The more things change, the more they stay the same.  So goes an old aphorism.  For me it should read “the more I think things stay the same, the more they change.”  Sometimes I overlook the hard truth that change is my constant companion.  I forget that I am a rock in a stream with life washing over me.  Day by day I go through my routine.  Sometimes it’s comforting; other times it’s mind numbing; most of the time I don’t even notice.

And so the stream flows by.

The horizon changes – a tree gets cut down, a building goes up, seasons change.

And the stream continues to flow around and over me.

I pick my head up and realize something’s different.  And how could it not be?  Every drop of water in that stream has shaped me, molded me; sanded and polished me in some spots, roughened me in others.  Did I think I could stand in the middle of a stream and not be changed?

What about you?  Which are you?  The water or the rock?  The shaper or the shapee?  The changer or the changee?

You do know we can choose, right?  I need to be reminded often.  We can summon the muse of awareness, Aha-Phrodite to keep us awake and present.  Paying attention allows us to say yes or no instead of being in default mode and letting fate decide.  Keeping our awareness honed allows us to know what’s best for us because we feel it in our gut.  Our body tells us.  “Radar on, antenna up” puts us in touch with that which gives us joy and meaning.  It could be uncomfortable at first.  But I’m finding that once I get the hang of it, it becomes easier.

I am a coach and yet I continue to get coached.  I participate in group coaching programs.  It keeps me focused and accountable and, most important, it helps me remember the things I know.  It keeps all the tools of my creative muses at my fingertips rather than under the bed with a few dust bunnies for company.  It holds out in front of me what is most important; the things and qualities to which I aspire.

To what do you aspire?  What is your dream?  How do you keep it in eyesight; remember it?  Please leave a comment.  I’d love to hear from you.

These lyrics wind themselves through my head.  I wonder what makes my heart skip a beat.  What catches my breath, makes me stop and look and pay attention?   What summons the muse Aha-Phrodite to our sides?

I walk downstairs early in the morning.  The pre-dawn sky paints my rooms in soft gray flannel.  I go the sink, fill my mug for tea, look up and my heart skips a beat.

Peeping over the gray horizon, behind the scratchy black outline of winter trees, the sun is beginning to charge up the sky.  Fiery, orangey, peachy, red, bubbling, shifting, sizzling.  I stop and watch because I know it will change in minutes, maybe seconds.  It keeps me anchored at the sink, cup in hand, watching, waiting.  It keeps me present.  It wakes me up.  This is what I need.  To be anchored in the present and wide awake to let all the creative processes that go on beneath the surface come up and be recognized.  To be inspired to come to the page and write it down because in the writing it becomes so.

Stop and think for a moment.  Put yourself on alert.  What makes you stop, puts a catch in your breath, makes your heart skip a beat? The more we stay open and awake for this experience, the more we find it.

Its like that in the creative process, too.  The way we think and look at life.  And, the more we accept this shift in thinking and open up to this process, the more room we make for discovery and joy.

Let Aha-Phrodite be your companion for today.  Put your radar on and antennae up!  Be on the lookout for what is happening both on the inside and the outside.  Be surprised or in wonder.  Create the state of mind that serves you best.

Are you in the Morristown area Monday morning, April 2nd?  We’ll be dipping into our creativity and painting in words as we write together.  Call (973-978-5282) or email me if you think you can join us.  We’d love to have you!

He had referenced my comment “Stop, look, listen” and I realized how that had taken on new meaning the other morning sitting in Hurricane Irene generated traffic, crawling along at 10 mph.  I asked myself “how can my creative power help to make this trip a little better?”

Now I was paying attention.  I was fully in the car; not miles ahead where I was late for work; not somewhere behind where I might have chosen a different route.  I was fully engaged in the present.  I started noticing the sun coming through the windows and warming my shoulder.  I marveled at the trees that had made it through the storm and stood so beautiful and strong along the road.  I expressed gratitude for the power in my home and sent compassion and prayers to those without electricity.  I noticed that listening to news radio had absolutely no uplifting quality for me and switched to classical.

I caught the phrase “singing violin” from the radio announcer.  It grabbed my fancy.  The idea of a violin or any instrument having an individual voice delighted me.  I started playing with the idea.   I love words so what better pastime for me than to play with them.  Violin strings like a marionette; puppet strings.  What could the violin do to me?  What if I were the violin?  I might be pulling the strings, screaking across the sky in warning, a Valkyrie, passing overhead to select those that would come back to Valhalla with me.

Could I be plaintive and sweet with my little finger curled around the strings of your heart?

Could I run a cord from me to an amp putting bluegrass under your feet and mountain air swirling around your head, getting your blood tapping in your veins?

What would I do with these words and phrases?  It really doesn’t matter.  They are scraps, like fabric, that will find a place in the patchwork of my writing some day.  I collect them and tuck them away.  I don’t worry where they will find their usefulness.  I enjoy the process, without being attached to the outcome.

My creative power gave me the opportunity to choose how I would feel during this difficult commute, rather than being subject to my automatic response of irritation.  I got to choose how I felt. And it was fun!  Okay, Joel, how about you?  Any recent experience that called for your creative powers?

While your head’s down, gnawing on the bone that is yesterday, what are you missing?   Straining to see the distant sign posts that are tomorrow?  What are you missing?

“First it’s the whisper; then it’s the tap on the shoulder.  Do I have to wait for the 2 x 4?”  This is what someone said to me this week after a tragic accident in our family.   Often, these troubles are the 2 x 4s, drawing us up to the moment, getting our attention and allowing us to ask, what is the lesson, the message?  And then we need to give the reins over to our creative spirit and listen.

Everything else pales when faced with serious, life threatening injuries.  You know this too, right?  We all know these things to be true but sometimes we have difficulty internalizing them, stitching them     into our DNA.  It takes quite a leap of faith.  It requires putting down the bone, picking up your head and listening.

For instance, let’s take a look at that chunk of wood.  There might be a message on it, something like:  Stop, Look, and Listen.   It might say that your life is out of alignment with what your heart wants to create.

More questions, more answers…what next?

Often, the answers that arise are things we don’t want to hear.  They dredge up feelings of resistance and fear.

What if you could re-create that scenario?  Here’s an exercise that Coach Joel Remde (more on him next week) did with me when I was feeling a lot of resistance to something I needed to do.  Using his visioning lab technique he led me through a series of questions.

Think about the situation I was considering.  What did it bring up?  What emotions, thoughts; what was my physical reaction?

How would I rather feel and think?  What would I rather see and experience?

How could I reframe my thinking around the situation into something that would serve me better?

Using this process enabled me to go into the situation with a different mindset and to create the circumstances I desired.  It brought me front and center, kept me in the moment and allowed my words and actions to be in alignment with what I wanted to manifest.  It helped me trust that everything and everyone I needed would be coming to me at the exact right moment.

To me, that is the essence of everyday creativity.  That is the essence and power of the creative spirit that is in each and every one of us.  Try it. Trust me, it works.

photo courtesy of tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching we prescribe a tool called a Credit Report.  No, not the Experian or Trans-union type, but rather a report or list you create that can shift your focus to what you are getting done; to the things for which you can give yourself credit.

Stop and think for a moment.  What are some of the things that you are doing that are meaningful even if they are “off list”?  What are you glad you did?  What is working in your life?  It can be something as small as taking the time to do something nurturing for you, such as taking a yoga class or a bubble bath or not eating the cookie in the office lunch room.  It could be the time spent catching fireflies with your child.  Probably not on your list, but what else did you get from that time other than a jar of bugs?  How about when you stopped to really talk to your neighbor instead of the drive-by hello?  Add it to your credit report.

There are certainly work, family and home related tasks on your list.  If you can’t check them all off can you acknowledge where you’ve started?  Add that to your credit report.

And then there are the things that stay on your mental list – the wishes and dreams that don’t always make it to the day planner.  What is a tiny, tiny step you could take toward those?  Do that small step and then add it to your credit report.  No matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, add it to your credit report.

Why do a credit report?  To heighten your awareness to all you do that is working; to shift your attention to the positive; to operate from a feeling of abundance rather than lack.  To feel good!

Making a credit report is just one powerful tool that helps unleash your natural creative spirit.  What can you add to your credit report?

Someone recently mentioned this to me.  I’m not sure I heard that before.  But I had been mulling over how I would describe everyday creativity; thinking about a succinct way to illuminate my view on this.  Because I really do think this is an area that could use some illumination.

Everyday creativity.  We need more of it and yet think we don’t have it.  We ache for it and yet box it away.  We teach and discipline it out of our children.  We preach it out of our churchgoers.   We think it has only to do with “art” and brush it off with an “I don’t paint, write, sing, dance, play the clarinet…”

Art is certainly a manifestation of creativity.  But, creativity is not only manifested in art.  You probably know all this.  You believe it to be true.  But how deep does that belief go?

Native Americans have no word for art or artist.

As I thought about this statement I realized that it contained everything I wanted to say.  For the early Native Americans the world was their canvas and life was their brush.  They were intuitive, mindful, respectful of nature, practical and spiritual.  Their “art” was utilitarian, innovative and made use of what was in their world.  These are all traits of highly creative people and yet they had no need of a word for art or artist.

Creativity was not meted out to a select few.  It is your birthright, a part of your deepest self.  It is in everyone at every stage of life.  It is part of the air we breathe.  It is the lens through which we view the world.  It is our unique way of approaching life.   It’s not necessarily a “skill” but rather a state of mind.

But sometimes it needs to be unearthed, dusted off, held up to the light.  It’s time.  Do you know where your creativity is?

Or you see a simple gadget or innovation and marvel at the person who came up with it.  The “As Seen on TV” ads might make you chuckle but someone was using his or her noggin for that thingamajig.

Oh, if only you were that creative.

Psst…news flash!  You are!!

We all have the same gray matter.  We all have ideas.  In fact, we have ideas all day long.  They could be thoughts about a wonderful story or piece of art or how best to resolve that nagging problem in the office.  It could be a clever way to get away on an inexpensive vacation or a brilliant way to get the kids to do their chores.  But, often, we let the idea evaporate as the next one sails in.  We think they’re silly.  We’re not sure how to develop them.  We’re afraid people will think we’re crazy.

Consider this:  What if you didn’t dismiss your “crazy ideas”?  What if you held them softly and let them explain themselves to you.  What if you put them in your pocket and when you emptied it out at night you could think about it again, perhaps ask them a few questions.  Your brain loves questions and will ruminate on your idea while you move on to other things, like sleep.  And then, in the morning, when you saw that idea next to your watch on your night stand, it would all come back to you along with more ideas.  With all this thinking going on coincidences start to occur.  Things you see, hear, read would start to tie in to these ideas.  You could just watch the ideas unfold; watch form emerge from the haze of your imagination.

This is not wizardry; this is how the creative process can work…for everyone on everything.  You are a creative soul.  What’s in your imagination?

If we would stop and think about it we would realize that our lives are a continuum of creativity, one long creative process.  Whether we are aware of it or not; whether we allow the process to happen or try to control everything; whether we stay on auto-pilot or consciously steer the ship…something is being created!

I have my own business, am involved in another and just started a part-time job.  Waves of worry were starting to lap at my consciousness.  But then, as the waves broke and the tiny bubbles at the edge dissipated and the word surrender drifted up to greet me.  I reminded myself that I have all the time I need.  Every time a wave breaks and a bubble dissolves I repeat that affirmation:  I have all the time I need.  And I remind myself to surrender.

To me surrender does not mean sitting back and giving myself over to whatever may come.  I’m not a fatalist.  I am, however, a believer in the creative process and in the fact that creativity can be and is part of our every day experience.   From the world of Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching I call on the muses Aha-Phrodite and Spills.  Aha-Phrodite, the muse of paying attention and possibilities reminds me to be present and mindful; she tells me that opportunities abound. Spills is the muse of practice, process and imperfection.  She tells me to enjoy the journey, that there’s joy in them thar creative hills.  Don’t get so hung up on controlling everything, she says.  If you zig instead of zag…who knows where that might lead you?

I have all the time I need.  Surrender.

And, as often happens, while the word “surrender” floats around my head it begins to manifest in other places, at other times.  My yoga teacher tells us that “surrender” is her theme for the week.  Surrender in savasana; surrender in our stretch; relax into the pose.  I drive along the road and notice the daylilies along the edge.  The word “surrender” comes to mind.  The flowers push up, open for just a day.  They thrive and multiply in difficult surroundings.  They don’t wait for the best day or stay dormant because they have been planted on the side of a busy road.  They surrender to their natural process, their act of creation.  And they are beautiful.

Things change, we adjust.  If we pay attention we have the ability to create our lives, maybe reinvent ourselves.  If we surrender we might flourish and be as hardy and beautiful as that daylily.

You have all the time you need.  Surrender.

www.devostdesign.com

I had lunch yesterday with my lovely writing buddy, Marilyn.  You know how a conversation can move along like the lazy river ride in a water park?  That’s how it went through lunch, the walk back to the car, the sometimes gasp-inducing ride back to her house (I never knew I could be such a thrilling driver!)  We wrote for a half hour and then read what we had written. 

I didn’t plan to continue the previous trains of thought in my writing but I’ve learned, in writing at least, to let the pen take control.  My garden often seems to become a metaphor for what’s going on in my head.  Yesterday was no exception.  The craving for perfection and control vs. letting go and letting things be smaller or crappier; letting them feel lighter on my soul. 

The synchronicity?  Today’s headline in the Ledger’s Home and Garden section:  Cultivate Perfection! 

Perfectionism, while admittedly helpful in some situations, can be paralyzing in others.  “Let me get this particular thing right so that one thing in this life that I’m trying so hard to control can be perfect.”  This thinking lends itself so well to procrastination and so many other hurdles we set up for ourselves.  Awareness can be the first course of treatment in the prescription that leads to letting go.  So, I ask myself the small question:  what small thing could I forgo in the garden that would let me spend more time at what I’m avoiding?  Well, maybe not so small a question.  But you get the point.  I’ll see what I can do to break the question down a little more.

What comes up for you when you think of letting go?  What small thing can you do today to get closer to that goal?