While I was creating my latest course, Effortless Essay Writing, I received an important reminder from a butterfly that reminded me that creative confidence can be strong and gentle.
Over the weeks I was working on the course, summer started in earnest, and while summer is not my favorite season, I love gardening, and I have cultivated a variety of gardens all around the house over the past several years.
Tending my gardens is a great way to take a quick mental break when I am working hard on a project. So I go outside to turn on or off my soaker hoses, quickly pull a few weeds, make a bouquet or just stroll around with a cup of coffee or iced tea and admire the cumulative results of my efforts.
Gardens are never static. They are always evolving, changing, and expanding just like us. And since I am always planting new seeds, there are often new discoveries to make on a daily basis.
As I was finishing my last class, I kept seeing a large yellow butterfly fluttering about in my newest garden. Apparently I have finally planted flowers that butterflies like, which makes me happy. I have always enjoyed visiting hummingbirds and I’m excited to be attracting butterflies now, too.
The big, yellow butterfly showed up right when I was considering the best photo to represent my new course. It never would have occurred to me on my own to use a butterfly image, but I was feeling less than satisfied with the more straightforward images of laptops, notebooks and fingers typing.
When you are writing an essay, you might see an awful lot of your laptop or your notebook or your fingers typing but I’m not sure these images are all that inspiring in and of themselves.
And that’s how it hit me that the butterfly was a much better image for what I was communicating in my new essay writing class. Writers struggle with essay writing in so many ways and most of those struggles are rooted in trying too hard. I created a course that outlines an effortless approach to essay writing that will work every time, just as a butterfly finds flowers and drinks nectar without struggle.
So many of us have been raised on shoulds and musts and trying to have willpower over our unruly selves, and this type of self-controlled approach does not activate our purest creative efforts. Our ideas are always calling to us, if we are attuned to receiving them and being gentle enough with ourselves to attract our best ideas is at the root of happy creating. After that, all we have to do is stay light about the process and not fall into the trap of worrying about outcomes or taking ourselves too seriously.
Even though we live in a noisy world with crazy things happening all the time, the butterflies still find the flowers with the nectar they need. They don’t care who is tweeting what on social media. They simply find the flowers they need and flit on over to them on a calm, warm day to gently extract the nectar they need without disrupting so much as a petal.
Butterflies are focused, yet relaxed; instinctive, yet intuitive; alert, yet fearless. Butterflies remind writers to lighten up, enjoy the process, and celebrate every satisfying sip of nectar. Writers sometimes forget that the quality of the journey matters as much as the successful outcome. And yet, when we enjoy the journey, the whole process becomes a win, not merely the outcome.
Butterflies are helpful symbols for writers, who can become too mental in our habits and lose touch with our instincts and intuitions. Ideas do not flow for writers when we get in our own way. We sometimes need to be reminded to keep things simple.
I wanted to create a course that would make essay writing simple, straightforward and doable, yet also alluring, magical, and powerful. The way a butterfly can remind us to stop, pay attention, and appreciate a moment more deeply, I hope I have encouraged writers to relax, reflect, and enjoy the process of essay writing.
So you can probably expect to see more butterfly imagery in my upcoming essay writing courses! I am fond of the reminder that creative confidence is as calm as a butterfly and I hope you appreciate it, too.
Go easy on yourselves, writers, and be amazed at how much more you are able to get done. Be like the butterfly: lighten up, tune in, and get on track for your next completed mission.
If you’d like to discover a whole new, more doable approach to essay writing, you will find it in my Effortless Essay Writing course.
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