Stirring Broken Eggs

by Barbara Martin

in Try This

stirring eggs and shells in a bowl

I Dare You! Make this mess a la Eric Maisel.

At the beginning of my creativity coach training with Eric Maisel, one of our assignments was to break some fine fresh eggs into a bowl, shells and all, and stir them around.  Keep the bowl of broken eggs at your workspace and each time you feel tempted or compelled to get up and go do some distraction, stir the eggs for a bit instead and notice what you are really doing at this moment.

 The point has to do with being willing to make a mess, to stick with things even when they get messy. Because creativity is messy, because doing something new is messy, because not knowing exactly what you are doing is messy.

I refused to do the egg exercise way back then.  Stubbornly. And I continued to refuse for years. I thought it was dumb.  Or something.

Until today. I challenged some other folks to give it a try and somehow it became a laughter filled doubledogdare.

So here ya go, I’ve done it. The bowl of eggs is sitting here next to my right elbow, all messed up. A tangle of cheerful yolks and shattered shell and gleaming whites in a lovely vintage blue and white striped bowl along with a new-fangled bright red silicone spatula.

I have to tell ya, breaking those eggs felt pretty good.

Won’t you give it a try? And if you won’t, will you consider why you won’t? It might teach you something about yourself and your approach to things. Or something like that.

CONSIDER YOURSELF DARED.  Go make a mess, break some eggs, stir ’em up, stick with it.

Let me know how it goes. Use the comments to link to your own photo and/or description of how it feels for you to break eggs into a bowl and stir them up. Or if you refuse to do it, tell me why? I’d love to hear from you.

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