Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Living Artfully: How I stopped Striving and started Dancing

Do you ever feel so daunted by all the things you want to do that you end up doing nothing at all; because you feel so totally overwhelmed? Sometimes we get so caught up in the mundane trivial things, that our creative expression ends up being put on hold - yet again!

Now, even though I have been passionately choosing to live my life as one flowing, happy, synchronistic event, I find it particularly fascinating that I can still produce days of utter creative blockade!

For me, as I explore this concept with curiosity and honesty, I am amazed to discover how creative I have been in avoiding expressing my highest joy. I have found to my chagrin that I have some severely limiting beliefs - fulfilling my creative joy seems to be something I want to avoid at all costs!

It is most perverse how I have manifested creating drama in my life instead of channeling it into a form of art, which is my true desire.

As a result of all this repressed expression, I have been suffering from excess creative energy which periodically spills out into crazy, almost neurotic, behaviour.

Just yesterday, for example, I got up, totally full of the joys of spring, totally fired up and ready to go for finishing a song I'm composing in a whole new rock 'n roll style. I was quite simply bursting with enthusiasm and then before I even knew what was happening I somehow found myself creating an argument with my poor, unsuspecting beloved partner John over some completely incidental misunderstanding. This catalysed an issue in me of such utter betrayal that, surprise, surprise, I couldn't even begin to immerse myself in my music. So, I went shopping instead!

As I was driving, the mists began to part in my distress and I took ownership for having created this drama. Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I began to wonder why I would go to such extreme measures to avoid expressing my creative joy.

Well, it occurred to me that actually, I had come to associate being creative with tremendous strain. Somehow I had been experiencing a deep pull to 'achieve', a need to 'make it', always trying, trying, trying to 'get there', to 'get it right': in fact, to get it perfect. This had been culminating in an exhaustion that had left me thoroughly depleted and burnt out. I felt like I had been racing forever on a treadmill trying to get somewhere, but never actually getting there!

So, this morning, as examined my own thinking process through my daily dialogue with my deep self, I could then see the truth: namely that no matter how hard I try I will never make it! Not, that is, according to my old definition of success.

Because, you see, all my life I have felt that I have been separate from all my projects, my passions and my work. In fact, I had taken it to the extent of often valuing myself solely on what I could achieve. I was seeking fulfilment through the idea of achievement of doing things well and if only I could just 'get there', then I would be happy!

And the more I tried to make up the distance between where I was and where I thought I ought to travel to, the more I amplified that gap.

As I pondered on this dilemma of having to have somewhere to 'reach' or something to grasp on to I could feel the tremendous strain it was putting on my being. Once I became aware of this, however, I had a natural response to do just the opposite and that was to relax and collapse back into myself.

And when I did this, to my surprise, I could feel that where I wanted to get to was all already here, rather than something outside and separate from me. Now I could see that the only real alternative was to accept that I was already all that I ever needed to be. I recognised that I am already a complete kit, as it were. I could see that I am my own expression, I am my creativity, I am my own 'product' and that anything I physically produce is merely an extension of me, not the definition of me.

Now, as I write these wonderful words and embrace with delight the idea that I am my own product, project and creativity, something magical starts to unfold. I can feel that I will create all the time I need as a natural consequence of what I give my priority to.

For example, in this very instance now, I am choosing to act on my greatest love and my passion in this writing!

As I ponder on this thought I hear that great song by Louis Armstrong; "We have all the time in the world. Time enough for life to unfold all the precious things love has in store."

Indeed we do!

So, right now, I choose to create all the time I need for whatever my creative expression is, without the idea that I need to get somewhere or to value myself through what I produce!

This simple but profound realisation is really big for me! I have already been enjoying the idea of my entire Universe as not being separate from me (see the first Principle of my Way of the Supreme Gift on my website for more info). And as I now allow myself triumphantly to view my creations as also not something separate from me I can experience them as a flow from one part of my creative expression (the 'inner part') to another part of me (the 'outer' part).

From this place of unity, I am now getting the sensation that I am dancing instead of striving!

This feels wonderful!

I begin to see my life flowing from one moment to the next: each so intimately connected through my joyful expression that it all becomes one ecstatic, eternal moment in the 'Now'.

This feels so much more me, so much more natural.

And so, to live the version of my life that I truly aspire to, is now to allow my Art, my creative expression, to be about 'making' something from my joy in the moment; rather than trying to 'make it' in the 'future'.

I realise now that when I am trying too hard to 'get there', it takes the heart and soul out of what I do and I lose connection with my creative expression. It all becomes too much like hard work and not my joy.

Rather, I imagine that I already am what I wish to create and melt into - and that I am 'losing myself' in this very moment of its creation. Now I am in harmony with my creation and I will not lose step or get out of tune with myself.

And most importantly, all the fatigue and strain has evaporated!

As I play with this idea I allow the magic to begin. I start to create the art I truly wanted to create as way of expressing the huge love I feel for this beautiful world. And this joy inside me that seems so vast, so wanting to spill out of me - I just want to spread it around!

As I allow myself to act on this feeling and allow my heart and instincts to guide me in my creative expression in this moment, rather than the censorship of my limited thinking, something amazing is happening. I am finding my natural creative 'dancing shoes', and feel I can now move so much more freely, further and effortlessly than ever before!

When I make this art from my heart, for the pure joy in the moment and for its own sake, I find that I am then instinctively connectd to my divine Self. I find that I can now create art that previously would have felt unreachable to me! Like the music for the song I am composing that is pouring out of me right now, even as I write. (Previously, I never believed I would have had the ability to produce such a song, especially because I cannot read music, have never been formally trained to sing, or even learned to play an instrument!)

In acting on my love in this way, I feel I have been given a 'divine gift from God'. It's all so exciting to me – these words I'm sharing with you and the unfolding of a song that is completely new territory to me.


And so I joyfully and eagerly free myself from the driver of trying to 'make it' and choose instead to act on my highest creative joy in each and every moment.

And in doing so, even now I am embracing new openings within me to new energies, possibilities, connections and love. For example, I am seeing a new video project unfolding on the horizon.

This is living in the Now.

I have become my own moment and it has its own momentum, blending in perfect harmony, synchronicity and creative joy.

Thus I have become the artist and the dancer and my 'art' has become the dance of my life.

And I wish you happy dancing and artful living too!


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