You wouldn't criticise or ignore a child that shows you his artwork. But we do that to the artist within

Many time one of my children would come up to me with a piece of artwork they had just done. Every time I would take the time to say how beautiful it is. I would never criticise it or ignore them. Even when I was busy, I would still stop what I was doing and admire their work.

We all have an inner child, who is also an artist. But when our inner child brings us a picture in the form of an idea or concept, we often totally ignore it. Or we are too quick to criticise it.

We can wound ourselves in that way by being too hard on ourselves. We can think, "That can't be any good because I thought of it".

So eventually our inner child stops bring our conscious, rational, adult mind those very ideas that might actually benefit us. You need to see your "childish" ideas as something that can often lead to something much better. We need to be like a good parent to the part of us that needs our protection and attention.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com