Must What Goes Up Always Come Down? Balance and Creative Birthing

Anyone close to me will often hear me talk about life's trials and tribulations as modules, tests and exams. My computer brain likes to see clear input and outcome. I throw the ball, the ball is caught, the ball is thrown or batted back to me. I suppose, in life, laughter, and even magic, this is the energetic flow of things: what you put out will come back to you threefold, whether that be good, bad or indifferent.

So what happens when one, a neurodivergent person whose computer brain wrestles with the concept of being human at the best of times, loses the ball in the air for a minute?

And:

How does one keep grounded when their creative inner-self is characteristically upward focused? When one is looking upwards, always, for the ball to come back?

Part of my Shadow Work, as some would call it, is accepting that sometimes, if I feel* let down or rejected, the best thing I can do is act against my instincts. To act counter-intuitvely.

Producing and sharing an idea is a process entirely similar to childbirth, and I've heard it spoken about in this way before by collaborators. 

If, as the parent of a baby idea, I feel any perceived hesitation or resistance, my knee-jerk reaction (and I wrestle with this one hard,) is to withdraw and hide my new baby idea. Which is... kinda childish, let's face it.

But when we face up to the idea that, in fact, it may be our inner child in clowning who has a lot to do with the creation of our baby ideas, (clowns often being "child-like" in their nature,) it then follows that this makes complete sense.

Growing up as a high-attaining, over-achiever, I have learned to function within the remit of perfectionism. Perfectionism is the antithesis of clown and will destroy my work if I let it. "Comparison is the thief of joy," as they say, and so withdrawal of ideas because of a cerebral, academic, "test-failing" experience makes little to no logical sense, by means of letting the baby idea grow into adulthood.

Without exposure, our baby idea simply will not grow.

As a single parent living with the trauma, let's face it, of abandonment wounds, my protective knee-jerk is to protect the child and remove it from any place where it may be scrutinised. THIS IS NOT A HELPFUL ATTITUDE WHEN DEVISING THEATRE. You simply must suck it up, nurture the child, let them grow, and accept that all will be there for them who want to be, and that people will come and go throughout their lifetime.

So that's what we're sitting with today:**

Vulnerability.

At least I may take solace in the words I used to a very good clown egg and human recently, when explaining (to myself as much as them,) my brief periods of melancholy;

"If the focus is always up, the clown can be as melancholy as they please, but there is always hope. The melancholy clown is always looking up and they are ever-hopeful."

Hope hope and hope again ✌🌈 

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

*As an unofficially diagnosed ADHD/autistic person, my instant perception isn't always accurate. Rejection sensitivity is absolutely a thing, and I accept its place at my table.

**Really sitting, actually, I have found myself seeking the ground and earthing and caring for plants and soil to keep me from running entirely away with the Sky Fairies etc.