Many people have been asking me what I am doing during my sabbatical. I am very excited about it- it gives me time to explore and learn new things. Over the last month, I have been busy making “crap” videos.
Below, I share more about my relationship with “making crap” and how I am learning not to let it stop me from creating. And, with a mix of shame and pride, I include two little baby videos here.
Making “crap” films:
A month ago, when I learned how to edit videos and wanted to practice, I thought: Cool, I’ll film little videos so I can practice editing. So I took a pen and paper and sat down to reflect on a scene to film. Immediately, I felt the very familiar, awful panic crawling into every cell of my body. I am so afraid of making crap things:
- If you give me a blank sheet of paper and tell me to draw something, I freeze.
- If you tell me to tell a story, I panic.
- If you ask me to tell a joke, I am mortified.
All these reactions come from one thought that crosses my mind at the speed of light:
What if it is crap? (and deeper: I will humiliate myself in public). Things I do have to be good.
This thought – “Is it crap?”– limits my life, my play, and my creativity. It doesn’t allow me to learn, to explore, to discover, and to create. It doesn’t allow me to live life as a playground (which I knew very well how to do in my very first years on the planet…).
So when I wanted to make videos and the panic came, I simply sat there and mourned. (By “mourn” I mean: to welcome the very unpleasant feelings and sensations in my body, and simply be with them- let them flow and move through me.)
I could breathe… and I could stay in my chair instead of shifting my focus to something easier (checking emails…).
When this wave passed, I thought: Great, now I can create. Then another, more painfully intense wave came, with a huge urge to leave the chair. Again, breathing into the discomfort…
In the last month, I have probably passed through around 100 such waves. And I am so incredibly grateful to myself and to all that I have learned from NVC. It gives me the sense that I am unstoppable. I simply stay, and continue creating.
And this gave me the space to have a lot of meaningful fun creating 12 little ‘crap’ films 🥳.
(When I say “crap,” I mean that I have no experience making such videos – I am a total beginner at writing, acting, and filming, and I only learned how to edit a month ago.)
This is also exactly how I started teaching NVC: I knew I was crap at it (meaning: I had no experience). Yet I had the thought: if I do it many, many times, quality will come.
It is the quality of being unstoppable.
So, with a mix of shame and pride in my heart, here are two little videos (confession: these two are the least crap in my eyes 😉):
– Let’s talk (6 minutes): Click
– David & Harvi (8 minutes): Click
With much hope and a wish for more crap in the world,
Yoram