I have heard the voices inside that run alongside everything I make and have not always known how to hold them at the right distance to keep working,
I have heard the voices and given them a seat at the table that was meant for the work and watched them eat everything on my plate before the work had a chance to taste it,
I have heard the voices and let them rewrite the thing before it was done ended up with a cleaner and more defended version of what I intended that no longer held any of the risk that made it true,
Which voice am I feeding the most energy on the days when the work feels impossible and would the work actually feel impossible without that particular voice having gotten there first,
I have heard the voices inside and argued with them and been exhausted by them, I have not tried consistently, simply continuing anyway without asking for their approval...
I have followed the thing I knew rather than the thing I could defend and been told every single time by someone who cared about me that I was making the wrong call,
I have followed the thing I knew and still felt the doubt afterward because the world's version of how it should have gone was louder than the quiet satisfaction of having trusted myself,
I have followed the thing I knew only partway and then adjusted toward what the room seemed to want and lost something specific that I cannot always name but always feel the absence of,
How much of what I have built was built toward the truest version of what I felt, called to make and how much was built toward the version that would be easier for other people to understand and accept,
I have followed the thing I knew and the thing other people were certain was better and the honest difference in what each direction produced is the only evidence I have ever really needed to keep trusting myself...
I have a time that belongs to the work and I have let everything else believe it belongs to them, and the ownership has made the work slower and smaller than it needs to be,
I have a time that belongs to the work and let it be a prisoner by the urgency of other people's timelines and needs and crises that were real but were not mine to carry,
I have a time that belongs to the work and I have not always protected it with the seriousness that the work deserved from me because I was not certain to treat the work like it mattered more than being available,
What am I actually protecting when I make myself easy to interrupt during the days that were supposed to be the most important and most generative ones I have,
I have a time that belongs to the work and the work has waited for me through so many seasons of being treated as the thing I will get to when everything else has been taken care of first...
I am still learning what it means to show up with everything and not just polished and prepared part that I have already decided to make,
I am still learning how to be in the room with my full attention without the familiar retreat into performance or the comfortable distance of watching rather than being inside it,
I’m still learning that what I keep calling “not ready” is often just the thing I haven’t yet provided the consistent quality of presence it demands before it can reveal its true nature,
What would I discover about what I am actually capable of if I stopped dividing my attention for just long enough to find out what happens when it is finally whole,
I am still learning, and the learning is not a sign that I am behind but a sign that the work is still alive in me and still asking for a quality of attention I am still becoming capable of giving it, because what grows slowly is often growing deep…
Watchwords:
The voices ate before the work could taste it,
Adjusted toward the room and lost what was unreplaceable,
Let the work be colonized by other people's timelines,
Treated as the thing to get to when done,
Still becoming capable of giving it what it needs...
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream: