The chaos of creating is exhilarating, maddening, fun, really hard work, and enlivening. We’re in the middle of creating this site: Restore Process. It’s far enough along now, that I am excited about launching it so the world can see, and terrified about how it will be received. I am so lucky to be collaborating with my friend Nisha who is making it look wonderful and creating it out of the ethers.
Part of the launch of this new process is the development of an e-course called Create Your Life A Treasure Map to Wellbeing.. As I write the course, I have my resource books, my files, spread out through 3 rooms and I’m in a 4th room - the office-- writing on my computer. All that changes in 5 days when I pack everything up and go back home. I am in a fabulous home surrounded by beauty, farmland, starry skies, and a mountain view. When I need a break, I get up, walk outside, and walk down the lane between two hay fields, and let the peacefulness of the country soak into my bones.
The e-course is demanding every bit of my energy and attention, and I have often had fears that I could not live up to its expectations. I have had so many bad days on this journey (plenty of good ones too). And then along comes some inspiration which I ride with wild abandon until I get tired. Then I keep on writing until I can find a stopping point. In this course there are 8 modules. Two days ago I got up with the intention of writing a specific module on Caring. I wrote it. It was a long powerful day. I wept a number of times as I re-experienced several incidents. Then I finally gave myself time to stop and rest.
Nisha had an idea for a regular movie night. I loved that idea! I selected the movie, went out to the web to get some information that she could use to create the first movie night page. And somehow, Amazon offered up a book to me to consider reading. The title caught my eye, and I was already in love with the author so I picked it up from the library, and my reward for writing the Caring module was to begin reading Big Magic; Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I began vibrating with excitement as I read. “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them,” she wrote. She believes as I do, that we all have “buried treasure” and our adventure and fun is the art of discovering these gems. When we do, our existence is transformed from the mundane to that of enchantment.
She writes later. “I can guarantee you this: A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself. Because creative living is where the Big Magic will always abide.” Elizabeth Gilbert is talking about the creative process, and allowing your own creativity to flow. I’m writing about Creating Your Life, holding a vision, and charting your course toward your greatest dreams.
Before I started writing that Wednesday, I was wrestling yet still as I had for months with what to call the course. As I wrote from that inspired space, out flowed a sentence onto the page that said, “creating a treasure map for your life.” I saw that sentence and burst into tears. And now, a few hours later I was reading Gilbert’s book about discovering hidden gems inside by living the creative life. It was an answer I had asked for. All of this is an example of flow and creativity, and synchronicity.
All creative living says Gilbert hinges on the question “Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” The hunt is what creative living is she says. That is where the Big Magic occurs. She had me. I was already a fan, now I was exhilarated. Because while she is talking about the creative life as that life you have when trying to “make something,” I had been writing about creating your life from the aspect of “composing, or sculpting” a life - an updated version to life and career planning.. The thing you make, the thing you create is your own life, your own experience, your own unique story. You get to get into the driver’s seat of your life, instead of living by default. You get to discover the magnificence of you and move into a life of adventure, empowerment, and flow.