How to Become a “Whole Hearted” Creative Artist

By Kathleen Cooke –

It takes guts to be creative in today’s culture. That nagging little voice in our head is always telling us we aren’t good enough, talented enough, or trained enough. One of my favorite writers on the subject is Brene Brown. She is a brilliant researcher and professor at the University of Houston.

She recently did one of the top 10 TED talks for 2014 on the Whole Hearted Person. Here is a portion of what she found and concluded from 6 years of research on vulnerability. She found that “people who have a strong sense of love and belonging – worthiness – had it because they believed they were loved and belonged and were worthy.” She found that these people had three specific traits in common:

1. Courage – the courage to be imperfect.
2. Compassion – they were kind to themselves and to others
3. Connection – they were willing to let go who they thought they should be in order to be who they were.

In today’s culture finding whole hearted people is becoming rare. It requires us to be completely vulnerable or as Brene calls it, excruciatingly vulnerable. As artists and creatives putting ourselves out there (opening our souls with our art) so the world can see our good, bad, and ugly instantly on YouTube, iTunes, Facebook and Twitter is terrifying. So many great artists either stay hidden or numb themselves first because the risk is too, well, excruciating. How many great writers have you read about that drank all night before they started writing a word? Or rock stars that had to get high on something before they went on stage?

What if you could take a different route as an artist in 2015 to deal with vulnerability and plug into a source of power that allowed you to be free and courageous without destroying your body, or mind, and sometimes your life? There is one – the living God. He loves you unconditionally – imperfections and all. He makes you worthy because He has forgiven you – completely – freed you from guilt and shame and imperfection.

Want to be a whole hearted artist? Might be worth a try to talk to Him. He’s a breath away. Start on a new path and with new thinking – start whole heartedly.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self discipline.” II Timothy 1:7 NLT

Kathleen Cooke, co-founder of Cooke Pictures (cookepictures.com) and The Influence Lab where she publishes a monthly newsletter (influencelab.com/women). Find out more at kathleencooke.com, or reach her on Twitter @kathycooke.