Creativity is a process.
Creativity is a transformative process, a process of where the essential Self unfolds itself, continuously. While you are creating ‘something’, the process of making something is creating you.
In the creative process, you ‘go into’ the unknown. When you step off from the ‘perch of the known’, meaning you let go because you have NO idea HOW you are going to do this thing you must do, you go in and down. You enter the creative void. It’s not empty, it’s actually really, incredibly rich and full. It’s pregnant. We don’t know how deep it is nor how long we will be in it. I’d never thought about the sense of falling into it until I read this:
I know this transformation is painful, but you’re not falling apart. You’re just falling into something different, with a new capacity to be beautiful. ~ William C. Hannan
As we create, we can, and often do, feel pain, discomfort, and fear. We know that this process of unfolding brings transformation. We know it on a deep level, but we do not know who and what we will become. That not knowing is frightening. Yet, in the creative process, each time we descend, we reveal more and more of this true Self. We rescue ourselves out of the abyss of forgetfullness.
I am curious about this new capacity to be beautiful. As I fall deeper and deeper into this unknown place of Self, I am finding life to be more beautiful, even the hard parts. It feels as though, more and more, I sense the beautiful, both within and outside of myself, as well as a sense of walking in beauty.
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The creative process is alive. It is a process, meaning it is life unfolding as you and through you. We are alive, and we exist in a world that is alive.
What we create is alive if we create it from a place of aliveness. Each creation carries a transmission of life if we, ourselves, know our own aliveness.
There is aliveness to our existence as human beings. I’ve known this aliveness. As a child, it was all I knew until I began to replace this experience of feeling alive with mental ideas of being alive. But life wasn’t ever those ideas, really. Ideas of what life is are not the same as life itself. Life has never been what others told me it was, what I’ve told myself it is.
If we are living in our mental ideas of what life is, we don’t feel alive. Instead, the feeling of life divorced from itself is hard, metallic, cold, seemingly almost lifeless, which makes sense. Lifelessness in the midst of life comes when life no longer trusts life, no longer feels safe in its embrace. It is cold and hard, and seemingly brittle, because oxygen is no longer allowed all the way down into the whole of the body, into the limbs and cells.
Life married to itself is rich, fragrant, and giving. It is open-hearted, ‘giving to’ rather than ‘taking from’.
In reality, there is only One life. And, there are infinite life forms. Life knowing life knowing life knowing life. Life could never really divorce itself from itself, but we attempt to do this over and over. We divorce ourselves from others for many reasons, but one of the main ones is the idea that connection to others makes us unsafe.
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When I think of creativity as a process, as an alive and flowing process, I realize that our purpose for being here is just as alive – and just as much of a process. If we think of purpose as a static thing, we are missing the point by trying to put an alive process into a static idea. Everything is alive, and so is our purpose.
Purpose is flow, it’s the unfolding of who we really are, the essential Self. We are living on purpose when we are living the qualities of our essential nature.
Just as it’s about the journey and not only the destination, it’s also about the act of creating and not just the created result. Focusing too much on the end result stifles and constricts creativity, and not only affects the end result but also stifles our capacity to unfold. Having rigid expectations up front, keeps us rigid, not flowing, and constricts our ability to come to know ourselves.
This doesn’t mean you don’t have some kind of intention, but if we hold the intention with spaciousness, and allow for fluidity and change along the way, the process of unfolding is supported by way of creation rather than stifled by it.
Many ‘accepted ways of doing things’ DO stifle and constrict our unfolding. This is how and why the status quo can be so hard to change.
To live purpose, follow the flow of what is alive within you. Pay attention to the experience of being alive. The experience of creating is flow, is life in flow. But it’s not just the creation that is flowing, the creator is, too – YOU, you are flowing. You change, transform, grow – unfold – as you create, as you ‘make’ whatever it is you are offering to this world.
To live purpose, hold both these things: what you are creating and your own unique process of unfolding. Allow them to dance together. Allow life to grow you.
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Writing Raw is now open for registration. We begin in one week, on September 23rd.
More than anything, Writing Raw is a process. It is held in a circle in such a way that the unfolding of who you are is just as, if not more, important than the product you output. I created Writing Raw for just this reason, because we tend to focus on the output rather than on becoming. The process of becoming is hugely important.
Writing Raw is a deep dive into this creative process. By consciously turning to go within, you come directly into this rich and fertile void, then speak aloud what has come through you.
If you’ve longed to feel more alive, to unfold and come to know who you truly are, and to speak what you discover then Writing Raw is for you. Take a look at the registration page and read it through. Even if you decide not to join, I know you will learn a lot simply from reading, and listening to, what I have shared. And, if you know of any women that would benefit from joining Writing Raw, please send it on to them so they can join this circle of creativity and discovery.
I was standing atop the many steps as the sun began to peek through. I recalled what Oriah shared:
