On Tears, Connections, Dreams and Excellent Advice

I type this through tears, but fear not, gentle imaginary reader – they’re tears not of sadness or distress, but of something much bigger and, well, good.

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Pause for sobbing attack

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Okay, I’m back (mostly… still crying, but it’s still good crying).

I just spent 6 days on the other side of the country, where I traveled to teach a workshop for a dozen members of the Society of Scribes. This brief trip stirred so much up inside of me that it will take me weeks to process it fully, but the overarching gift was simply noticing the ways in which I am already living the life I want.

Because it never hurts to repeat goals, and because I’m continually refining them anyway, here they are again:

My two main goals for my big, rich, full creative life

1) To spend the majority of my work time actively creating, and the majority of my overall time (dare I say 95%?) doing things I really enjoy

2) To inspire and motivate others to tap their creative channels and live the lives they really, really want

And guess what? I spent all weekend doing #2. And because #2 actually requires a lot of improvisational creativity on my part, I really spent all weekend doing both.

Hence in this small way, and in this one moment in time, I am already living the life I really, really want!

This is big, and important to recognize.

We spend so much of our time and energy reaching toward our goals. It’s good to take time to notice where we are already living them.

And now I come home, my mind abuzz with new ideas (including some cool new offerings I’ll be working on over the next several months for release on LACL down the road – very exciting!), and because I’m compulsive, I turned on my computer when I got in last night, instead of going straight to bed (which perhaps would have been the wise thing to do – go to bed, that is – given the fact that sleep disruption is likely to trigger a migraine, but that’s an area of self-care I’m still working on).

And in my navigations online I took a peek at my stats and noticed that several readers of this blog (my not entirely imaginary imaginary audience!) have been coming from C. Robin Janning’s blog, Gramercy Digital Diary. So I clicked over to her blog and noticed that she’d put up a link to Living A Creative Life in her “Good Stuff To Read” blogroll, which totally made my day (or night, by this point).

So I sent C. Robin a brief note of thanks, and this morning I found the loveliest email reply in my inbox, with very specific validations for my work:

– Praising my music (“Your music video “he’s just not that into you” is delightful and seems to showcase both your lovely voice, a sense of humor, and creativity.”)

– Praising my writing (“I also love your writing style. There is a fine line that one must walk when writing about personal stuff — no whining, no bragging… and you walk that walk beautifully. And humorously. Your use of “feh” the other day, for some reason, made my day.”)

– Praising my art (“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I love, love, love your calligraphy. AND YOUR BOOKS!! I found one of your web pages:
http://www.mddesignworks.com/html/artfram.html
I love your Torah cover. […] And then for a reason I can’t explain, your “Kinetic Metaphor: Three Alphabets of Self” brought me to tears.”)

Which brought me to tears.

Which is where I was when I started this post: crying from the realization that my big dreams – to do my creative work and touch someone as a result – are actually not just dreams, they’re reality.

The internal work I’ve been doing to figure out my path, and the feelings that have been brewing and bubbling over the past few months, and over this intense teaching and traveling weekend, spilled over into cleansing tears, refreshing my spirit, recharging me for the next steps on the long road ahead. (Oh, the things I have planned! I’ll be sharing them here over the coming days and weeks. Being the compulsive type that I am, I want to write them all right now for immediate posting, but one of the things I’m learning is restraint. It’s a useful tool.)

Thank you, C. Robin, for taking the time to write. How often do I think some admiring thought about someone else, and how often do I actually express that admiring thought to them? I know how helpful validation can be, so I do make an effort to share my admiring thoughts. C. Robin’s note was a beautiful reminder of what a big difference a small effort in this direction can make.

She also shared a piece of wisdom in response to my last post, which I pass on to you here:

And I offer this un-called for advice: take naps. Naps can be a form of creative meditation. Often I work out the next step to a painting or a poem or remember that I must recharge the battery in my camera. This advice comes from an “old woman” who napped even when she was young.

And now, in an attempt to do a better job of self-care, I’m going to take C. Robin’s excellent advice and take a nap.

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In what ways are you already living the life of your dreams?