Day 241/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
This will not be the last word on creativity. And I am conflicted as I write this piece.
There is so much emphasis on the "how to be creative", and I really want to say that there could be more info on why we fail to be naturally creative.
We are born with creativity. It's a fundamental human talent. Just as we are born with the ability to remember, to tell the story of our life, to hold memories of passed events. So too do we have the ability to be creative in an artistic kind of way or simply in the way we conduct our everyday life.
Today Sarah reminds us that we can bring our thoughts our actions and our heart into our everyday actions. To cook a meal with care and flair, to bake a cake with careful attention to the ingredients and the process, to take our time, to linger and fuss over the tidying of our home, the preparation of the dining table, the arranging of flowers from the garden.
To be creative we need energy, and that energy is sourced from our stable and integrated wholeness. When our questions about life are answered, our yearnings realised, our internal conflict put to rest, only then we experience the release of creative energy.
Know that you are a creative.
Today is the first time that I can sit in the home of my parents and have the energetic life-force to write a post from my own inner stability. Today I am able to hold my balance and be in this space. I am 63 years old. I have been working on resolving childhood issues for over 40 years. Today I am beginning to experience the results of that long and arduous labour of discovering a truth that was not part of my heritage.
Our upbringing is not the last word on how life could be done, yet it seeps into our subconscious, and becomes our programme on auto-run. The neurology studies of today make it possible for us to understand this fascinating material as call trauma, and the body's role in holding deep memories and repeating them in the body's stress response.
I am not alone in having unresolved childhood concerns. And it is these childhood concerns that rob us of our creativity and the ability to live life fully. A traumatic birth, and traumatised parent, difficulty with attachment styles, conflicting world-views, customs and traditions from the old country that don't fit, family conflicts, beliefs and expectations.
Finding our way through all that we inherit is an immense job, and one of the most satisfying.
If you achieve nothing else in this life, make the effort to resolve the unresolvable. You'll change your life, and your creativity will naturally emerge to meet you.
366 days Towards Self-Mastery
When I considered my New Year's intentions for 2020 I had just one: To allow my heart to love what it loved...and let it lead me. (If not now, then when?)
I've spent months working on integrating my life. To live life more fully with my home life, my interests, my work, my responsibilities, all coming together, all connected. I want to give each the attention that they desire and need, and still have time and energy for the others. That means living and working from the heart.
As I was clearing out my bookshelf over the Christmas break I discovered Simple Abundance. I set it aside to explore it on New Year's Day as I lazed through another delicious day of nothingness. Sarah, the author, says this book is about living in grace. Living in grace I realised, is about Self-Mastery.
My thirst for understanding the human condition has driven me all my life, and hand-in-hand with self-mastery it has been a life-long goal. And seeing as I love to write, that living in grace is about self-mastery, and I love a bit of a challenge, then if I am truly going to let my heart lead, I really don't have any other choice. So scary as it feels, I'm starting out on a daily mission of leaning into the suggestions of this daybook and making a daily post to keep me accountable. If not now, then when?
I'm Josie. You can find out a little more about me here.
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy: by Sarah Ban Breathnach.
This book is written for the Australian and NZ market because it refers to seasonal changes. It's available on Amazon here if you'd like to follow along.
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