crash, fine art photograph by joy st claire - click image to view more
Maybe it’s because I’m in the fever pitch of inspiration. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling dominated by my own need to create.
But I’m fed up with comfortable, lovely definitions of passion.
I’m tired of seeing mindlessly comfortable feelings being misconstrued as passion. You want to be a passionate person? You want to do passionate work? This is what it’s like:
Passion isn’t pretty.
Passion is seductive, rapturous, undeniable.
Passion doesn’t relent.
Passion nags, tugs, whines, complains until you. pay. attention.
Passion doesn’t go to bed.
Passion burns the midnight oil.
Passion hurts so good.
Passion fills the void.
Passion scratches and claws.
Passion is gasping for air.
Passion is uncomfortable. Hot and bothered.
Passion is hungry.
Passion is stirring.
Passion bursts & flows.
Do you have what it takes?
Passion can’t be engineered, manipulated, or super-charged. Passion is unearthed from deep within.
What we feel for our art is nothing less than what we feel for our lovers. What we feel for our art is solid, steadfast, beyond question, juicy, sexy, lusty.
Don’t kid yourself that you can settle for safe or interesting.
What do you really feel passionate about?
Don’t stop until you find it.
Tara Gentile is a business coach and blogger serving passion-driven entrepreneurs with fresh ideas about 
sing it, sister!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by megan auman, artfulmolly, suzanne l. vinson, Kind Over Matter, tara gentile and others. tara gentile said: thanks! RT @rootsofshe: yes to all of this! RT @scoutiegirlblog: i'm fed up with comfortable definitions of passion: http://ht.ly/3Ybl1 [...]
I love the way you describe passion, it’s so true. I find myself tapping into it every once it a while and it feels like all those things.
Thank you for posting it: it is SO true. I get kind of fed up with mediocre and middle ground being called passion. Doing and being things we feel passionately aren’t always easy-but that is why you have the passion: to do it anyway!
Heres one more
Passion is scary and overwhelming.
Passion gnaws at you until you cannot deny it any longer. And once you stop denying it? Well, life unfolds into a passionate, steamy love affair. You are your passion.
Me? I’m passionate about yoga being for EVERY body. And I’m passionate about healing ourselves and our planet through a holistic approach to the way/how/why we eat. Its all connected baby!
Yes! Passion is when your art and you are careening down a mountainside and you’re not sure who’s driving.
I am really tired of people throwing this word. It’s like saying “I love you” when what you really mean is “Thanks for doing the dishes.”
True passion grabs you by the balls (yes, you ladies too) and doesn’t let go. If it wasn’t for passion, I would have totally quit trying to start a coaching biz many years ago and decided that all this failing was a sign that I was pursuing the wrong thing. I’ll tell ya this passion is kicking my ass and I hope your passion kicks your ass and has you running back for more. We should all be addicted to real passion.
This may seem base, or coarse, or whatever, but it’s the honest truth. What I’m most passionate about: I don’t ever want to worry about paying the fucking rent, ever again. Not ever.
I’m *real* passionate about that.
Great post! You’re so right – passion is many things, the most notable of which {in my opinion} is exhilarating
Passion is a drive you can’t deny, that’s what carries you and makes you live life to the fullest. Hopefully.
Without listening to passion we’re living zombies.
Passion is the big bang of the universe. Thanks for the wake up call, Tara. And thanks to Mel for passing it on!
Passion can go underground for decades and when ignited by the right circumstance… pours forth again, relentlessly.
We need to allow ourselves to be servants of passion, vessels of passion, workhorses for passion, be taken over by passion… I love it.
Transcendence rocks… and rolls… and grabs other people by the collar and says “Don’t ever try to tame me, ride me… wrecklessly.”
Passion won’t wait for the ‘right time’. It won’t stick around while you wait for others to finish up what they’re doing. Passion makes you take control and forge ahead.
Thank you for this, Tara. Wonderful, as usual
Passion is Kali and Shiva, the destructive force of creation!
Tara, thank you for this one. The other day, I blogged about why, even though I’m having a tough time currently in my career as an artist, I don’t quit. I listed persistence as the most important quality…but thanks to this post…it hit me like a ton of bricks just what drives me to be so persistent…and that is passion. My inner need to create, to keep going no matter how many times I get knocked down, to find a way to make it work…my utter inability to give up…it feels just the way you said that passion does. I never would’ve come up with that word to describe it on my own, but that is most certainly its name.
Thanks, Tara, I truly love your post today….you help me breath better with passion once again.
YES – sing it from the rooftops!
oh dear BUT HOW DO I FIND IT??
I like this. Thanks. Passion is not a hobby or a thing you do when you have nothing else to do. It’s the thing you can’t stop doing no matter how hard you may want to stop.
wow!
and yes-yes-yes!!
passion is zigzag with sharp corners
Tara,
Thank you for so eloquently describing this relentless beast that pursues us through shadow and light until we finally grant it release.
Words are my passion, my true love, my frustration, my enemy, my friend, my therapist, my reason.
Passion does not reside somewhere in the middle, but at the extremes. Only there can real inspiration be found. Wishy washy feelings fade to grey.
Thank you.
Conor
Great post.
I agree that passion is messy, and scary, and all consuming at times! I also find that mine needs some space to peculate and grow. It can easily get squeezed out by my feeling too busy, or caught up in DOING things….rather than letting myself BE with my passion.
Yeah baby, passion is what it’s all about! Intense, fire in the belly, charging forward because I can’t not, passion.
Did you see my video in response to Les McKeown’s post about passion? It’s here if not: http://www.alexismartinneely.com/response-to-les-mckeown/
Great discussion there in the comments.
Awesome!
Alexis
YES! Passion is waking up at three AM with an idea and having to keep interrupting next morning’s meditation to write about it. It’s not being able to sleep at night because you get so excited about your projects and then, even though you couldn’t sleep the night before, waking up ungodly early to keep working on them, because you’re JUST THAT worked up about it. It’s a rough ride sometimes, but man, I love it!
So, if one has not felt this way, that means that have not found their passion, so how can we find what our passion is??
Holy CRAP I love this post!
Bravo! What a post and what passion you’ve ignited in the responses. I have been in the winter of my passion which became more obvious with the springlike weather this week. Passion ebbs and flows in me and I can’t force it but Oh yes I do have it. So just this morning I journaled to remind myself what I love, because it is from what I love that my creative passion is born. I love words and books and making art. I love exploring the countryside and the streets of a new city with my camera. I love digging in the dirt and the smell of freshly mown hay. I LOVE the sun on my face and the sound of the ocean. Just typing those words stirs my passion a bit. Bring on the Spring already and with it PASSION.
OH. MY. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ooh yeah, passion hurts so good! I definitely love burning the midnight oil when I’m working on something juicy… it might seem like a little OCD but I think that’s the passion speaking.
Love it.
I’m so with you Sister! Sing it loud and proud! Miss Nathalie (comment above me) is right! Others may look at the passion as OCD, but THAT is the passion burning and shining until it comes to fruition!
Keep up the amazing work xxx
Well spoken! Love it.
What a lovely read. When I am missing Mr. Passion and it makes me weepy he will try to calm me down and I always tell him, “he has bigger worries than a lovesick girl missing him.” Passion makes us cry and makes us rejoice that we even have something to cry about. Thanks for reminding me.
What a wonderful refreshing passionate message! What a pattern interrupt from the monotony of all the work that I am caught up in. I feel at times i have become a “human doing” instead of a “human being”. Your message reminded me of time when I was passionate about my craft and about my mission. I now feel the passion stirring within me to follow my passion and I know when I do the rest will take care of it self. More importantly I will be living a life full of passion, purpose and meaning.
Right on girl! Passion fuels life!
So amazing to read. How we all need more passion — the raw, heavy, seductive stuff you speak of here! Looking for more passion in my own life, more heat, more heart, more of it all
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[...] number one: I’m fed up with comfortable definitions of passion. I like the reminder that your passion doesn’t always feel good. And even though you read [...]
Wow!
If this doesn’t wake you up… I don’t know what else will.
Spoken true, direct, and yes… loaded with “raw” passion.
Thank you for sharing this .
Hugs.
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