantage of new technology to create new businesses. Somewhere along the line I stopped owning the failure of not being happy in all my jobs and started owning success by realizing I was a creative spirit and that creating stuff fuels me and brings me joy. Seeing it come to fruition in one form or another makes me ecstatic! I loved making kids! I love parenting kids – now teenagers whom I adore. I have – count them – four businesses! And I love them all! It’s all just the creative energy in me visioning something wonderful in the world and then setting my energy to bring it into being.
Lissa and I laughed because of course, she has given birth to one beautiful child and many businesses too – a medical practice, an artist’s body of gorgeous work, two books, and a blossoming creation in Owning Pink she’s inviting us all to co-create with her. But of course, we’ve both created children and sometimes the demands and desires of motherhood and entrepreneurship get a little tangled up and confused.
Confusion
For myself, this tangle is definitely confusing; and I’m not just talking about the energy management of it here (though that is often beyond confusing!). I mean something deeper. Something so deep that it’s tangled up with roots that go so far down into my spirit and my being I can’t even see where they end. This bonked me on the head when Lissa and I were chatting on IM about this. We were talking about how fun it is to start up a business (and how exhausting) and about the parallels with having a kid. At first we were focused on the similarities:
- neither a baby nor a startup business can exist without you;
- both cry a lot and need constant care and feeding, sucking at your very being; and
- you LOVE them both to the point that it can make you wonder where you start and they stop.
After a bit we were all confused. Birthing anything new is an act of creation and so in many ways they feel so much alike, is there really no difference? Could you just start a business and never have a kid (or visa versa) and have the same experience? Well, no… there are significant differences too:
- a child is an independent soul with its own intrinsic purpose on this earth, while a business’s purpose is to further the growth and development of all the independent souls it touches (employees, owners, customers, investors etc.);
- a child should be nurtured until it can function completely independently, while an organization always needs leadership; and
- your love for a child should be a personal connection, while your love for a business (which is also “owned” by others, either financially or otherwise) should be a little more distant for your own health and well-being.
They’re one in the same
And then it hit me. In addition to being a mom, I’m also an entrepreneur, a professional risk taker. A serial Pleaper (i.e., Pink Leap of Faither). And in this conversation I’m just now realizing why those two aspects of my identity are SO important and SO related. What I realized today is: My JOB is giving birth and it’s also my LIFE. There’s no separating them out!
So now I realize I’m on the same adventure many of us find ourselves exploring, how to blend my creative energies in my professional, creative and family lives. When I think of it this way, I feel like a success as a creator; and by viewing all these adventures as creative efforts I find I’m having a lot more fun. Because the act of creation assumes a little mystery about what the end result will be and when I think of them as creative efforts I have less attachment to exactly how they come out in the end. I also realize they are creative collaborations with the people in my life – my husband, my kids, my partners, my clients – and where we share creative visions so much more is possible.
So what about you, Pinkies? Where are your lives rich with creative energy? What are your strategies for blending them? How do you infuse creative excitement into facets of your life? How do you manage the creative tensions that inevitably arise?
Love, light, and creation,
Dana
