*** How to Unclog Artist Block

It’s a devastating thing for an artist to feel they’ve lost their inspiration, to encounter a creative block. But suffering from artist’s block doesn’t mean you’ve lost your artistic ability. Artist block can be overcome.

Invariably it will happen. It's something that happens to all creative beings and all beings are born to create something. Within each purpose beats a heart that longs to be, do and have in this world. When a creative person suffers from an artist block or has lost their inspiration to create it is a devastating experience. Life energy is seemingly drained and the person is left empty in desperation.

Then fear takes over. Fear that there is no longer purpose in life, no reason for being, no hope for the future. Someone who suffers from artist block will Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why she cannot possibly create that day or 'should' give up the dream to pursue some other, inauthentic, vocation. Or, she will despair day in and day out over the inability to create and the lack of inspiration. In this despair she will further drive that which she longs for even further from her reach. It can become an agonizing and soulfully vicious cycle of existence.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Winston Churchill

If your heart literally aches from artist block then know this: your truth is that you are an artist. That's why your heart aches. You are not expressing who you are at your deepest core. You were born to fully express your artistic potential. Anything short of this achievement will leave you feeling a little less whole, striving to reach for an expansion of your artful communication to the world.

In that moment, the moment you are awash in this truth you have a choice. You can choose to ignore this truth, give up in fear and go find some other life to live; creating someone else's truth. You can beat yourself up over your lack of inspiration further driving you away from what your heart is calling you to become. Or you can take a deep breath, center yourself in the truth of who you are, and ask your inner being what it wants to express. Then pick up your script, your paint brush, your instrument, your pencil, seat yourself at your computer - place yourself in a position where you can begin whatever it is you wish to create.

"To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive felling." - Jean Shinoda Bolen

If inspiration doesn't present itself immediately that's ok. Every bit of inspiration that you long for is already within you. All you have to do is allow it to flow. The more you resist your block the more power and energy you add to this block. Allow yourself to be blocked for the moment and begin anyway. Try a new approach to the character you're portraying, put some paint on the canvas, write the next line in your book even if the line is "I have no idea what comes next" and then take another step until the expression flows. Allow those first few forward movements to be real stinkers if that's what needs to get out of the way so your creativity can flow again. Let go of any judgment that what you create has to be good. Sometimes it is the woefully errant advancement that will lead to the opening of your creative resources once again.

Let go. Know that blocks are inevitable and that you have all the power you need within you to fully express your artistic potential. Honor your truth and your will be and act in the direction of your dream. You will live in alignment with your purpose in life following your own inner wisdom, the voice of your intuition, your higher being, your muse.

"There is neither painting, nor sculpture, nor music, nor poetry. The only truth is creation." - Umberto Boccioni