Pleasure

In my newsletter that I sent the other day, I wrote about pleasure. You can read about it here.

Pleasure is an interesting word in that there seems to be so much cultural judgment against the word, and against women experiencing pleasure. But pleasure is simply ‘a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment’.

As I wrote about pleasure (in a different vein), I also realized how so often when I am creating I am in a state of pleasure – especially when I am dancing – and how often I am in a state of the opposite of pleasure – contraction, pressing hard, tightness – especially when writing the book I’ve been working on.

When I dance, it isn’t for anyone else. There is no finished product. There is simply the experience of dancing for no particular outcome at all – yet the outcome that comes by and of itself is always one of pleasure – a very simple joy.

Joy is one of the qualities of creativity!

 

Reframing Perfection

I know enough about creativity to know that there is always some sort of creative tension at the very heart of the process. The tension comes from the process itself, because we don’t know and we realize we don’t know and this is uncomfortable. In the process, we have to let go of how things are, and we have to let go of the way we think things are supposed to turn out, so the seed of expression can germinate and grow into what the seed is intended to be.

When I am creating ‘something’, I more often experience this contraction. Suddenly, I want to have a say in how it turns out.

But, everything comes from a seed, even if it is only (what seems like) a simple seed – a simple idea. At the heart of the seed IS the creation. Our job as creators is to give way to this seed, to allow it to germinate and grow without too much interference.

The way I usually interfere is through my incessant need for a quasi-perfection, an ‘almost-perfection’ that never gets where I want it to get.

Consider all the ways you try to make yourself be something you are not; consider how much effort this takes; and, consider that no matter how much of this effort you keep applying, you never get to the state of perceived perfection you’ve created in your mind. It always stays a quasi-perfection of what you think you are trying to achieve. But, if in reality, perfection is simply something being as it is, all of this work toward perfection only takes you (me, us) away from perfection because there is no allowing, there is no surrender, there is no letting go so what is there can be known.

Perfection is simply the seed growing into what it is meant to be.

Perfection in creativity is the process of midwifing this seed into being.

 

This reminds me of the Lotus flower, pictured above. The Lotus flower grows out of what seems to be such ordinary looking leaves and roots and water, yet the Lotus itself is luminescent and other-worldly. This is the real you. You are the Lotus flower, and so are your creations.

Knowing this, how does that change your own creative process? How does this change how you see yourself in relationship to the creations that are trying to come through you?  How does this change how you see you?

 

Perfection and pleasure, together!

How much more pleasure-filled might your creative experiences be if you were to create from this different mindset of perfection?

Perfection already is. When we know this, the creative process, whatever it is we are creating, is a process of allowing and unveiling. It is a process of co-creation with you and the life that is expressing through you. In this process, both you and the creation are changed. (And, yes, it is you and you.) All you. All life.

In my course, Becoming a Force on Nature, one of the last modules in the twelve is ‘Be Ordinary‘. It is exactly this sense of perfection, that when you are simply you, ordinary, the extraordinary can finally shine through.

Again, the Lotus is an expression of what happens when we are ordinary. When you are ordinary, there is no striving, pressing, or stressing to be something you are not, and it is ONLY in this state of ordinariness that your truly extraordinary perfection (that you cannot make happen!) can shine through.

It doesn’t come through because of anything you have done, it comes through by simply allowing yourself to grow out of the muck and mud of everything in your life that is seemingly contradictory to either your perfection or your pleasure. Yet is is not…

It is the muck and mud of life that is the seed bed
for your beauty and creative capacity.

 

Oh, and in the course we also cover Sexuality and Voice, and how closely creativity, sexuality and voice are related. We dive directly into Pleasure.

 

Experience the Course for Free!

If you are interested in finding out, I’m offering my course, Becoming a Force of Nature, over these summer months, running from June 2nd through September 3rd, 2014.

You can find out more about the course, here, including the recording of the information call I held. 

Our first call is on June 4th, with the first module being released on the 2nd, to give you time to go over the material.

The first module and call (June 4th) are open to EVERYONE!

I’d love for you to sign-up here to receive the module so you can take a look at the material.

It is powerful material and it will give you many insights into how:

1. creativity is not just about art
2. YOU ARE creative
3. the more you trust in your nature as a creative being and as a woman, the more it (and you!) will flow.

and so much more.

 

We all want autonomy and sovereignty – and so do our creations.

 

 The Lotus photo is by Liza Fox (c), an accomplished photographer and my niece!