Waste Not, Want Not, Create Not!

I knew a lot of proverbs when I was a kid. I probably learned them from hearing my parents and grandparents say things like "Beggars can’t be choosers" and "Let sleeping dogs lie." I was also a precocious reader. I suppose I even learned some from watching Fractured Fairy Tales on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

Most of them made sense, but I had questions about some of them. For example, when they said "A stitch in time saves nine," I wondered "Nine what?" When I realized it was nine stitches that were saved, I got it—the sooner you take care of a problem, the easier it is to mend it. And why nine? Cause nine rhymes (sorta) with time, and things that rhyme are easier to remember.

But there was one that really confused me: "Waste not, want not." I thought it meant don’t waste what you don’t want. But why bother saving something if you didn’t want it in the first place? Only later did I realize that there was a different meaning to the word ‘want,’ and that what the proverb was saying was that if you were thrifty and didn’t waste things, you wouldn’t be wanting, as in lacking, for them later. That does make a certain amount of sense, especially for those who are struggling to eke out a subsistence living, which most of my ancestors did.

Despite the fact that it’ll make my great-great-grandparents roll in their graves, I’m going to openly defy the proverb and come out in support of waste. Not the kind of waste that we Americans are already over-producing as a country that consumes, per capita, 10 to 20 times the resources and produces 10 to 20 times the garbage as the rest of the world. That kind of use-it-up, throw-it-away, we-can-always-get-more mentality really does need to change.

The kind of waste I’m in favor of is wasting time, energy and money so that we can be really creative. We have to be willing to create just for the sake of creating without concern about the outcome. We need to play around, goof off, make a mess, just for the sake of being in the process. And that often feels like a waste of time or materials.

Sometimes we tell ourselves we don’t have time to be creative, which is just a way to disguise our assumption that it would be a waste of time compared to the other things we’re doing. Everyone gets 24 hours a day. We make time for what’s most important to us. The same is true for energy and money.

Just playing around, using materials for no particular reason (i.e. wasting time and money) is counter to the Puritan work ethic that still runs through the American collective psyche. It is counter to our ego demands for money, security, recognition, status. But your ego is not all that you are and the larger part of you — your spirit, your True Self — yearns for creative expression. This conflict between the ego’s demands and the spirit’s deeper desire is the origin of creative block. The only way to move through the block is to occasionally surrender the ego’s demands, which the ego will immediately condemn as a "waste of time." (See Chapter 2 of Dancing in the Dragon’s Den for more details on this.)

Beneath the belief that spending time and money on our creativity will be a waste is the fear that we won’t get the results we want. If only we had some guarantee that something worthwhile would come of the time, energy and money invested, maybe we’d be willing to risk it!

Even those of us who see ourselves as pretty creative sometimes resist the notion of wasting time or materials on projects we’re not sure will pan out. We get so attached to the idea of being productive, we forget that the creative process requires "non-productive" time.

We have to be willing to explore without any guarantees that we’ll discover something "worthwhile" as the ego defines worthwhile, that is, produce great art, become famous, make money.

We need to give ourselves permission to play with our creativity. Your spirit needs time for creative play and creative process everyday without any expectation that you’ll get something out of it.

The paradox, of course, is that if you consistently show up for creative process, ultimately you do get tremendous rewards and realize the time wasn’t wasted at all. But you can’t get there without being willing to "waste" time, energy and materials first.

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Basic Creativity Training

Increase your creative ability and enjoyment by "wasting time" with these three basic practices.

Process Time. Do something fun that puts you in the creative flow. Do it with no expectations about the outcome. I recommend 15 to 30 minutes a day for 5 to 7 days a week. Some things you could do for process time are: journaling or morning pages, coloring, drawing or painting, playing with clay, making or listening to music, dancing, daydreaming, or any other kind of creative play.

Self Care. Make time to take care of your body and pamper yourself. A healthy, strong body and a relaxed, flexible mind are necessary for creative expression. Walk, take a nap, get a massage, meditate, luxuriate in whatever means self-care to you. I suggest at least a half hour a day.

Product Time. Even though this is the time you spend creating a tangible product, it’s important to evaluate your accomplishment only by whether you put your time in, not by how "good" the outcome is. Doing research, gathering materials, incubating and figuring out how it all fits together are just as significant as the production of tangible results.

Schedule it. These basic practices are all more likely to happen when you schedule them in your datebook or planner. Give your appointments with yourself the same respect you give your dentist, employer or friends.

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Liminal Space: The Only Frontier

There is a common, yet mistaken, belief that creativity is all about flashes of insight followed by sure and confident applications of the inspiration. But more often than not, creativity requires the willingness to step into uncertainty. "I’m not sure this will work, but let’s try..." and "Well that wasn’t what I expected, how about this..." are far more frequent mottos than "Eureka!"

Certainty may be comfortable, but it’s boring. And deadly to creativity. If you know, you never pause to consider a different perspective, to ask open ended questions, seek innovative ways to do things. If necessity is the mother of invention, then uncertainty is its father.

In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra writes, "In the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning... Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just the stale repetition of outworn memories. You become the victim of the past, and your tormentor today is your self left over from yesterday... Uncertainty, on the other hand, is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom."

Consider a creative activity you’ve done recently–planning and planting a garden, making a craft project, writing a poem or a letter. Recall the moments of uncertainty as clearly as you can. How did you feel when you didn’t know exactly how to begin? What moved you through the inertia of not knowing what to do next? Where did you find the willingness to step into the unknown and welcome that uncertainty as the place where creativity is born?

Keep those recollections handy.

In the course of the creative journey of a life well-lived, there will be times when the moments of uncertainty stretch into weeks and months. We have all felt lost at times, betwixt and between, neither here nor there. When some old, familiar pattern or belief just doesn’t fit anymore, but you don’t know what new pattern or belief will replace it. You don’t know exactly what to do, you just know something has changed, that somehow you don’t fit into your own life anymore.

To live fully, you have to be willing to make the leap of faith when the gap opens beneath you. You go along comfortably in your job and family, enjoying the status quo, and then your company needs to downsize or you realize how bored you are in your career. Maybe your babies grow up and move away, or you realize you and your spouse aren’t connecting the way you used to, or your parent needs your attention and support. These major life changes propel you into what anthropologists call "liminal space."

Liminal space is the in between place. It means ‘moving through the doorway,’ neither inside nor out. It’s the only frontier because to get anywhere new, you have to step through the liminal space of no longer in the old place, but not yet in the new place.

All cultures have special regard for people who are in transition – rites of passage for moving from child to adult, from unmarried to married, from living to honored dead. The community treats people in these kinds of transitions with special regard to celebrate the growth of the individual, but also to protect all members of the community. Because when someone is in liminal space, no longer child, but not yet adult for example, she or he is vulnerable and a little dangerous. Not-yet-adults are no longer protected by the taboos against harming children, but they are not ready for the full responsibilities of being an adult. For example, all adolescents are physically ready for sexual experiences, but most are not emotionally and psychologically prepared. Adolescents are often very attractive to adults, and dangerously so – if you doubt that, you haven’t seen American Beauty.

During your challenging transitions, it helps to remember that you’ve traveled through liminal space on a smaller scale every time you’ve moved through the creative cycle. To be creative, you have to check your ego at the door and be willing to be surprised. You step into liminal space. You don’t know exactly how or what you’ll create, but you’re willing to find out.

The best thing about liminal space is that because it’s neither here nor there, it can take you anywhere. It’s like entering a transporter in a science fiction movie. You could end up anywhere. Liminal space opens possibilities. Scary possibilities, yes, but marvelous, expansive, dream-fulfilling possibilities as well.

The more practice you get in taking the shorter leaps, the better prepared you are when the major gaps open beneath your feet. In other words, expressing your creativity on a regular basis prepares you to live your entire life with courage and grace.

Stepping into liminal space can change your life. Sometimes you can influence where liminal space will take you. Sometimes you can’t. That’s what it means to check your ego at the door and be willing to be surprised.

It’s a risk. It’s your life. Take it!

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The Power of the Question

I once thought that the most powerful statement was the declarative sentence — "Go here." "Do this." "Be this kind of person."But what I’ve realized through coaching, both being a coach and being coached, is that the most powerful statement is the question. "Where do you want to go?" "What do you think you’re meant to do?" "Who do you want to be?"Declarations assume the "dominator, power over" paradigm, while questions invite us to share power with each other.Declarations assume the speaker knows something the listener does not. And while that is sometimes true, the enduring Truth is that all of us have our own answers. We all have our inner guide, our intuition, our guardian angel, call it what you will, we all have something that knows everything that really matters. Declarations deal with facts; questions open us to wisdom. Declarations assume the speaker knows more than the listener. Questions assume the speaker and listener are both wise, powerful and loving. Questions trust that the listener has answers and the speaker only offers the gift of focus. Questions help us pay attention to what is important.

My wish for you for the coming year is that you have people in your life who will call your attention to the deep questions. I trust you already have the answers.

Powerful Questions for the New Year

• What old beliefs are blocking your power and creativity?What habits and attitudes do you give your attention to that no longer fit who you are or who you want to be?What does your heart yearn for? What small step can you take today to move toward your dream?Who are your allies? How can they best support you? Where are you stagnating? Where are you stuck?What do you want the coming year to feel like, look like, taste and smell like?What’s the best thing you did for yourself last year?What’s the best thing you want to do for yourself in the coming year?How do you want to be remembered?
• If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?

Step Beyond Limits Into Creativity

I once thought that the hardest thing I’d ever do was to write a book proposal and that once I did that, everything else would be easy. But when I finished the proposal, I realized the hardest thing I’d ever do was to find a publisher. Of course, once I signed a contract with a publisher, I knew right away that the real challenge was going to be writing the rest of the book by the deadline. After I finished the book, the publisher decided not to publish my book after all, so the challenge was to find another publisher and keep my faith alive. You’d think that by now I’d realize that the latest development–having my book published and scheduled to be on bookstore shelves in a month or two–is just another beginning. But I didn’t. In fact, I’m surprised at how much there is to do to celebrate and promote the book. And as it often happens, completing one cycle of the creative process has initiated a whole new creative project. I’m producing and distributing a CD of the guided imageries from Dancing in the Dragon’s Den and it’s an amazing challenge.The universal truth at work here is that the greatest creative challenge in your life will always be followed by another, even bigger challenge. It takes many arrivals and departures to realize that there is no final destination. Even when you think you’ve arrived, sooner or later you realize it’s just another rest stop on a lifelong journey.To step up to the challenge of expressing your creativity, you have to step beyond your current definition of who you are and what you can do. You step beyond your comfort zone. You squirm a bit, getting used to an expanded sense of who you can be, and just when you get comfortable again, there is another challenge beckoning you to step beyond again.

The Land Beyond

By Robert ServiceHave ever you stood where the silences brood,
And vast the horizons begin,
At the dawn of the day to behold far away,
The goal you would strive for and win?
Yet Ah - in the night, when you gain to the height,
With the vast pools of heaven star-spawned,
Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
Still mocks you, the Land of Beyond!Thank God! There will always be a Land of Beyond,
For we who are true to the trail,
A beckoning peak, a vision to seek,
A farness that never will fail.
A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal,
A manhood [sic] that irks at a bond,
And try how we will, unobtainable still,
Behold it, Our Land of Beyond!
 

Are You Safe?

In an e-mail file passed on to me, a woman wrote about how sad she was about the war in Kosovo, but didn’t know what she could do. Then the shooting at Columbine High School brought it to her own backyard. She realized violence could happen to anyone, anywhere. No one is safe. But she urges us to focus not on fear but on the power of love and asks us to send love and healing to those who suffer in Kosovo and Colorado.I want to take this a step farther. On one level, it is absolutely true that none of us is ever safe. But on the spiritual level, it is absolutely impossible to be a victim. Consider this: one of the gunmen asked a young woman in the Columbine school library if she believed in God. Knowing that her answer could cost her life, she said "Yes." The gunman killed her. The common perception is to see her and her family as victims. But I think that young woman’s faith lifted her above victimhood.On the level of spirit, we all choose our journey. Every person in our lives is there for a reason. Everything that happens fits the Divine Design. From the perspective of human justice, we can’t make sense of it. All we can do is trust that from the perspective of Divine justice, it makes absolute sense. From this perspective, the question of safety is irrelevant. Ships are safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for. You’re not here to be safe. You’re not a human being struggling to have a spiritual experience; you’re a spiritual being unfolding a human experience precisely as planned, exactly the way you agreed to.Furthermore, we are never safe because we carry violence within. Sending love to Kosovo and Littleton is valuable, but it’s not enough. As long as we see victims and perpetrators, we see "the other." We think "Thank God it didn’t happen to me and thank God I’m not that horrible." But seeing "other" only perpetuates violence. The only thing we can do to transform what’s happening in Kosovo is to recognize, not how it’s happening in our own backyard, but how it is happening in ourselves. We have to recognize our own little corner on violence and transform that.As I wrote in Dancing in the Dragon’s Den: Violence isn’t limited to physical abuse; it is often present in the way we speak to each other and the way we treat each other. Every time we curse another driver in rush hour traffic, every time we gossip or complain about a family member or a friend, all the while we hold grudges and act superior, we are perpetuating verbal, emotional, and spiritual violence. We commit murder in our hearts.

Keep sending loving energy and healing prayers to Kosovo and Colorado. And keep recognizing and healing the shadow in your own heart. The world needs each of us to do our part.

Practicing Open Heart Creativity

In case you’ve forgotten or you didn’t get the last newsletter, let me reassure you: You have a creative purpose. Whether you express it through what is usually called "art" or through living an artful and heartful life, you have a reason for being on the planet. Let me also challenge you with this observation: We experience a satisfying sense of wholeness when, and only when, we find ways to put our creative purpose into regular practice. If you don’t have some way to practice your creativity for at least a half hour a day, you’ll feel unsettled, uneasy, incomplete.I once thought (naively) that if I could make a living as a writer and creativity coach, I’d have it made. I’m doing that now but I don’t "have it made." Instead I’ve learned that I need to keep practicing and stretching to find new ways to play with the practice. Of course, it’s ego that wants to find a way to "have it made." Ego wants to do creativity the way we did required courses in school: "I did Morning Pages 101 for a semester, so I can check that off and move on." But it doesn’t work that way. Ego is interested in "getting somewhere." But the whole point of creativity is the journey, not the destination. Creativity doesn’t come from your ego; it expresses your Higher Self. The primary function of your ego is to keep you alive. The purpose of your Higher Self is to make your life meaningful. When disappointments come along, as they inevitably will, the ego wants to pull back and stop this creativity nonsense. Ego says things like "I tried and look&#;Disappointment is a part of life—not a sign we should give up. When we dare to dream, we have to trust that the Creator is not

Then synchronicity brought me a special song that lifted my spirit. I realized that my ego wants the book published for one set of reasons and my Higher Self has a whole other purpose. I remembered that I didn’t write the book by myself, that it came through me, not from me. The Creator collaborated with me to write the book, so I trust the Creator will collaborate with me to see it published and shared with the people who are waiting for it. My trust in the Divine orchestration for Dancing in the Dragons Den has returned. I don't know who will publish it or when, but I do know it will be published. It was a struggle, but I am keeping my heart open.This experience taught me that part of my purpose is to keep my heart open, especially when I'm hurt or disappointed. I cannot practice my creativity with a closed heart. And I cannot feel satisfied and whole without putting my creative purpose into practice. There may even be the kernel of another book in this awareness of creating with an open heart. A bonus gift. The universe doesn't close a door without opening a window-and the window often has a better view.Keep your heart open to your creative purpose. Keep your mind open to new ways to express your purpose. Keep your hands open to receive the gifts of putting your purpose into practice. And keep me posted about what happens for you.
 

Dare To Dream

Dreaming is Essential to the Human Spirit

A sleep study conducted about twenty years ago proved we need our dreams. Undergraduate students (the human lab rats at research universities) were allowed to sleep all they wanted, but whenever they entered REM sleep, where dreaming occurs, they were awakened. Researchers expected some adverse reactions to this dream deprivation, but the intensity of the subjects’ reactions surprised them. In fact, the study had to be cut short because many students began to show serious signs of psychosis.

Studies also indicate that there is a connection between the dreaming we do during the day and the dreaming we do at night. People who often daydream, work with images or used guided imagery seem to need fewer and less vivid dreams when they sleep.

The body requires sleep—the mind, the psyche, the spirit require dreams, both night and day dreams.

A song in South Pacific reminds us, "You got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you going to have a dream come true?" The bigger our dreams, the more satisfying our lives can be.

Yet, many of us resist dreaming big life dreams. We’ve been disappointed before when dreams didn’t come to fruition. We resist pursuing our dreams because we don’t want to be hurt again.<

Now, I’ve always been a dreamer, a visionary. I’ve always encouraged others to dream, too. But last fall, I struggled with disappointment and, though I hate to admit it, with jealousy.

What do we do when, despite all the visualizations, despite all the affirmations, even despite the work invested in the dream, disillusionment stares back at us? When the sweet taste of hope turns to bitter ashes in the mouth?<

I’ll tell what this dreamer did. I went into a funk. I tortured myself with "What if’s"—"What if I never publish this book? What if I never publish any book? What if I’m just fooling myself?"

I spiraled down into a shadow place. Although shadow experiences always bring a gift, my ego yelped resistance all the way. I forgot the wise saying that pain is necessary, suffering is optional—it’s what we experience when we resist our pain. After I had wallowed in my misery for awhile, I received this lesson: Disillusionment is a gift.

Being stripped of our illusions is painful, but it is a gift. It’s a sign that we have inappropriately placed our faith in fantasies. Because fantasies distract us from taking the action we need to take to fulfill our dreams, those illusions have to go. We have to learn to hold on to the essence of the dream at the same time we surrender the inflated fantasies that tend to cluster around it.

Trust is a Must

No matter what, I have to hold on to my dream of teaching and writing. The ache in my soul when I thought about letting go of that dream is a sign from my Creator that that is my purpose. But the fantasies—that I’ll find a publisher without effort or rejection, that publishing this book will be easy and bring immediate success and recognition—have to go. Funny thing is, when I let go of the fantasies, opportunities for the dream opened up again.

Disappointment is a part of life—not a sign we should give up. When we dare to dream, we have to trust that the Creator is not capricious, that we are given our dreams for a Divine Purpose. We have to trust that the outcomes can be safely left in the Creator’s hands. We have to trust that our dreams will come to fruition, not necessarily to fit our fantasies or our timetable, but rather in accordance with the Creator’s vision and in the Creator’s time.

Discerning between fantasy and dream is difficult. Daring to dream after experiencing disappointment takes courage. But it is what makes life worth living. As Maureen O’Hara says just before the dream-come-true ending of Miracle on 34th Street, "Just because things don’t work out the way you want the first time, you still have to believe."

Believe in your dreams—you need them.