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Hi
Birthing Creative Will
"The truth of
the matter is many of us are not very strong. We are often timid,
fearful and apprehensive - quivering in the shadow of life's pressures,
or cowering before those who abuse us.
Because of our
psychological weakness, we are unable to cope with life's circumstances,
which prevents us from moving forward and finding our true potential.
As a result we become world weary and fatalistic believing we are
helpless victims of an existence that is determined to crush us." Roy
Posner
I did this drawing several years ago and I thought it was about anger
but some of my readers thought this drawing displayed a beautiful
strength of will. I must say I would now agree. This drawing very much
illustrates how I feel these days. It is as though I have a fiery strong
creative will birthing in my being.
The Creativity of the Light and the Dark
I feel very connected and
trusting these days to the creative interplay of dark and light
energies and
the enormity of how we all have everything inside of us. We are all part
of the grand interplay of light and dark. Anything that is left
unaccepted inside will be experienced "out there" in the world.
This
summer I have been reading an excellent book on creativity by Peter
Clothier called Persist.
He writes about "the survival of the creative spirit that rewards only a
lucky few." I am quite lucky in that my "day job" is quite creative.
Yet for
the past few years I have been dealing with an intense workplace bully
who
judged and criticized my work on a regular basis.
In the past I
would
have just quit at the slightest provocation, but my work has felt
meaningful to me on many levels. I work in one of the few
fully equipped and government funded art studios for the elderly in
Canada. My work environment is bright and visually beautiful. As much as
I dislike the rigors of a unionized hospital environment, it is one
of the good places in the world.
When
I first started coming up against the criticism I felt defensive, angry
and
victimized and I could not see myself in the interaction. At first the
criticism all seemed so unfair and wrong. But something else was at
play. There was something infinitely more creative and much deeper to
look at.
I took the time to see how my inner life corresponded to
my outer life. I realized with great surprise at how hard I was on
myself internally. I found that I was easily shamed. I found that I was
highly sensitive to criticism. It devastated me. I found that I bowed
and bended to the winds of opinion and that I cared way too much about
what other people thought of me.
As hard as it was to
face my inner voices, my goal was to heal this pattern of judgment and
criticism within me and without me so I could rightfully move forward in
my life. As I integrated my inner life with my outer life I asked the
same question again and again - "What part do I play in this drama?"
Approaching any situation in life with such creativity and
accountability is always an act of perseverance and dedication.
Persisting with Purpose
Peter
Clothier writes, "Of all the disciplines involved, I think persistence
is the most important and possibly the most difficult. There will
inevitably be many distractions and many disappointments as I work, any
which can weaken my resolve. Persistence is a rejection of distraction
and and excuse that comes along and a return of my attention to the task
at hand. It's a refusal to be deterred from the purpose I have set for
myself. It is a quiet insistence on the pursuit of this particular
goal."
Because I have erred on the side of trying to please
everyone and have spent too much time worrying about what people think
of me, I tend to have run-ins with bullying people in my creative and
working life sometimes. As much as I wish everyone would like me, as a
creative expressive person, I know this is humanly impossible. The more I
become my strong creative self - the more I stand out for my efforts in
the world and the more I become involved with a wide variety of people -
the more I can incur criticism.
I try to get along with everyone
and focus on the light I see in them - but some people are just plain
unkind and unwilling to look at their part in things. I have, in an
over-idealistic way of spiritual seeking tried to see only
the light in everyone and tried to unrealistically ignore the "dark" in
hopes that it would just magically "disappear".
But as Ray Posner
puts it, " The reality is that there are individuals who are ready to
abuse you, and take advantage of your good nature. For example, it
would particularly foolish to be self-giving towards those who harbor
ill will towards you, or secretly hope to tear you down. If you extend
yourself to such undeserved people, you will be surely inviting
trouble."
After much writhing and resisting and railing about
the interplay in my life of dark and light I have come to just meditate
on why people do unkind or cruel things. Mostly it is because they
refuse to look at themselves honestly and they then project their own
unprocessed darkness out onto others. I have also realized that when I
stand up and stand out I have to be willing to take some blows. I have
come to see this a gift of learning how to build psychological strength.
Recently
I have had a dream that indicated I have a part inside of me that just
wants to drop out of my creative life and disappear when the going gets
rough. In my dream I had mouse colored hair! I was very meek and
withdrawn. I had stopped creating and had taken a shy teenage level
babysitting gig. In my dream, I was happy to disappear and not have a
self.
The Urge to Create or Not Create
I realized from the dream that as much as I cultivate my
goals around persisting forward with my strong expressive and creative
self - I also have an equal and opposite urge to not have
an expressive creative self in the world. In my humanness, I get afraid.
I hurt deeply. I lose my motivation. Sometimes I long to dive into the
milky comfort of disappearing - of having no one know who I really am -
so that I will draw no notice or contention from anyone.
Yet my
soul does not want me to have mouse colored hair! As I slept last night I
felt a defining movement in my soul that felt like the deepest level of
persistence. It is hard to describe these movements of the soul except
to say they are utterly involuntary. It felt as though the Larger Life
was acting upon me - and that I could let go of control - because the
movement was benevolent.
The Reconciliation of the Light and Dark Within
I "watched" the movement between the
light and dark of myself all night long. I felt the battle between my
two opposite pulls - the pull of my core creative strength - and the
pull of the weak parts of my personality that just want to give up and
disappear. All night long I felt the pull to give up and disappear and
then an opposite and powerful persistent psychological power would rise
up within my core to continue to strongly express myself. It was a
profoundly curious feeling in my body. I was pulled back and forth
between the two polarities all night long as though on a seesaw.
James
Twyman explains this spiritual back and forth movement so well:
"So
the question we must ask ourselves is:What needs to reconciled? Is it the way we separate ourselves from our shadows? Perhaps it's
how we hide from our light. It's like a teeter totter that moves back
and forth, up and down, until the reordering is complete. But in order
to complete the process, we need to relax into areas of imbalance,
darkness and trauma in our lives. We have to see it as a natural part of
our evolution - an essential step of maturing into a whole new being
where oneness is fully integrated. And to do so we need to reconcile all
those diverging paths and all those seeming difficulties that make us
believe we are not enough, we are not whole, or we are not loved by
God."
Peter Clothier reminded me of a quote from Rumi: "Keep
your eyes on the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you." In
this quote, I can thank the dark and unconscious energies inside of
other people that have pierced me to my core. They have helped me to
heal my own darkness. In my fear of criticism I have been reticent to
play the game of life. I have been afraid to take risks and to express
the "wrong things". I have been afraid to live in my creative magnitude
and to persist in my purpose. As I drove home from work tonight I felt a
sense of reconciliation in my soul. My own internal critical voices
have quieted immeasurably. I felt the quiet roar of my core strength and
a deep willingness to move forward in my life.
Love to you,
Shelley
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