Читать книгу The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women - Gail McMeekin - Страница 11

I learned about a creativity class called “Technologies for Creating” based on the work of Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life. My teacher was Marilyn Veltrop, whom you will meet in this book, and who is now one of my best friends. From Marilyn, I learned about the concept of “structural tension” as a key part of the creative process. The dance between a vision of “what I wanted” and “my current reality” challenged me to engage with my creative energy and reinvent my life. I needed to stop seeing my chronic fatigue as simply a problem to be solved and instead needed to focus on manifesting my vision of a balanced, fulfilling life. The truth was that I was ready for a major work transition. Like so many other midlife women, I was burned out from too much caretaking. I yearned for a gentler, slower pace and wanted to express my creativity more directly. The nurturance of marriage and decorating a home beckoned as well. The tools I learned in class with Marilyn made the venture of reconfiguring my life all the more enticing. One of the goals I set in her class was to begin writing, immediately.

One exciting aspect of the current ferment by women is the fact that as they struggle for authenticity, they simultaneously illuminate their personal creativity.

—JEAN BAKER MILLER, WOMEN'S RESEARCHER AND WRITER

Dressed in my pajamas, I wrote the script for my audiocassette workshop called Positive Choices: From Stress To Serenity, based on the stress workshop I had developed and been teaching for years. My goal was to create a “portable” workshop so I could stop traveling. Creating the tape preserved my energy and reconnected me with my desire to write as a way of teaching.

Making art is a rite of initiation. People change their souls.

—JULIA CAMERON, WRITER

Heeding my awakened intuitive attraction to art, I dared to enroll in watercolor classes with an expressive therapist and produced a collection of amateur but meaningful paintings. Pictures of lots of women locked up in stone castles revealed my dark struggle with our male-dominated society. My illness kept teaching me that subduing my feminine side was dangerous for me. I needed to stop competing in the corporate world and reconnect with my artistic, intuitive feminine self. I, like so many women of my generation, had an imbalance of masculine and feminine energies, with too much emphasis on my active, masculine aspect and not enough on my receptive, feminine energy. Playing with colors and being given permission to just paint what I felt and not worry about “how good it was” freed me to express all my creative impulses without judgment. My love of art had been slaughtered early on by a cruel art teacher, and I had been too scared to try painting again until these classes. Painting, writing, decorating, and gardening emerged as glorious expressions of my awakened creative self. My inner knowing and trust in my feminine intuitive strength continued to grow stronger and more reliable.

Some time later, I had a wonderful opportunity to study with George Prince, founder of Synectics, an innovation consulting company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his wife Kathleen Logan-Prince, M.S.W. Through their Mind-Free Program™, I learned about the positive power of mistakes and our self-imposed limitations on the creative process. Armed with a series of new techniques, my ability to make new connections and design novel options increased. The process also transformed my fear of being wrong. Taking risks and experimenting with possibilities became more comfortable and even fun when I let go of my terror of being criticized or fumbling foolishly. These added tools, combined with my new ability to both write and paint freely, set my cycle of rebirth in motion.

After several years on this creative adventure with more published articles, piles of watercolors, multicolored clothes, and a redecorated home, I had to acknowledge that I was indeed an artist at heart. I've always been intrigued by creative souls. Those years of running myself ragged with workaholism and denying my feminine expression had eclipsed my true spirit. I appreciated my mother's creativity, almost for the first time, and began practicing and enjoying her art, which was flower arranging. Suddenly I was drawn to attending house and garden tours and reveled in the annual “Art in Bloom” event at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, at which she used to exhibit. How was it that I had never gone in to see what she had done during all those years? I suddenly felt a new freedom to choose my own feminine path. Apis, a homeopathic remedy made from bees, miraculously cooled down my fevers. Astrology readings also reassured me that I would one day be stronger. I needed that faith. Claiming my artistic self as a woman became the path to healing and recreating my life. While I still needed lots of naps and had limited energy reserves, I emerged from my transition charged with creative confidence.

Even though I was disenchanted with male-dominated corporate America, I had no interest in embracing the starving artist lifestyle. Since the Medici family was long since dead, and other patrons of the arts were scarce, what were the options for creative souls in this culture? Fortunately I had my career and creativity coaching business to sustain me. For many women, though, fears, particularly concerning money, can be a major obstacle to taking creative risks. For so many of us, breaking free of our societal and psychological chains is a prerequisite to truly creating a life that expresses our genuineness and uniqueness.