CREATIVITY
Stand up for your creativity. Sure you're a mom and have a job. Maybe you've haven't picked up a brush or a pen in years. You really aren't going to blame your kids for that? Yeah it's unfair to put it that way, but there is a way to be present--to show up and create amid the chaos. The secret--it's all chaos. Creating may be teaching. Teaching kids to ride horses or spell words. It may be cracking a equation or ad campaign. It can be writing or music or performing. Your creativity is inside you waiting for you to show up.
Eric Maisel talks of creating in the middle of things. What a great way to say it. Life is all around you happening moment by moment. Insistent, pressing, standing over your shoulder and breathing down your neck.
Your creativity is quietly waiting--patently resting in the corner for you to show up and be present with it. Its maddening, unavoidable, knowing it there in the back of your mind; watching you pass back and forth ignoring it. Creativity is about making meaning in your life. Refusing to move your life in that valued direction will leave you vacant and empty.
CENTERED
So how to get yourself present and ready to create?
Don't wait. You'll never be ready. You don't have to be. It's about creating in the middle of the chaos remember? So just breathe. Breathing in and visualizing what you need to create. Breathe in the peace, the confidence, the desire, the inspiration, the faith . . . to create. Become mindful of your own skin, the rising and falling of your chest. The souls of your feet planted firmly in the ground. Rooted like a strong oak growing in the rich earth. finding nourishment to create what you need to create.
Don't try. Now it's time to do. Translates into making the first steps without assurance you'll be successful. Take that leap and the process unfolds and reveals the next step. One step and another unfolds. Or not. It doesn't matter--only that you do instead of trying to figure out if it will work.
Don't falter. Where courage and creativity blend. You are making steps, its working or it's not. Will you remain present? Will you disappear into doubt or despair or apathy? Will you remain present in the process of creating or leave the room and blink in the face of making meaning in your life?
So what if you do. You return to it and begin the process again. Creating; your family life, your professional life or your notion of a creative life; it doesn't matter how you create. What does matter is what you are willing to face each time you believe you've let yourself down.
Being present--showing up in your own life is the most creative and courageous act you can do. How have you shown up in your life today? Where do you tend not to show up?
