Baby Steps

Whilst I listened to my Muse speak on the dangers of self-sabotage, I jotted and scribbled and doodled, letting the words massage their way into my brain. I have come to a place where I know that it is most helpful to not try too hard. Rather, to ease myself into the lessons and allow my Beautiful Creative Self to take what she most needs. Because sometimes, just the act of taking notes causes me to miss the most important stuff. Hence the doodling. It works for me, as does the breathing I do before hand and the colored pencils I use in lieu of a more serious utensil like a pen. I find pens far too stodgy. Perhaps it is a reference to the pen being mightier than the sword. Not sure. Either way, pens are for crossword puzzles, not doodling.

{WHAT? YOU USE PENS TO DO YOUR CROSSWORD PUZZLES??? Yes, I do. Because I am a serious crossword puzzler and as I said, pens are serious utensils. But I digress....}

So she was talking about self-sabotage. It is, not surprisingly, one of the most common, stubborn, ridiculous of tactics by the pesky Ego. And Fear. And the Inner Critic who is as bossy as that curmudgeon next door who hollers every time you howl at the moon with your dog. They are all party poopers and not nearly as clever as they might think. That is, if you happen to have a Muse who reminds you that they all use the same tricks:

Keep her distracted. If she is distracted she cannot create.

Along the way, one of the things that set off the happy bells in my head was this:

Questions are the prompts for those tiny steps we can take toward our beautiful, creative light. We are all Lights; and if we are to shine for all the world to see, we must be persistent. We must practice. We must be repetitious in our commitment to our craft. With these little steps, we will slowly make the shift that will bring us to our Purpose. Any artist who has ever had one of those days (or weeks, or months, or...years) when it seemed like there were 4,693 other things we just had to do before we got to our creative work knows that the trick is to find a way, any kinda way, to get back to it. Sometimes we have to literally trick ourselves. We have to use new tactics. We have to re-think the way we speak. Saying things like "I get to..." instead of "I should...". They are little baby steps that lead us down the road we most wish to travel. And if it means that we have to start all over again every single day, then that is precisely what we will do. Because I have never met an artist, regardless of their chosen art form, who hasn't said (at least a thousand times), "Oh, how I wish I could do this for my living."

Well, guess what. You can. But you're not gonna get there by wishing. You're going to have to commit. You're going to have to suffer change. And stretch consciousness. And re-think thoughts. It might be a pain in the ass (at first) but wouldn't you rather have that challenge than a lifetime of working some horribly boring job while the Light of All That You Are dims to black, abysmal nothingness? Please. Please don't let it happen. Take those steps, whatever they might be for you. Make the commitment. And then, little by little, you will make your way to that Life you have only secretly dreamed of. That is what living is all about.

A dandy little trick (yes you can!)

There is no such thing as "ignore". It's really quite impossible to ignore something you just don't wanna think about. By virtue of the brain's wiring, it just won't work. The only way to actually "ignore" is to think about something else. IMMEDIATELY. Like this:

Let's say you have this monster pain-in-the-ass goin' on. Maybe you're in some kind of physical discomfort. Or you have a roommate or boyfriend or co-worker who just drives you up the wall. ('course, if it's your guy who's doing this, I'm wondering why you're still there. But that's a whole 'nother story....). Anyway...so there's this monster pain-in-the-ass goin' on and you're trying really, really, really hard to ignore the thing. But if you're saying to yourself, "I'm just gonna ignore this crap", you're still thinking about it, aren't ya? The ol' Catch 22. T'aint no fun at all, huh?

So what if...when this monster pain-in-the-ass shows up, you right quick switch gears. You do a literal about-face and think about something that makes you laugh or makes you happy to see or makes you giggle from the memory of it. It could be anything at all; it could be the way your dog does that happy dance when you walk through the door. Or the way your best friend always knows when to drop by with that super-delicious chocolate cake she makes just cuz she was thinking about you. Or maybe it was that time you went kayaking and saw all those whales with their brandy new babies. How 'bout that time you sat on the beach with your favorite person in the whole wide world and watched the sun blaze the sky as it settled for the day, after which you walked to the nearby sushi bar and ate yourself into bliss and drank a gallon of sake.

You get the point.

Doesn't matter what it is, just think about something, anything that floats your boat. You must have something that comes to mind, right? If you can train yourself to do that, instead of trying to "ignore" whatever it is that's got you all in a huff, you can (and will) eventually see that icky crap disappear outta your life. Entirely. Not kidding. If you think I'm nutso over here, you are mistaken. Just try it. Next time something pops up that you want to ignore, stop for ONE SECOND...and think of something supergroovycool. See what happens.

Go 'wan. Give it a try.