Are You Ready to Create Your Life?

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

It's hard to describe the creative process with words and rational thought. It's really a dance, a song, music in the blood, rising on the breath of inspiration. It's a flow of energy that connects you to the heart of the universe. When you enter that river it feels really good. You are alive in the moment, expressing the uniqueness of you.

You can create anything from this place: a poem, a song, a garden, a solution to a problem or a new story for your life. Take a dash of inspiration, a flood of ideas, woven into a images in the mind's eye by your imagination. Your heart and intuition play a key role, too.

What if you really knew that you could create anything from this place? What if you understood that you could rearrange the creation of your life by what you imagine, what you pay attention to, and what you choose to focus on.

Begin by relaxing your hold on whatever you think of as your story now. Suspend disbelief and imagine that you can change the story of your life more easily than you think. Consider that you have an opportunity for rebirth. What would that look like if you had a magic wand that allowed you to access infinite possibilities?

TRY THIS: Take a moment and consider the life you desire for yourself. What do you feel called to create? What areas aren't working the way you would like? Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. and drop your attention down into your heart. Then imagine yourself journeying to a place where anything and everything is possible. As you leave your old story behind feel the creative excitement and energy of the new life that wants to be born. Invite your soul to participate and ask the universe to help.

Imagine the elements of your new life coming toward you. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. Using your senses makes the experience feel much more real. Know that whatever you can imagine is possible. In your mind's eye try on whatever comes to you. How does it feel? Do you feel expanded? Does it feel light? If so, this helps you discern what is for your highest good. The more you play with this exercise on a daily basis the more you are energizing the potential for what you want to create.

To help your creativity along begin to break out of habitual patterns. Find new ways to creatively engage even the most ordinary aspects of your daily life. Put your clothes on in new order. Eat new foods. Find meaningful and inspiring challenges. Explore new possibilities for interacting with your inner and outer worlds. This generates new opportunities that will lead you to the future you feel called to create.

You can use this exercise for anything you want to create whether it's engaging with a new art form or creating a whole new life. In the changing world we live in using our expanded capacities of imagination and intuition can open you up to things happening in magical and unexpected ways, that our mind would never have considered. Living from this place allows you to tap the creative flow in every area of our lives. It leads to our greatest happiness and fulfillment.

Creativity and Consciousness

Consider consciousness providing a connection or a doorway to the field of infinite possibilities, and creativity as one way of accessing that place. Anytime you begin to play with the creative process, whether through art or gardening or cooking or tinkering in your garage or problem solving at work, you open up to your expanded capacities and more of who you truly are. You tap into the field of Oneness, the domain of the infinite. It feels good. You have a heightened sense of awareness. Time seems to stop and you lose track of the world around you. You are very much in the Now.

You don't have to be doing anything big or dramatic. It can start as simply as writing the draft of a poem or preparing a new dish without a recipe. Creativity happens when intuition, inspiration and attention intersect. We invite this mysterious process in when we start playing with a poem, a painting, an idea and allow it to be born from a deeper knowing. Our cognitive mind moves out of the way as if it grasps that it doesn’t have the answers. It feels nervous at no longer being in control. At this point if you really let go, suddenly you find yourself in the creative dance where time stops and inspiration and an awareness of what step to take next is obvious.

We were meant to live this way. Sailing the seas of imagination. Asking what else is possible. Creativity is literally a gift we are all born with. It's about more than arts and crafts. It expresses itself in a myriad of ways, in the unique form calls to us. It is also a capacity we use for everyday problem solving and creating our lives. It's about being connected to Spirit and the invisible realms that are eager to support us. It is a doorway into higher consciousness. It is the place we will find the solutions needed to create positive change in our lives and the world.

How Being Creative Makes Us Happy

Years ago I heard Nobel Prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney give a lecture at the University of Washington. In the middle of this very academic speech, he paused, threw up both his hands and said, "oh, just write for the joy of it" and then dipped back into the lecture. I don't remember anything else from the talk, but Heaney's sudden burst of inspiration stayed with me because it really captured an essential element to being creative.

Whether you are cooking a great meal, growing a beautiful garden, writing a poem or singing in the community choir, you likely feel a deep sense of satisfaction and a joyfulness that comes with being creative. Creativity draws on the best of human nature: perception, imagination, intellect, inspiration, courage, intuition, and empathy. The urge to create asks us to bask in the experience of the world, to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell the magnificence around us. It allows us to celebrate, with a spirit of gratefulness, every aspect of our lives and the beauty and complexity the world offers. It can help us make meaning from our sufferings.

Being creative also breaks us free from our ruts and habits allowing us to look at the world anew. We are able to tell a story that touches others, envision a unique way of solving a problem or offer counsel with fresh clarity, even if we have struggled with the same material or ideas a hundred times before. Embracing our creativity allows us to tap a deeper more insightful way of knowing beyond our conscious mind and thoughts.

I think being creative feels so good because it connects us to divine imagination and when we actively participate in developing and fulfilling our gifts it feels like a mystical experience. We intuit that we are connected to something larger than ourselves which is perhaps the greatest gift that comes from following our creative urges.

Early in my work as a writer when I became aware that I was writing from an inspired sense of flow, I would get this urge to look around the room to see where is was coming from because I sensed it was exactly coming from me. Now I am just always deeply grateful when I tap fully into that vein and welcome it with a sense of grace.

In looking for your own ways of being creative you can start by celebrating your uniqueness. There never was, nor ever will be, anyone exactly like you. In exploring your uniqueness there is often a central preoccupation, an interest or passion that runs through your life? There can also be more than one.

If you can't name it right now, think of something that you are fascinated by again and again. The possibilities are infinite; from needlework to rock climbing, from bird watching to playing the piano, from English country dancing to writing haiku, from gardening to giving foot massages. Look for what brings you joy and then begin taking actions to embrace your creativity and enjoy the process. One small step a day will set you down the creative path to increased happiness and fulfillment.

The Gift of Creativity For Chaotic Times

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems. - Martin Seligman

As our world seems to be getting more and more chaotic, I am reminded of the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. After spining a protective cocoon, the caterpillar dissolves into a dark goo. Then specialized imaginal cells begin to move toward each other and band together to guide the restructuring of the goo into the butterfly.

It’s a great metaphor for what is possible when people work together from a common, inspired vision. I like to think that when we embrace our creative gifts we become imaginal cells for our culture or society. When we connect with like minded souls who want to make the world a better place, what problems can we solve? I just read about people who are harvesting and recycling the plastic clogging our oceans. That’s an inspired idea creating positive change.

What if the chaos we are experiencing in the world today and in our lives is actually an invitation to let go of the old ways and create something new. What if in letting go, even as we fear the unknown, we actually make room for the new to enter. Often when we give up trying, unexpected opportunities, beyond what we thought possible, show up in miraculous ways.

Chaos is at the heart of being creative. Creativity begins from a place of swirling possibilities. It can be messy. On the creative journey we often feel like we don’t know what we’re doing or where exactly we’re going. Yet as we take it step by step following the threads of intuition and inspiration, as we show up for the work we find ourselves guided along the way. We discover the process itself is deeply rewarding and has the capacity to change our world.

By bringing creativity into every area of our lives, it can help us transcend the chaos by reordering the world and our lives in new and inspired ways. Take a minute consider a place in your life that feels chaotic and ask “what newness wants to be born in my life?” Don’t think about it, just allow an idea to pop in, and follow your heart and knowing. Then see what one small act that you can take to start creating from this inspiration. Taking it one small step at a time helps to keep us from feeling overwhelmed. What if this is how we create a world that works for everyone?

Keep Your Curiosity Alive - Journaling Can Help

For any writer who wants to keep a journal, be alive to everything, not just to what you're feeling, but also to your pets, to flowers, to what you're reading. - May Sarton

Keeping a journal or notebook to record not only your inner landscape but you observations of the world around you can make your life much more vibrant and alive. There is a long list of famous people who kept journals or notebooks. Anthropologist Margaret Mead, Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winston Churchill, Franz Kafka and Virginia Wolfe are just a few. The great geniuses and innovators kept their child-like sense of wonder and curiosity alive. Keeping a journal can help.

It's easy to start. Get a bound blank book, or you can start with a cheap spiral notebook. Date your entries. Begin by describing your surroundings, the current state of your life as well as your hopes, dreams, desires or questions. Put down anything you are curious about or whatever wants to spill out on to the page. If you are a writer, this is a good way to loosen up.

Leonardo Da Vinci actually carried a notebook attached to his belt and recorded anything he was curious about, any image he saw that drew him, any ideas that popped into his head or any questions that came to him. He insisted that passionate curiosity about all of life was one of the keys to his genius and remarkable accomplishments.

Short-term memory only retains information for three minutes. Unless committed to paper, an inspired idea forever can be lost forever. You can use your journal to record all the ideas and inspirations that flash into your mind. Plus paying close attention to the world and asking questions actually invites the subconscious mind into play increasing your creative and mental capacities.

So try what Leonardo did. Keep a notebook with you at all times. It could simply be a small spiral bound one that fits in your back pocket. Do it for a week and see if it doesn't awaken your sense of amazement for the beauty and complexity of the world.

I've started doing this, making note of the reflection of trees on the surface of a pond, the hawks crying out as they circle overhead, the newborn baby asleep in a stroller rocking back and forth with the motion, and the power of horses racing across a field.

I've kept a journal for over 40 years. It's added so much to my life and my writing. Carrying one with me everywhere has me opening to appreciating the world around me on a whole new level and making connections I would have missed otherwise.

Creating the New Year from Creative Flow

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. - E. M. Forster

Recently I heard about a study done in China to determine what helps people weather the isolation resulting from the pandemic. Researchers found that those individuals who were able to engage in activities that allowed them to be in the flow had the easiest time.

Flow is the expanded state of consciousness that occurs when our attention is fully absorbed in an activity. We lose track of time and have a heightened sense of possibilities and well being. Whether we are writing or painting or dancing or cooking or gardening or skiing or countless other activities, anything that engages our full attention can put us in flow.

The past year has been pretty crazy. So much of our lives and how we do things has been shaken up and reset. The benefit of this is that we have an opportunity to find new ways to be with each other and the earth. When we commit to getting creative and expanding our awareness of what is possible, beautiful solutions can come to us.

If we live our lives from the place of heart and knowing about what really matters to us and brings us alive the more we will find ourselves in a creative state of flow and a state of grace. A great place from which to create a happy new year.

Creating a Whole New World

The day will come when after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. - Teilhard de Chardin

I know most of us are feeling wobbly with all the changes and challenges in our world. Some of us have lost loved ones. Some of us have lost our livelihood. Now in the U.S. we add serious social unrest to the mix. All of have lost our relationship to the world as we once knew it. Many of us intuit that there is no going back to the old ways, the old normal.

As unsettling as the chaos in our personal lives and the world can be, what if the unraveling of the old offers us an opportunity to create a new world. One that works for all. A world where everyone’s basic needs are taken care of and we take care of the earth in the process. Critical to this shift is the need to move from our heads to our hearts. 

In the words of Doc Childre at the Institute of Heartmath, Our minds may be different based on beliefs, upbringing and life situations, but our hearts can find harmony with each other in a shared existence . . . It’s in the heart that we access the core qualities of love, compassion, care, kindness, forgiveness and appreciation that lift us above separation, judgment and blame. What if we can create a new normal out of this feeling that elevate us to who we really are at our core.

Many of us have felt more heart centered as the need to stay at home has brought us back to the basics. We have spent more time on an inner reflection as well as appreciating and caring for our friends, families and neighbors in new ways. We have discovered that we can be happy with less. I find deep satisfaction watching birds out the window as I play with writing a poem. We are being invited to travel light, help each other and find joy in small pleasures. How creative can we get with all this.

In this time of crisis where the challenges seem staggering, creative expression is more important than ever. Creative activities help us process what all the change mean to us, our society and our future. Getting creative can help us envision what a better world could look like and provide the creative solutions that can get us there. Engaging our creative gifts connects us to the new level of thinking that allows us to open new possibilities for our lives and the world. Being creative brings us into the present moment and helps to open our hearts. Each of us has gifts the world needs now. How can you open and express yours

What Are You Waiting For?

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.- Jack London

Many of us find ourselves repeatedly waiting for some future moment to claim our creative self. We think we need things to be perfect, our circumstances just right. We need more time, more money, more experience before we begin. We think we need to feel inspired.

Waiting is a form of resistance that keeps us from diving into the unknown or facing our fear of failure. The truth of being creative is that you have to be willing to embrace the unknown. You never really know what’s going to happen or if something is going to work out until you give it a go. The real pleasure in engaging our creativity comes from playing with the process without concern for the outcome.

So pick up a pen, paintbrush, cookbook, camera, lump of clay, musical instrument or sketch pad. There are countless ways to engage your creativity. What calls to you in this moment. Try something new. Have it be okay that you are not very good at first. Everything takes practice and a willingness to discover what works and what doesn’t.

Be like a child who could care less if something works out or if it is messy. Young children, until they are taught otherwise, revel in the mess of the creative process. They have no concerns about making mistakes. They simply enjoy of experience of creative forces moving through them.

So give it a try. Take one faltering step forward that can lead you to a new perspective, where possibilities are actually waiting for you. Have it be okay if it feels uncomfortable and uninspired at first. You find inspiration through the doing. As we enter a new year, a new decade what do you want to create. Take a deep breath. What are you waiting for?

Living Your Creative Potential

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

What if your life where a blank piece of paper or a bare canvas? What new story would you write for yourself, what picture would you paint? What if each small step you take toward what you really desire is like a brush stroke on the canvas where you are creating that life? What life do you want to create for your self? What creation do you want to live into?

Asking questions can really assist in opening up to all that is possible for us. Questions like: what else is possible, what would it take to change this situation, or if I had a magic wand I would. . . act as an invitation to the bigger part of our mind or perhaps even to universal intelligence.

I recently heard that your eyes/brain process 10 million bits of information a second and our conscious mind is aware of only 40 of those bits. This fits with the research that shows that our subconscious mind represents about 95% of our mind and our conscious mind making up the remaining 5%.

I think being creative in any way is really about learning to work with our bigger, more powerful mind and higher inspiration that is able to draw on all the knowledge and knowing that our subconscious/unconscious mind.

As someone who has worked with various forms of creativity for most of my life I am quite accustomed to giving the seed of an idea over to my subconscious or divine inspiration. I let the part of me that I'm not completely aware of come up with fresh connections and perspectives. That's how I do all my creative work including writing blog articles.

I'll work on one for a bit then leave it alone while I work on something else. I will have a vague sense that my bigger mind is weaving the threads of different ideas and images into a coherent whole. Even before I start writing a blog, I ask the question, What's the subject for the next piece and see what comes to me as I go about my day. I rely on higher inspiration for everything and questions are my point of access.

The key to working with questions is to ask and then let them go, knowing that the answer will show up. Don't try to figure out it in your head but rather start paying attention to, the bright idea that just pops into your head , the sign, the hunch, the intuition, the sense of what to do that often shows up in a way that surprises us.

I know you have all had the experience of trying to solve a problem with your conscious mind and after a few unsuccessful hours, you get up from your desk, get into your car, drive home and as you are pulling up to your house the solution just comes to you as an ah...ha moment. That's your bigger mind at work on the problem you asked it to solve and in letting in go on the drive home you gave your subconscious mind the space to deliver the answer.

Often we are so caught up in the busyness of our daily lives that we don't take the time to imagine what actually might be possible for us. Questions are wonderful tool for expanding your world and helping you to access more of your creative potential in every area of your life.

The more you play with asking questions and looking out for the answers the more you strengthen your ability receive and trust what shows up. Play with it, be curious, have fun. In this changing world we all need to live and work from an expanded sense of who we are. Questions can help.

Creativity: Being Part of Creation

Well, you're right in the work, you lose your sense of time, you're completely enraptured, you're completely caught up in what you're doing, and you're sort of swayed by the possibilities you see in this work. . . .The idea is to be. . .so saturated with it that there's no future or past, it"s just an extended present in which you're making meaning. - Mark Strand, poet

The thoughts that come to you are more valuable than the ones you seek. - Joubert

Some years ago I read a wonderful book by Matthew Fox, titled, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet. In this book Fox, a former Catholic priest who had been censured by the Church for putting forth a doctrine of original blessing as opposed to original sin, suggests that when we are creative we become co-creators with creation.

I had been involved with creativity for a long time by the time I read his book; first with dance and photography and then a couple of decades spent writing so I knew immediately the truth of what he was saying. I remember the first time I really got on a roll with my writing and I knew that something good was coming out of my pen, I actually stopped and looked around the room to see where it was coming from because I knew it wasn't exactly coming from me. Since then I've come to the sense that it's Spirit or my Higher Self working through me and I've been able to integrate working with these mysterious forces as I write.

The word Muse has its origins in being intiated into the mysteries. And its important to understand that this connection is available to everyone not just a select few who are somehow born with this special gift. It is also not restricted to the arts.

The gift of creativity is woven deep into our being. Everytime we solve a problem we didn't "think" we could solve we are drawing on this invisible resource. We experience it in cooking, gardening, decorating our homes, raising our children, healing, teaching and business when we get the inspiration to do something in a new and expanded way. When we tap into this ability it feels great, it feels divine.

Regardless of where this creative inspiration comes from I've found that the more I show up to the practice of writing or anything else, the more I have a feel for working with this creative flow. It's like a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Joan King, a neuroscientist who has studied brain activity describes in her book Cellular Wisdom, "While such brainstorming [found in creative flow] is occurring, more and more neurons and neural pathways are being activated in the neural net. Consciousness acts like a spotlight, shining here and there, making connections, illuminating thought and memories, trying out possible solutions. As the process continues, more and more neurons are recruited, activating more of the great intermediate [neural] net." The key here is to stop thinking with your linear mind and let the creative imagination really run. Our linear mind has to get out of the way to let our big mind make its leaps and forge its connections.

Consider all the ways you are already being creative and what it feels like. Is there a sense of excitement and expansion when you exercise your creativity?. What would it takes for you to build more muscle in this area? I think the changes and challenges in the world today are actually calling forth this ability in each of us. They are asking us to embody our creativity in every area of our lives and in our contributions to the world. The beauty is that creation is waiting to help. We just need to show up, let go and step into the flow of being a co-creator. Our willingess is our invitation.

Are You Embracing Joy or Chasing Happiness

We can spend so much of our lives in the pursuit of happiness that we often neglect to savor or even notice our moments of joy. Happiness feels more a long term goal, something we can be ever in search of. Joy is more an in the moment experience that has the quality of deep satisfaction.

There are certain experiences that universally ignite joy in a person. The sight of a rainbow or a hummingbird or a dolphin or cherry blossoms. A single flower has the capacity to fill us with joy if we let it. Joy is our reward for following what feeds our heart and soul. Our joy drives us toward what feels good to us.

Creativity can be a great source of joy. The act of being creative whether we finish anything or make anything that we consider good has at its core a sense of joyful satisfaction. As a writer with decades of experience it is that pleasure in the process that has sustained me over the years. 

Recently I’ve started working with watercolors having been drawn to purchase a wonderful little instruction kit. My mind thinks I’m not very good but my creative spirit is having fun just playing and learning something new. 

The joy at the heart of creativity is the deep soul satisfaction that comes from creating anything new. We open to the flow of something greater than ourselves and find ourselves fully present in the moment where we seem to have all the time in the world.

Embracing joy is like taking time out to appreciate being alive. Consider for yourself what brings you joy and intentionally increase that presence in your world. What else can you do to feed your creative soul? As we regularly embrace what brings us joy we may just find our happiness.

Are You Adrift in a Sea of Distractions

I started writing before the development of the personal computer, when cut and paste meant I was down on the floor with a pair of scissors and a jar of that thick white glue that smelled vaguely of peppermint. It was in many ways a simpler time with far less pulling on my attention.

Every morning upon rising I would make my single cup of French roast coffee, dripped through a Melitta, and then sit down to write. There weren't any thoughts like I’ve got to check my email or Twitter feed to interfere with putting words on the page.

If I needed to do research, I went to the library, the sacred hall of actual books. I would flip through the cards in the small wooden drawers of the card catalog to find the book I needed, check it out and carry it home.

Now I love my laptop. It make revision including cut and paste so much easier. It connects me to a larger world. I can Skype my friend in Australia and feel like I’m sitting in her living room talking. I can connect to the web to find wealth of information I need for my work.

Yet lately I’ve been thinking about the issue of distractions. The fast pace of our times pulls us in so many different directions at the same time. We can lose ourselves in the swarm of emails, the compulsion to engage social media, surf the web or check the notifications coming in on our phones.

I’m not suggesting that we need to give those things up. Rather what if we brought more awareness to what we really want to be doing with our time in each moment. What is we asked ourself the question “What would bring me the most happiness and joy right now.” If the answer is to post something on Facebook, great.

Bringing consciousness to our lives on a regular basis helps us chose the activity that feeds us and helps us create more of what we really want in our lives. Asking “what would bring me the most happiness at this time, can help us overcome procrastination and the distractions that can get in the way of our creating.

When I asked myself that question this morning I got that I wanted to write a blog about distractions. Writing is one of the things that always brings me a satisfaction as I tend to be more present and lose myself in flow.

What does this for you. Start being more mindful of what really brings you happiness. Maybe set an alarm on your phone to go off every hour to remind yourself to stop and ask the question and be more conscious of your choices. Play with it. See what shifts for you.