People become frustratingly complicated when they doubt the legitimacy of their own desires.
Awaken creative to this day 5 of our journeying together through 40 days to creating our most authentic and honest life.
This quote sits on my board.
I revisit it regularly.
It means a lot to me this 5 years on since I stopped holding retreats and workshops.
It's been a tool of authentication for myself.
Staring in that mirror and addressing the reflection in honesty through the lens of reality.
When I began teaching and doing the retreats it was with an unabashed joy.
A pure,
Simple drive to help others feel the joy I felt in putting paint to surface.
As I began to see this enthusiasm catch fire in others,
Things got mucked up.
I was driven not by my own joy but by the attraction of others to it.
I started creating new formulas and putting more into the mix,
Always hoping to then attract more.
This is the reverse of that initiating energy that was simple and pure and filled with unabashed joy.
A furrowing of my brow began to happen as I started working from this place of how can others attract rather than what brings me joy.
It's a small nuanced twist but it makes all the difference in the delivery and the outcome.
This shift created a maelstrom,
A hurricane if you will.
Perhaps not out there in the world as much as just in my own soul.
I was disingenuous and it began to show up.
And as it began to show up there was less attraction.
And as there was less attraction there was more fear.
More frustration.
And on the heels of all that,
Burnout.
I'd lost my aim.
That initial fire,
While a beautiful spark that lit bonfires in others,
Had become just a twist and mist of smoke.
Five years on now I can see.
Five years on now from that burnout and quitting,
I can see that what I quit,
The proverbial throwing the baby out with the bathwater,
What I quit was my dream.
I can see that what I quit,
Or needed to have only quit,
Was the storm.
What I needed to still hold on to was the dream.
But in order to hold on to the dream I had to let go of the storm.
And take that look in the mirror.
Perhaps many of you have taken similar journeys.
That fire that drove you to start something,
That ignition,
Went into overdrive.
For reasons that,
At the time,
Felt authentic and felt real.
A response and call that actually wasn't.
It was more of response and call that shifted the direction.
So today's motivation on day five,
Awake and creative,
Is to take a look in the mirror.
We don't do this not with eyes of seeing.
We do it with eyes of discriminating.
How to fix that skin or unfuzz that hair.
But today is to look in the mirror and see into the eyes,
Into the heart.
It's scary.
It's disconcerting.
But there's nothing to actually fear.
It's time to start liking what you see once again.
And begin to find that simple,
Pure essence.
That will reignite your spark once again.
Stand in the mirror this morning.
Say hello to you.
And maybe smile.
Go awake and creative.
