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Many people suffer from Impostor Syndrome. Even those who have the highest academic, artistic, and business-related achievements suffer from feelings of unworthiness. Shouldn’t public recognition automatically make people feel good about themselves? Yet so often it doesn’t, and they don’t.
What’s it going to take? Winning an Oscar? There are many miserable Oscar winners. Climbing Mount Everest? Fine, but what do you do when there are no higher mountains to conquer?
I used to think that if only I achieved that next goal, got those kudos from that musician I admired, received that positive review, then I would finally feel okay. Yet when these wishes were granted, it wasn’t long before I slipped back to my old baseline of feeling scared and undeserving. It was maddening. Why couldn’t I just feel better? Now I know what was going on: I never dared to be fulfilled. I never allowed myself to say “nice job!” to myself. And this seemingly small act is crucial if we are to lead joyful, creative lives.
Love Yourself, Love Life, Love Others
By believing in yourself, you come to love yourself sincerely with innocence and humility, embodying the wonder that is beginner’s mind. And aren’t we all beginners in this great university of life?
Fulfillment shows us that, if you want to love, you must start by loving yourself first. And As Above, So Below: by loving yourself, your feelings radiate out to include those around you and, by extension, the entire world. Here’s the amazing thing: you don’t even have to try! In fact, don’t try; just shine like the sun, and we all will feel it. We want to feel your love; we need your love. Here it is: we need to feel your connection. And it starts with you loving yourself, which fulfillment facilitates.
As you appreciate yourself, you appreciate others more. You become brave and more willing to show them how you feel. This helps them blossom, and in turn, everyone grows. As you fall back in love with yourself, so you fall in love with the world again.
I’ve seen this happen countless times. My friend and collaborator, singer Jennifer Paulino, excitedly shared her recent teaching breakthrough with me. When she privately centered in love, using a method similar to harmonizing with yourself, before her students arrived, her students automatically began singing better. They easily hit notes they previously strained for. Their expression became direct and impassioned. When Jennifer focused on the big picture — connection — incredibly, the practical details fell into place, too. This is what fulfillment looks like in real life.
When I first practiced fulfillment, things also began aligning for me. I gained faith that I could reach out further, take bigger risks, trust more, make mistakes and recover, create more. My performances improved. Previously, I used to go onstage wordlessly, recite each piece without comment, bow, and exit. I was too scared to speak! Gaining confidence through fulfillment, I realized, “Wait a minute, I want to share what this song means to me and where it came from.” Now chatting with my audience is a hallmark of my performances. This has made for much more intimate, moving, and memorable events, if I say so myself, and I recommend you give it a try, too. Talk about finding your voice!
My teaching also improved. I no longer worried about my students getting freaked out about making mistakes. We both laughed heartily over goofs and bonded over performance war stories. “Mistakes” got put in their proper place as allies, not enemies.
Fulfillment: Antidote to Burnout, Elixir of Creativity
Even if you already believe in yourself, pausing and reflecting with satisfaction on your achievements is crucial. If you don’t take a moment to slow down and bask in the pleasure of what you have achieved, burnout will eventually exact its toll. Trudging from goal to goal without pause, people often end up feeling like a machine churning out products, without any vision of process. And we all know where that leads.
Fulfillment is a rite of passage. You’ve made it! Celebrate! A new creative era is about to dawn for you.
Connect and Enliven All With Spirit and Community
Looking back on your journey, you may realize that an invisible force like gravity, a benevolent, all-pervading spirit, has been allied with you this entire time. It has quietly waited in the wings, providing unsaid, unconditional love through times good and bad. This spirit has infused your path with meaning beyond words.
This spirit is your true self. You are this spirit. And it also exists all around you as sheer life force. This spirit is connection. It is community: the communing of life-affirming forces gathered in service to love.
Early in our creative journeys, we often want to be original or disruptive. I understand; we want to make our mark, to be seen, to share something of indisputable value. Here’s the thing; you are that thing of unique value. Everything already exists in our universe as raw materials. We’re all playing with these same materials, recycling them in new ways to reflect new times.
Trying to be completely original is an illusion. The only truly original thing is you, your soul. You shine in our world as a one-time marriage of body and spirit that will never be exactly replicated. Your precious soul engages with life creatively, affecting all it interacts with: this is your most powerful contribution to life. And while it may seem too large to catch hold of, your soul has an embodiment that guides you reliably in the real world: your purpose.
BRIGHT WAY ACTIVITY: Connect the Heart and Mind
Ultimately, this journey is about the marriage of your body-mind-spirit so that you become whole once again.
Let’s celebrate with this exercise: place one hand on your heart and the other at your third eye (the space between your eyebrows). Breathe. Scan your body for any energy blockages. Breathe into any tight spots. Feel present and comfortable.
Now bring your attention back to your hands connecting your heart and head. Do you feel your heart and mind communicating? Do you feel sparkling energy bouncing back and forth between them, the communing of heart and head?
I believe this is one of the best ways to sense your spirit physically. How does this feel for you? What emotions does this bring up?
Spirit’s unseen energy infuses our creativity with life force. When we let our spirit flow into our work, everything connects and comes to life. Our work goes beyond even skill, magic, and manifestation, to the transcendent.
Gratitude, Connection, and Collaboration
Sometimes people worry that celebrating themselves will somehow set them apart from others or perhaps even cut them off from community. We’ve all heard the “tall poppy gets cut” admonishment.
Celebrating your achievements does not look like bragging. In fact, you may choose to celebrate quietly to yourself as you write out your accomplishments and smile in acknowledgment and ownership of them. Perhaps you’ll choose to share your findings with close friends, and perhaps more widely.
Here’s the magical thing: as you genuinely own your achievements, you come to greater appreciation of the forces that helped you get there. You are grateful when you recall the faces of all who have supported and inspired you, the towering figures from the past who laid the way for you today, all your allies. Rather than cultivating smugness, celebrating your achievements opens the door to honoring others. You realize how much of your creativity is built on those who came before you, as well as those around you right now.
I used to be terrible about accepting compliments, brushing them off like flies. I’d deflect, telling the other person how much better they were than me, that my accomplishment was no big deal, and I’d speculate on its imminent demise. Then one day a friend burst out in frustration: “When I give you a compliment and you blow it off, it’s an insult. You’re throwing my gift away. I want to give this gift. I want you to enjoy it. I want to feel good about giving it, and you’re denying me that. Just take it, already!”
This is Sacred Reciprocity: someone gives, and you give in return. Remember how you felt last time you gave someone a gift they loved? Didn’t you feel wonderful, perhaps just as wonderful as the recipient?
BRIGHT WAY ACTIVITY: Accepting Compliments
When people compliment you, practice accepting their gift with gratitude. This doesn’t have to look dramatic; just smile sincerely and say thank you. Believe they mean what they say, with no ulterior motives.
Stay relaxed and comfortable during this process — this lets your admirer know they’ve made you feel happy, not awkward. Receive the loving energy coming to you. Reflect it back in Sacred Reciprocity.
Fulfillment stokes the all-powerful state of gratitude, one of the most positive emotions we can experience. Some even believe it’s the secret to happiness. As a massive bonus, it’s practically impossible to feel fear when we feel grateful.
Gratitude means we live from a place of love. And, creativity is love — connection — made manifest. Love and creativity feed each other in a loop of Sacred Reciprocity.
BRIGHT WAY ACTIVITY: Compliment Someone
Gratitude, connection, and collaboration can all be practiced in one fell swoop via one of my favorite ways to cultivate community: compliment someone on their creative work. It doesn’t have to be anything major; perhaps mention how much you enjoyed a well-crafted email, a funny joke, a beautiful meal, or simply being heard.
As you practice gratitude, feel your collaboration flow. Try this sweet practice now.
How We Spiral Together: You Are Not Alone
Feeling gratitude for all who have contributed to creating this book, I ponder, where do I end and they begin? What is “mine” and what is someone else’s starts to overlap. This is a beautiful thing! As I mentioned, there’s nothing new in this universe except our creative souls. I don’t own any of this except my own voice, my own creativity. And that is more than enough!
I am grateful to our ancestors, our ancient communities, and I know in my bones that they are part of me. As I watch my students grow, I am humbled to see that I’ve become part of them. My student Susan says, “You will always be a part of my life and mindset. Whether it’s following your philosophy or doing yoga exercises, practicing, writing in my harp journal and my daily gratitude book, there you are! Your voice and persona are a part of me now.”
Are We Ever Really Alone?
We may feel disconnected, but that’s an illusion. We can’t help but be connected. We “inter-are,” Thich Nhat Hanh elaborates, connected in infinite ways across infinite dimensions. We exist and function due to the seen and unseen assistance of many others. Yet many people feel lonely. They feel isolated and believe they struggle alone.
We know this pain is real. How can we feel our connection again? How can we realize that we are in fact already deeply connected?
When we directly engage in life — by being creative — all the connections that already exist illuminate. We find ourselves in community again, and mysteriously, we discover it’s where we’ve been all along. The illusion is that we were ever separated. We recognize we are one, and our spirits are restored. And so we create abundantly in order to celebrate connection in our world.
©2020 by Diana Rowan. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with permission from the book: The Bright Way
Publisher: New World Library. www.newworldlibrary.com.
Article Source
The Bright Way: Five Steps to Freeing the Creative Within
by Diana Rowan
While creativity may seem like a leisure-time luxury, it is actually the engine of cultural advancement. All human innovations, from cave painting to the internet, have been fueled by someone’s ideas and follow-through. Our creative acts require more than just ideas; they also require ingenuity and perseverance, confidence and courage, the ability to dream and to do. The Bright Way helps you cultivate all of these. A simple yet profound program of inspiration plus action, designed for a lifetime of use, the Bright Way System empowers you to access motivation and make progress, find joy in building your skills, and courageously share your work with the world.
For more info, or to order this book, click here. (Also available as a Kindle edition.)
About the Author
Creative alchemist Diana Rowan is founder of the Bright Way Guild, a virtual learning environment dedicated to transforming and inspiring a global community of creatives. She is also a musician and composer, performing and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout the world. Visit her website at DianaRowan.com/
