A couple of mornings ago, I woke up with absolutely horrible cramps (sorry boys). For the most part I’ve had them my entire life with brief moments of pain free months. As I was laying down doing my best to breathe into the pain, a friend came in and we started to talk about pain. I’ve done extensive work around my body pain, I’ve been able to heal myself from MS, and other muscular pain, however, menstrual pain has always been a dilemma.
She mentioned that menstrual pain is linked to the Divine Feminine and owning our own femininity and creativity. For those who know me well, know that I’ve spent quite a bit of time working at owning being a woman and something I still work at. The word in the conversation that I had a bodily reaction to was “creativity”. Where was mine? How am I using my creativity? What does it mean to be creative? What is my passion? My cramps intensified as I had these thoughts.
Growing up I’ve always stifled my creative side and passions. I use to love to draw, take pictures, sculpt and build things, paint, make things from nature or other materials. I even attempted to play the trumpet, drums and piano. I was also, from a very young age, interested in all things esoteric and philosophy. But I never really pushed myself to do well or continue to pursue these activities. I was always very self conscious about creating any kind of art or music, or voicing my interests and gave up. It didn’t sound right, look right or feel right. Actually I didn’t sound right, look right or feel right. I wasn’t myself at all and because of my contraction I wasn’t able to invite the creative muses into my life.
But it’s more than just being creative through art and music. Life itself needs a creative impulse, a spark, a flame that ignites passion, change and growth (many spiritualists and people who study evolutionary consciousness speak about this quite often). I’ve realized that until now, I haven’t been living creatively at all. I lived vicariously through other people feeling that anything “outside the box” was exotic, eccentric and way beyond my short armed reach. However, through doing my own personal work, I discovered that life is full of choices. Each choice requires some surrender. Meaning in order to do or have one thing, generally you have to let go of something else. I let go of the vicarious life I was living and decided to live my life.
As I started to write this entry, Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, passed away and a friend posted this quote on Facebook (another fine example). Job’s stated quite succinctly and precisely…
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
I don’t think anyone could have displayed living creatively better than him in this day and age. In order for the creative impulse to flow, one needs to be authentic and follow their hearts. They need to break enmeshments and be able to be an individual as well as part of a greater community without getting lost in it.
In my own personal work I have been working on individuation for quite some time now. In recent years my life has done a complete 180. I don’t recognize my life at all because it doesn’t resemble the comfortable, controlled, safe and secure lifestyle I was living. To be honest, I wasn’t living at all. I was doing what I “thought” I needed to do and dying inside because of it.
Since my life has changed my creativity has started to return. In fact, traveling (that exotic creature I never seemed to get a grasp of and have now caught) has been a huge catapult for it. When you don’t have an income, and following your heart into the unknown, you HAVE to be creative. You have to find your own way and what works for you. What is interesting though is when you learn to trust yourself, your heart, and take responsibility for yourself, magical creativity seems to jump out at you. And when that happens, you begin to feel inspired and alive and things start to connect and happen. Things you could have never planned to happen even if you were the most anal person in the world.
The more I travel the more I come Home to myself. I find that I’m experiencing life in a brand new way. I’m able to step up, and into the driver seat of my life with the Universe as my trusted GPS. I’m open to learning new things, meeting new people, keeping my heart open and feeling my way through it all. I’m doing my best not reverting to old behavioral patters that kept me contracted and creatively blocked. I still stumble at times. But I get back up much quicker these days.
All that I have been through and have learned in the last 8 years is now, somewhat quicker than expected, being integrated in to my being. Proof for me that consciousness in many ways is quickening. As a result I am less afraid to be creative. I feel that anything is possible where once I thought that a different life other than the safe and secure, was totally inconceivable. I am encouraged and supported by the people I meet and looking forward to unfolding even more and manifesting my creative process.
What is that going to look like? Well this blog is one creation. I love to write and take photos. I hope that others can view this blog and feel inspired to look at what is blocking their creative juices and begin a deep inquiry to open them up. I’m hoping to do more with my photography. I would also like to either build or find a retreat centre/spiritual community that is based on the creative impulse. One that supports and balances creativity, work, play, rest, individuation as well relationship through community and nature. One that is dedicated to the process itself and not the outcome. I’m also interested in pulling this all together in a global context as well. I’m just not sure what that will look like. I’m doing my best to let this process unfold naturally without egoically getting in the way. I’m sure more will be revealed when the time is right.
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