Emotional Tension vs Creative Tension
Do you have trouble talking about your vision, even if your vision in crystal clear? Why is this?
The main reason is we are acutely aware of the gap between our vision and reality.“I would like to pursue the profession that I love, but I’ve got to make a living”. These gaps can make a vision seem unrealistic or fanciful. They can discourage us or make us feel hopeless. But the gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there was no gap, there would be no need for any action to move toward the vision. Indeed, the gap is the source of creative energy.
This gap is called “creative tension”. Imagine a rubber band, stretched between your vision and current reality.
When stretched, the rubber band creates tension, representing the tension between vision and current reality. What does tension seek, resolution or release? There are only two possible ways for the tension to resolve itself: pull reality toward the vision or pull the vision toward reality. Which occurs will depend on whether we hold steady to the vision.
The term “tension” suggests anxiety or stress. But creative tension doesn’t feel any particular way. It is the force that comes into play at the moment when we acknowledge a vision that is at odds with current reality.
Still, creative tension often leads to feelings or emotions associated with anxiety, such as sadness, discouragement, hopelessness or worry. This happens so often that people easily confuse these emotions with creative tension.
These negative emotions are not associated with creative tension but rather to emotional tension. Here is where we need to be careful not to confuse these two tensions. We may feel deeply discouraged that our vision is not happening and we might lower the vision.
Emotional tension can always be relieved by adjusting the creative tension. The feelings that we dislike go away because the creative tension was reduced. Our goals are now much closer to our current reality. Escaping emotional tension is easy; the only price we pay is abandoning what we truly want-Reaching our Vision.
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