Inner Voices of Creativity

Where Are Your Creative Boundaries Today?

By Anne Marie Bennett

When I first made this SoulCollage® card, I was a bit appalled! It seemed to be expressing something on the verge of violence.

On the other hand, I was curious because I had placed the woman with the sword on a lovely background of vibrant pastels. After I worked with her a bit, I discovered that this part of me wasn’t expressing violence at all. Instead, she is the one who gives me permission to create boundaries.

These boundaries can be personal, financial, or physical. They can also help me with my creative life as a writer, artist, and business owner. Here is what my inner Boundary Creator says to me when I allow her the space and time to speak:

I am the one who is ready to kill anything that gets in the way of what is best for me. I am the one who has boundaries, who knows who and what I need to keep away from.

I am the one who gracefully walks away from anyone who has the power to hurt me, from anything that threatens to keep me from my creative work.

I am the one whose intuitive third eye is prominent and intentional.

I want you to know that boundaries are good, transformative, and life-giving. I want you to trust your inner knowing of how and when to create boundaries.

My gift to you is power, strength, wisdom and grace to walk away from people, places and things that get in the way of your joy, growth and creativity.

I give you the ability to draw a line in the sand with your sword and say, “I will not cross over ‘there’ because ‘there’ is unhealthy for me and does not serve my greatest good.”

I want you to listen carefully to your intuition, and to trust what it is telling you. You already know where in the sand to draw that line.

In order to keep my creative life flowing and growing, I need to call often on the intuitive wisdom and strength of this inner voice. It can be something as simple as planning a thirty minute session with my art journal once a week and then sticking to it. Or it can be something more complex such as saying no to a friend who wants to go to a movie on an afternoon when I’ve planned to work on my book.

Inner Reflection:

Where are your creative boundaries today? Do you need to draw some proverbial lines in the sand in order to give yourself the creative freedom you crave? Be still for a few moments. Notice your breath slowly flowing in and out. Look inside yourself and ask your own Boundary Creator to step forward. What does he or she look like? Ask this inner voice to help you decide where and when you need to create boundaries around your own creative pursuits. •

© 2006 Anne Marie Bennett. All rights reserved.

About the Author | More by Anne Marie Bennett
Anne Marie is a freelance writer and collage artist whose main passion is to spread the power of the SoulCollage process as far as possible. Anne Marie lives, laughs, sings, works, (and makes her own SoulCollage cards!) in Beverly, MA. To learn how to make your own SoulCollage® cards, please visit www.kaleidosoul.com.

11/14/06