bookmark_borderDon’t ignore that tap on the shoulder

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Image: canyon-news.com

There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen. – Rumi

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had something tugging at my sleeve for many years now. It feels like a pestering tug that won’t let up, that keeps stubbornly trying to get my attention and just won’t go away. I knew that I had to acknowledge that ‘unseen’ part of me, that deep presence, the place of knowing that can only be felt and not reasoned. I didn’t want to acknowledge it because I knew that it was coaxing me into action. It would push me into that super uncomfortable zone, the place where all shields are down and you go out, fully exposed. But the time had come. I had to listen.

That “thing” that was desperately trying to get my attention was my soul’s yearning, it was calling, begging me to follow a hunch, with no details, instructions or landing sight. And I’m not talking about “purpose” here, I’m talking about something that needs to be  undertaken, for it’s own purpose. I was being called to open myself up to a mystery, to tune in to a desire, a yearning buried so deep, that I was no longer completely sure what IT was. What did it look like, feel like, taste like? Is it something that excited me? We are so good at cutting ourselves off from our deepest passions that a mere spider’s thread connects us to our golden orb, our soul. That orb is like the light that shines from our heart when we are totally immersed in our pleasure, in the “thing” that makes us unique, in the thing that takes us out of time and space, and drops us into the timeless dimension.

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But why, oh why, do we allow the very thing that excites us, that sustains our souls to perish, little by little, like a neglected toy, gathering dust and mould in a darkened corner? We neglect our “joy generators” at our peril because in today’s detached world, we need something to anchor us, to help us connect to our authentic selves and to the infinite and creative source of all existence.

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Tofu-man takes control

I was one such person. Many years ago my love of music saw me performing in very small venues with a band of wannabes and even after a long day at the office, performing had me on such a high that I thought I would burst. Every cell in my body began to shimmer with joy and satisfaction, with no agenda other than being in love with the act of creation, but then, my mind took control. It told me that I could never make it to the top because of a lack of talent, looks, connections, the X factor, you name it, the excuses came thick and fast. And so, because of a bunch of dialogue made up by a lump of tofu like mass inside my skull, I gave it away. Years later, my creative soul tried tapping me on the shoulder again, but this time enticing me with art, then ceramics, but each time, tofu-man stood like judge and jury and began to pronounce my ideas as being guilty of a crime against my ego, that following such silly creative pursuits was wasteful of time and money, contributed nothing to the world economy, would not keep the insatiable machine of industry fed and was about as useful as concrete wings on a bird. So again, I gave up. Not realising that I had just replaced my own wings with concrete ones.

Fast forward many years and I learnt to ignore my creativity, and instead adopted a “normal life”, pursuing the nice house, car, balancing career, family, friends, pets etc., leaving me no time for anything else. Phew! It meant tofu-man would be happy, at least for a while, but then slowly but surely, my body began to crumble. You see egos don’t have the brains to understand that suppressing one’s ‘soul-vocation’ in favour of following social dictators would eventually hurt my body, my soul, and ultimately, all of me.

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Hundreds of hours of self-analysis made me realise that Tofu-man was not me, he is just a bunch of programs that were passed on from other tofu brains whose initial intention was to keep us safe, but sadly, this kind of thinking is based on fear.  Over time, this fear was used to keep us all under control, to make us conform so that we remain on the economic treadmill, earn money, spend money and keep a few individuals in the monetarily rich life they had become accustomed to. To control the masses, there is absolutely no room for individuation, for soul expression or living a passionate life. We are told that creativity doesn’t pay the bills. No, it doesn’t always produce monetary results, but it does nourish our hearts and souls and helps pave the way to better health and a more satisfied life. Creativity calls for chaos, for challenging the social norms, for expressing beauty for the sake of it, for shaking people out of their stupor and saying, “Hey you? Look at this amazing photo of the soon to be extinct white tiger.” It triggers us into creating music that soothes our frazzled nerves one minute and then propels us into social action the next. Creativity provides solutions to problems, it is meditative and healing. I’m guessing if creativity was at the top of our priority lists, that we’d reduce our hospital admissions by 80%.

For me, a sick body forced me to see for the first time that tofu-man had been running my life. He’s not just my judge and jury, but also my jailer. He’d kept me from the things I truly loved but was afraid to follow. So, despite being around the “middle” age of my life, I say to my tofu-man, no more. I’m taking back control. Last week I took my first guitar lesson in years and wow did it feel good!  The next day I purchased some watercolour paints and coloured pencils. Just looking at the beautiful colours sets my heart a racing.

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And to my tofu-man I say thanks for trying to protect me, but your kind of protection is like spraying weed killer on a plant that’s about to blossom. We often do this to our children too. Just as they’re about to open their buds and burst into the world in a blaze of colour, we pass on tofu-man’s fears and shut them down. Well, it’s never too late to make scrambled tofu with your ego, instead of letting it run your life. If you can relate to this but don’t know how to move forward, then here’s a suggestion.

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Find your silly happy

Find a quiet place and put on some music that calms and soothes you. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and time travel to happy childhood moments when you were doing something that made you silly happy. If like me, you buried your silly happy moments deep in your memory banks, don’t worry, be patient and just sit with it. You may have to try this a few times.

If that doesn’t work, then you get to play, to experiment and try a whole host of creative things to see if you can reconnect with that deep joyful love that you once had for a particular activity. Take photos, join a choir, learn an instrument, take up sewing, restore furniture, gardening and so on.  Counselling, Hypnotherapy or Art therapy might help too. Whatever you do, don’t give up, keep looking. Your health, wellbeing and full expression of your life depend on it.

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bookmark_borderPassion, Focus and Courage

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“Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks.” – Yo-Yo Ma

Some time ago, I was grappling with focus, as in trying to focus on one thing I loved, instead of many. You see I have many “loves” or passions, that all pull me in their own respective directions. Unlike my neighbour who says she has no interests outside family and work, I have an encyclopaedia of delicious creative underlings all vying for my attention, from counselling and mentoring to writing, sewing, photography, gardening, the list goes on and on.

So how to focus and do “that one thing”?  I recalled some advice from a clever coach who asked his students to try and identify what I call the “time munchers”.  He used sensible words like, “identify those activities , those pursuits, where time seems to stand still and yet so much time has passed without you realising it”. I have to admit that all my interests are time munchers but there is one that seems to call more loudly than the rest and it is writing.

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When I’m doing the dishes and staring blankly at the foaming water, dialogue forms in my head, as though a secret little stash of ideas just sits, waiting to hitch a ride on a soapy bubble and float it up into my “head-o-sphere”. Or when I’m making soup, in a queue at the supermarket, or sweeping a floor. Ideas emerge from the ether with little effort or even a request on my part. And so, many hours are happily munched away as my fingers transmit the offerings into shapely things on a screen. And then they wait, and wait, and wait in cyber-land until I channel a brave archetype, and realise that it’s ok to share these musings. You see I, like many writers I suffer with the “good enough syndrome” – that debilitating state of mind that judges and critiques and compares and never seems to be satisfied.

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So, to cure this syndrome, I had to remind myself that anyone can call themselves a writer, there aren’t any prerequisites, no forms to fill in, no DNA checks required – you call yourself a writer because you love to write. I’m also a photographer and a crocheter because these are the things I do. I may not have a PhD in any of my interests but I make no claims to be an expert, simply a lover of creative pursuits. Creativity is like manna from heaven, a golden faucet allowing inspiration to flow and inspire, a poultice for a wounded heart or a frazzled mind.

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Twice today I’ve munched away my time doing something I love, and I sincerely hope you will too. Take courage and take the first step towards doing something that helps you jump on that space-time continuum, where you disappear into the “time munching” field of creation. Taking the bold step to follow creative urges, particularly when we are newbies, does take courage but each time you make a new beginning, you will strengthen your courage to step into the unknown, after all, despite all our cleverness, no one knows what tomorrow holds.

So to help you make a start in following your passion, I shall leave you with these beautiful words, from a truly expert wordsmith, the late and great mystic John O’Donahue, from his book “Benedictus”. John truly understood the divine act of creation and that we have to simply trust our own hearts and intuition, make a start and follow that which is already here.

“Indeed, our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning; but these beginnings are out of our hands; they decided themselves. Beginning precedes us, creates us and constantly takes us to new levels and places and people. There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning. More often than not, it knows the journey ahead better than we ever could.”

So what is your passion?  Why not take one small step towards it today.

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