From "To-Do" to "Ta Da!"

This week has been filled with fragmented bits of journaling with tid-bits of half formed thoughts making their appearance. In many ways this is quite exciting as many of these thoughts are new creatures that aren't scuttling around the edges of my brain but have now begun leaving little foot prints. Finally a trail to follow! I've chosen not to pursue them out into the open just yet, opting to let them reveal themselves a bit more clearly, maybe walk right up to me, rather than trying to flush them out and risking their disappearance in the ensuing chaos. In making this choice, I'm aware that for the first time in a while now, I'm not trying to "make" anything happen. My typical modus operandi is to make it happen, produce, perform, etc. I'm sure I'm unique in this - ya right!

Living that way means that life begins to take on all the luster of a to-do list. Ironically, just a little to my right lies this week's to-do list that is miles longer than I will ever get accomplished. The same items keep appearing week after week as they get replaced by the more urgent demands of day to day life. If I were to be completely honest, some of the items are still there simply because tackling them seems either too large or yucky to contemplate! My heart's just not in it and so it keeps on rolling over onto the next list until I decide to let go - either by assigning it to someone else or simply deciding that life can go on without a tidy linen closet :)

My creative process has been much the same of late and its only with the contrast in how I've approached it this week that I can see that it had taken on a lack luster appeal in previous months. While I crave something exciting and novel; something wild and feral - I can see that I've gone about stalking it as opposed to simply being still and letting it show itself in its own time.

What I lacked was trust. Trust in myself and trust in the process of emergence. Far away from the frenzied hunt, being simply still is a discipline of a different sort. Still doesn't mean indifferent or oblivious, in fact it is the sharpening of focus and awareness. Gosh! Who knew how challenging it could be to just "be" as opposed to "doing"! Even having learned this lesson a few times over, it is simply amazing to me how I can find myself catapulted back to the to-do style of living and creating.

What a marvelous metaphor pregnancy is in all of this. Its impossible to push this baby out right now no matter how much I want to move forward (and to sleep on my stomach, shave my legs without becoming a contortionist or tie my shoes without grunting!!). It will emerge in its own time and when my body is good and ready - not a second before.

How is the birth of a creative "project" any different? And just like the continued development of this child, my creative brain-child continues to kick and stretch but shows no inclination into making its way into my outer world - yet. I'm so excited to discover that I'm beginning to discern the pattern and personality of each through the connections I feel in my body. I can now feel the outlines of knees and elbows etched on my belly from the inside out and in the same way, there is shape and form just beginning when its comes to how my thoughts are piecing themselves together.

Rather than keep myself busy with a list of "to-do's", I'm growing more content with becoming still and aware and allowing the "ta-da" to happen in its own time.

Baby Steps - Quantum Leaps

Since writing my chapter in Sekhmet Rising about walking my labyrinth, a metaphor for my personal journey of rediscovering some key aspects of myself, I can see that my journey is far from over. In fact, re-reading the chapter often makes me smile because it was a snap shot, a post card that reminds me of where I've been and invites me to notice where I am. They are certainly two different places - similar and yet worlds apart.

While at times my path continues to feel circular, winding back on itself at times and forging ahead at others, I know that the only way forward is one step after another. Lamenting the fact that these days I feel like I have no clear destination when it comes to expressing my creativity through writing, I had a moment of clarity. What I would describe as little day trips or sometimes short strolls are all part of the same movement forward into something. Its like each word is a click on a pedometer, measuring steps of discovery and recovery of something that is essential for me.

Today I was asked about the moment that I discovered that being a writer was my passion. Searching for what that moment was I understood that it was really more like a series of moments. Little shifts that added up to the revelation of something that has always felt like "me" but had been discarded. Although there were some key turning points, in all honesty, it was like the shifting of tectonic plates reordering the geography of my world. Writing may be how I choose to actively express my creativity. In Lynn Andrew's words, its my "act of power". However, the essence of me is creativity in any of its forms and embracing that was like returning home.

One of the most profound moments of this shift I shared in an Catalytic Conversations CD I recorded with Louise LeBrun. It was a moment when I stood in the pediatrician's office and was told to take my child immediately to the hospital - there was something very wrong. In the space of that moment, feeling like I was standing all alone with my very precious child, I clearly heard myself ask, " WHAT AM I DOING!"div>I was so far down a path in the creation of my businesses and the demands that were coming fast and furious from all directions that I had never stopped to consider what was meaningful. Life was one constant merry-go-round of breast feeding, diapers, contractor calls, employee needs, and household jobs that I never stopped "doing" long enough to "be". It took a moment, when something so precious was on the line, to wake me up from my self-induced coma and catalyze me into taking steps in a very different direction.

It was a jolt followed by baby steps as I gradually kept carving away, letting pieces fall away from my life the way a sculptor begins to shape a rough stone. I wasn't sure what was in that stone waiting to be revealed, only that something would emerge if I kept at it. At times I was so frustrated. Change was never fast enough!

Of course, I was hanging on with both hands while trying to give it away. I had yet to learn the lessons of letting go. Anything that did change had my fingernail marks all over it! I was willing to let it go - but on my own terms, thank you very much! And so slowly, I learned to trust that impulse, release my grip and would be surprised at what would be revealed as yet another piece fell away. The interesting thing was, no matter how much debris was falling, what was emerging never felt smaller, or less than the whole. It was expanding before my eyes.

Fast forward a few years and some more baby steps and I find myself as part of an intensive program experience as part of my coaching certification through the WEL-Systems Institute. Deeply grounded in my body, far away mentally from my lists of "shoulds" and "have to's" I am repeatedly completing a phrase along the lines of , " If I didn't have X then I wouldn't want to live". The answers were coming from deep inside me - the little voice I hadn't listened to for a long time. The answers were often astonishing and almost never what I thought they "should be".

When I reached the end of the process with only one core value remaining, I had discovered that I could live without almost anything as long as my ability to create was never taken from me. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected that! The truth of it was undeniable.

It didn't mean that I wouldn't grieve the loss of other things important to me, only that my resiliency, my will to live and my purpose came down to that. Without creativity, my participation with the world as I know it would cease. I believed that I could create my life, my experience and perceptions but if that were taken away, what would be the point. That realization was like coming home. The world was suddenly much safer. My capacity to create was mine. It didn't come from someplace where someone else could take it from me. It was my choice, my ability and my touchstone. Making decisions suddenly became much easier - although following through on them was still a challenge! I had my north star; a compass point with undeniable clarity.

That compass point continues to stay with me as I sense I am at the threshold of something big. In fact, its as though I visit this place over and over again, circling around it like a wolf circling a clearing in the woods. I peak out from behind the trees. I let my toe venture forward before retreating and circling around it again, a lone wolf waiting to join a pack, Checking and rechecking my entry and exit points, I am repeatedly drawn into the open space by that north star. All paths lead here. So here I am scenting the air, searching for ..... I don't know what. Pacing with impatience on one hand and on the other, secure in the knowledge that this is just another portal for the journey that has been unfolding so far.

In order to enter the circle, I must lay something down. I've been carrying it a long time as a weapon of self-preservation. It is my terror at making a choice that is "wrong". Taking the wrong step. Being judged as wrong in my thinking or actions. Being called on to account for my actions to some higher authority. It is the misguided belief that there is an authority in the matters of my life that is greater than me and my connection to what sources me.

I have been cowering in the shadow of this for far too long. It shows up in my seeking of answers outside myself that confirm what I already know. It is hiding from everyone else the fact that I did in fact already arrive at that conclusion but have been to afraid to claim it out loud. For some who carry the same weapon of self-preservation it appears as procrastination and paralysis, for others of my kind, it has the same pacing quality to it. There is no fear of the leap itself, it is elaborate preparation for the leap that is its hallmark.

Even my my act of pacing, however can be considered as baby steps that will lead to quantum leaps. I must ask myself, just how long am I willing to pace? At what point is what lies ahead so compelling that I am unwilling to continue to circle it? How much of my energy and time am I willing to commit to carrying this thing around? As much as it takes, I suppose - and today I am very clear about what the quantum leap is, what must be left behind before I can step into the circle of open space - in fact I may have just taken that step without noticing.