You don't need to call yourself an artist to co-create with the universe.
What are you creating?
I wish someone would have told me when I was entering adulthood: that I didn't have to sleepwalk through life and that committing to creativity is the key to waking up. As is true of all lessons, it was more valuable to stumble toward this knowing...
Fifteen years ago, I woke up to the realization that I was creating a life that was not in alignment with who I wanted to be. Addiction, depression, and anxiety had me spiraling down a dark path. The price was a broken jaw, blaming myself for being raped, the heartache of abortion, and the belief that I was broken.
The cost of disappearing on ourselves and our creativity carries a heavy burden for us humans.
My childhood was intertwined with creativity, but by the time I landed in college I'd let fear reign and steer me away from my creative rhythms into activities and relationships that didn't reflect who I was inside or who I wanted to become. Going through the motions snowballed fast.
If you are in a place of disconnection, there is hope. It starts with a choice to listen to that small voice that desires change.
Sometimes, we feel so far off from where we want to be, the amount of change is unfathomable or overwhelming. The trick is to start small and know that small steps compound.
After graduating college, the only thing I knew to do was flee. I wanted to start over. The minute I graduated I sold most of my things, packed what was left and moved to California.
I didn't have a plan, just a hope and a prayer for an emergent dream of recreating myself. I got a job, put myself in therapy and started making art again. The loneliness of not knowing a soul in California was disorienting, so I turned inward and this choice turned out to be one of the wisest things I've ever done.
Out of desperation, I started praying to a God that I wasn't sure existed. I was guided toward reading, writing and making art daily. This began a healing journey of, inventorying my values, seeding new possibilities: grad school and a recommitment to the creativity that I grew up with. With the help of amazing teachers and caring community, I gave myself permission to pursue my interdisciplinary creative urges.
As, I revisited childhood inclinations, I also cried every day for the first five years of living in California. As the days passed with more meaningful pursuits and tremendous learning, delight and joy emerged more often and lingered longer.
Small, courageous decisions compounded. Over time, I started to understand myself differently. I was redefining myself: a social worker, also working on herself; an artist also recreating herself.
We always have the option to recreate ourselves.
Commitment to creativity saved my life. It didn't start as a commitment, but as a willingness to choose the discomfort of desire for growth over the discomfort of numbness.
Willingness was the seed. Awakening, the sprout. Commitment was the bud. Transformation continues to flower.
This work allowed me to build a life and business around the values I excavated in the process. It took hitting bottom to consciously choose something different.
If you feel like you've hit rock bottom, congratulations might feel like an odd response, but it's accurate. A shift is available. Mis-steps are inevitable and valuable learning opportunities.Leverage your fear and your mistakes as teachers.
It will likely be the hardest, scariest work you can do, but it will also be the most rewarding, beautiful, joyous and meaningful work you can do.
Transformation is always on the other side of conscious creativity.
You don't need to call yourself an artist to co-create with the universe.
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