Looking out on a beautiful autumn morning on Stannard Mountain in Vermont, I marvel at the creative expressions before me. Nothing is ever the same when I look out my window. Just now light shifts, leaves drift from increasingly bare tree limbs, and birds weave their unique patterns of flight among the rocks of a decaying stone wall. Two nights ago, a wild rain storm took down the better half of an old cedar that has been a part of this landscape for a very long time. Life itself is ever creating a new reality, and we, Life’s human expressions, are called to do the same.
Meeting one’s creativity is a joyous adventure that requires no special gift beyond the openness to its call and the willingness to manifest what the imagination offers. However, this second part of the creativity process, manifestation, is often the deal breaker. We dream easily, but bringing our dreams to reality requires focus, trust, partnerships, and perseverance. Happily, all are easily cultivated with EFT.
As I mused on EFT and creativity recently, I discovered www.creativityatwork.com This website, subtitled Exploring the Interplay of Business, Art and Science, offers various definitions of creativity along with book reviews and links to information that support our endeavours to deepen our creative approach each day. Like a refreshing bath after a long, hard day, this site is a tonic when we feel the challenges we face have drained us of all imaginative impulses.
While most of us value creativity and admire those people who seem able to maintain a steady flow of innovative, socially positive ideas to contribute to the common good, many labour under the impression that creativity belongs to a favoured few. We often recall – our faces flushed with embarrassment – reminders of our graceless dancing, our off-key singing, our failed visual expressions, and our deadened storytelling – the adjectives describing our performing arts the legacy of people creatively shut down by similar criticisms. I remember my mother, a wonderful visual artist, asking when we disagreed with her opinion of some innovation the family entertained, “Who is the artist in this family, anyway?” Her question suggested that each family could have only one.
Maturing, I came to understand that my mother’s question reflected nothing of the artistic abilities of others in our family, only her personal battle with fear and insecurity. She did not mean to diminish anyone’s creative expression, but she hadn’t yet embraced and worked through her personal legacy of trauma, a legacy connected to our families and our cultures. Because she hadn’t done her personal work, indeed the culture that shaped her beliefs did not support the deep psychological healing we have access to today, she felt diminished by others’ power. EFT, with its compassionate approach to our own and others’ traumas, is a master tool for turning off past shaming and turning on present creativity; in doing so, EFT allows us to flourish creatively as well as form those partnerships that are most likely to bring our creative dreams into reality .
When using tapping to unleash our personal creativity, it is helpful to have in mind some service or art form that begs for creative expression. In these times of Peak Oil conversations our choices are many: an innovation to a school lunch program that harnesses the power of local farms as teaching and food resources, an expressive arts event that will bring disparate parts of the community together to promote peaceful, productive community relationships, a desire to transform the lawns of local businesses into organic community gardens, a wish to develop the skills to participate in the Passive House, retrofit movement, or a plan to make college books accessible to students living with financial constraints, to name only a few. Our imaginations are limitless and our contemporary local and global challenges beg for all the creative solutions we can manifest. When we use our creativity in service to the current cultural shift to strong local economies, greater social justice, and smaller carbon footprints, transformation is inevitable.
Despite all these creative opportunities, we return to this one sobering fact: imagining transformation is the easy part. We all have moments of inspiration when we envision amazing shifts and changes in the culture – close to home and globally – that make us shiver with the possibilities of personal and planetary healing. It is when we begin the manifestation of our creative dreams that we meet our early traumas: who do I think I am; I failed that time I tried to . . . ; Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So told me I’d never amount to anything; I can’t do anything right. It is when we face the wounds of the past, those negative messages buried deep within our unconscious minds, that EFT can support our creative impulses.
Whenever we utilize EFT techniques, the best practice is to tell the truth of our feelings in the moment. Here is an example of a series of set up statements that might be used by someone who wants to create a community garden in her neighbourhood: “Even though my homeroom teacher said I’d be lucky if the dime store hired me because I was such a creative dud and his words make me ashamed whenever I begin to organize a community garden presentation, I trust that my imagination can recover from this and every other insult that may be lurking in my psyche. Even though I’ve tried to get a community garden going so many times before, and I always stall because I’m sure I can’t do it and I’m afraid no one else will want to be involved, I trust that I can work through all my insecurities and find the best partners to bring this project to reality. Even though I really believe in this project and I know it would be really good for our neighbourhood and yet my fear paralyzes me every time I pick up the phone to call people who might want to be involved, I trust that I will be supported in bringing this garden into reality and that I’ll make a lot of great new friends as I commit to the project and see it through.”
Meeting our resistance to beginning a creative project, embracing our hurt and anger when we’re ridiculed after we’ve begun, and reframing our stalls and reversals in the most compassionate terms we can imagine contribute to the energy we need to move forward and manifest what we have dreamed. EFT can help us to stoke creativity’s fires until we are filled with a quiet confidence to proceed, and it can help us to find just the right co-creators who are dreaming similar dreams. This tool is as close as our fingertips and as generous as our ever-expanding hearts. Whatever creative project we choose to begin, EFT is ready to support our creative process, increase our sense of peace, and deepen our experience of joy.
Until next week
Jane