If you have been reading my blog for a while, you have noticed that I like to take a cheery view of things and present ways that you can uplift your state of mind, your emotional well-being, take steps to enhance your creative life.
Maybe you have the impression that I am a goody two shoes, or a Pollyanna sort, who ignores the hard stuff in life. Or, if you have known me for a long time, you surely know that is not the case. You would know that I have a pretty salty attitude sometimes, and why that is so.
Either way, I'm going to change the tone of this blog and see what happens.
I've decided to open up about what it's really been like to live the creative life, from the inside, and in particular, about my journey to becoming a writing coach. It's not all so much fun and games!
The decision to write has been a no-brainer for me. I've always written things down, even when I lived in dire poverty, and tucked them away into notebooks in hopes that someday things would be different. I made collages of images that made me happy, and opened up the books to inspire myself when the outside world wasn't giving me any space to express myself. I felt a sense of identity that I couldn't have in other ways, and it gave the hope that my vision cold be real. I drew pictures, wrote poems, and wrote short essays about the things that I cared about. For a long time, they just sat in the notebooks, biding their time.
Poverty is bad for the soul. It makes people angry and cynical, and it stifles creativity as though it were a luxury. In fact, creativity is the road out of poverty. Taking small steps, one at a time, I began to build new roads into life, out of the isolation that I was experiencing. I began to hope for prosperity and acknowledgement, for a better life.
Nurturing hope when everybody around you is talking doom, behaving in cynical ways, expressing anger, is not easy to do. And it's not a road to popularity, either. So a lot went on in the deep silent spaces, where the eyes of the curious and the voices of the critical couldn't reach. My interior life has been my strength. Now I want to share it with you.
What was it like to hide like that? I felt bad about myself from just about every angle. I bought into stories that didn't serve me, and that held me back from becoming my true self. Let's be honest...it sucked.
And how did that change?
What was it that pushed me out of my comfort zone, caused me to feel that I absolutely HAD to do something different? It's not a story for one blog post. It will take a while to talk about this transformation. The reason I am doing it is that I feel it can add more value to your life than I can by making pretty images for you. There's still a place for pretty images, and I will offer those, too. My hope is that you will value them more by understanding what makes them so important to me, and relate more completely with what they mean for you.
In the coming weeks and months, I will open up about my story in ways that I haven't done before. I hope this will be of value to you, my reader. Thanks for your loyalty and support. It's not going to be easy to do this. It will be worth it, if I can help you to become inspired to step out of whatever limitations you may be experiencing.
Schedule some time to talk with me about writing and what it can do for you.
Here's a view of
New Orleans from the 22nd floor, taken years ago when I was there visiting with my son before he started flight school. It was a great time to visit!
When we arrived, the whole city was mad with joy, as the Saints won over the Vikings in the game that would take them to the Superbowl.
Everywhere, people were dancing in the streets. The entire city was one big party that went on till dawn.
I'm not a football person, but that didn't matter. It wasn't about football as much as it was about life, about overcoming tragedy, about being filled with joy.
The whole atmosphere was magical, and just thinking about it now puts me into wonderful frame of mind. This kind of stuff stays with you!
Now time has moved along, and it's been a bit of time since people walked by on the street, and said, "Hey, don't worry about nothin', baby. You in Big Easy, now." Bless their hearts, they meant it, too. Time can't change the feeling of love that was being shared in those moments.
And I still remember. A feeling like that is worth cultivating and keeping in your heart. The great moments that you have to reflect on in your life can sustain you through a lot of other stuff. What really great times have you known? When you think about them, what kind of feelings come up for you? What do they mean for you?
How can you share those feelings with others, keep them alive, use them to nourish your dreams? I want to help you do this.
Let's tap into your creative powers!
Have a really great day, and remember the good things.
With tiny houses becoming more and more popular, it seems fitting to have a look at the tiniest one I've seen so far. This Lego house was made by my grandson Liam one day when we were playing together.
Doesn't it make you think of how simple life once was? Making a really cool house in just a few minutes, with just the basics...a dream come true. Seeing the little house fills me with happiness as I think of the delights of simple fun.
Now that you are grown up enough to read this, you have a lot more layers of reality to deal with, and life doesn't seem quite as simple as it once did.
Lots to do, to think about, many roles to play, the list goes on and on. And still, after all the doing and getting has been done, what is it that makes life good? It's the simple times of enjoyment when nothing much is going on.
That's the time when your soul cuts loose and you have a feeling of quiet happiness, that nurtures you and your heart. How to simplify your life, so that you have more of those times, may be something you'd really like to explore. One step at a time, you can change the overwhelming feeling of having too many things filling up your life, into a feeling of knowing you can handle what comes up, make time for your creative projects, and just enjoy life more in every way.
Getting organized in new ways that nourish your inner states and feed your creativity is a great process. It frees up your energy and makes the texture of life more open. You can have a flow of energy that feels good and supports you in being able to put more into the things that really matter to you. Do you have a project in writing or the arts that you haven't been able to get going, or keep going?
Find out how to make more time in your life for doing the things you love.
Believe in your dreams, and know that life can still hold moments of simple delight.
Best wishes,
Betty
