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I stopped making little films.

It hit me the other day when I felt the urge to make a little film for my social media client. The hunger to make one made itself known with familiar pangs and growls. It had been over a year since I gathered images and wrote a story and this confused me. Why did I stop?

Why do we stop doing what we love? “We lose permission” is the thought that came into my head when I asked this. When I was going to Grad School, I had permission and a structure which included definite expectations and assignments for the reward of a certificate. Most of these assignments involved making little videos to teach our message. I dove into the task with such lust that I knew this was my passion. I experimented with light animation, silly web shows, and personal stories in color pencil. I was always a storyteller, but now I had a vehicle that really matched me.

When school ended, I was left without permission. I needed to dive back into the work world and make money, and the films now seemed impractical. They needed to make a lot of money right away for them to be “worthwhile” and I didn’t know how. So I shut down that part of me.

A few months ago, I told a new friend what I did for a living. I hesitantly included creating little movies. “Oh, that’s a hobby then?” she said. I cringed down into the deep hollow of my stomach. “No,” I replied. “That’s my passion.” The words bursted out on their own before I could stuff them back in.

We stop painting, woodworking, writing songs. We stop crafting, jewelry-making, ceramics painting, doodling and drawing for fun. We become the “grown-ups” who are responsible, accountable, and serious, and if we have a teeny bit of time leftover, we let ourselves indulge. Many folks wait until they retire to have permission. All this withholding creates bitter, depressed, dried up people that take away the joy from the world.

Part of the creative process, whether by career or choice, is the PLAY stage. When scientists discover cures, they are first experimenting, which is their idea of playing. We experiment with tools, play, try out materials and techniques, and what comes out of that process can be very fruitful and helpful to others. When I made my FAIRY GUIDE I was playing in the garden. I wanted to learn about nature and healing. And what came out of those notes was a school that is over eight years old and international, and hopefully, helping many. Engaging in your creative passion is necessary. Nurturing your loves and where your creative impulses are taking you is following your intuition/gut, which is leading you to your greatest success (financially and/or emotionally) and where you need to be. It’s responsible. 

I’m self-nurturing now by diving back into movie making. It feeds me like nothing else does. I feel filled up, joyful and 100% me. And it could lead to huge financial success in ways I haven’t even discovered yet,  and/or it could just make me happy, and I deserve to be happy.

I give you permission to play, experiment, and dive down into your creative passion.

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You might enjoy my upcoming Fairy Healing the Feminine (which talks about self nurturing) or Telling Your Story creative class which both start June 27th.

Here are a list of Shrinking Violet conference survival tips. Please feel free to add your own tips in the comments. Us introverts can never have too many tricks up our sleeves where crowds are concerned!

1. Give yourself time to get oriented in the hotel and understand where your room is, the meeting rooms, the elevators, and the bar dining room are. There’s nothing worse than wandering lost among throngs of people talking very loudly.
   
   
2. Plan some down time into your conference schedule. Yes, you’ll be tempted to squeeze everything in, but then you run the risk of short-circuiting. Pick a couple of workshops or luncheons and plan on spending that time alone in your room doing some recharging; yoga, a nap, deep breathing. It’s astonishing how much even an hours break can refresh you so you’re ready for the rest of the day. Yes, you will miss something, but your focus will be much sharper for the events you do attend.
   
   
3. Consider going offsite for lunch one day, again, just to step away from the crowd.
   
   
4. Stay hydrated. The fuzzy-headed disoriented feeling from being dehydrated is not something you need to deal with on top of the crowds. Hotel air can be really drying.
   
   
5. Stay fueled up. Pack protein bars or nuts or some kind of snack that will help keep your blood sugar on an even keel.
   
   
6. Try to get your normal number of hours sleep. You’re drawing on enormous energy reserves, just being in a crowd like this. Honor the toll that takes on your body.
   
   
7. Pick an aisle seat if at all possible. That way you only have people on one side of you.
   
   
8. Consider treating the entire experience as a conference AND retreat. Pick mornings or afternoons to attend workshops, then give yourself permission to use the other time to retire to your room and apply what you’ve learned immediately, while it’s still fresh in your mind.
   
   

Poems by Alan Katz Drawings by Edward Koren Margaret K. McElderry / Simon & Schuster 2008 Okay, once again just to make sure we're all on the same page: do not give your book a title that can be used against you in a review. You would think editors would be the first to understand the rules of making a book review-proof. Of course, it's also a good idea to make sure the content followed the