Have you ever frozen at an invitation to express yourself? It seems most of us ache with longing to fully experience and show ourselves, yet shrink at the opportunity. It’s as if it’s a great crime to be and share one’s authentic self.
In October of 2012, I was asked to present at a Pecha Kucha event (20 slides x 20 seconds) hosted by Seattle Art Museum. The occasion was the opening a museum-wide exhibit of women artists called Women Who Rock: Agent Provocateurs & the Ideas That Inspire Them. This was an invitation to commit the great crime of self-disclosure...to perform a creative act of rebellion.
I was honored…and terrified. When examined, I sense my fear was comparison, and the ‘sin’ of hubris. I feared not ‘measuring up’ to the other creative women on stage that night. I feared sharing myself with an auditorium of strangers, as if my personal experiences and what inspired me might matter to them; as if I was worthy of their time and attention.
Can you relate?
Recently, while walking into a morning dance class, my friend Anne slipped me a thin paperback titled Art & Fear. It packs some great insights. Here's a juicy one:
"The important point here is not that you have—or don't have—what other artists have, but rather that it doesn't matter. Whatever they have is something needed to do their work—it wouldn't help you in your own work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don't lack it. You don't need it. It has nothing to do with you. Period."
Back in 2012, that invitation to step on stage at an art museum and share the innate creativity of my being was an opportunity to free myself from the shackles of internal comparisons and claim myself, exactly as I am. I took a leap and accepted the invitation.
During my days of preparation, I committed to being patient—allowing myself to feel whatever I felt, and breathing a lot. When finally I stood in the spotlight, hands trembling, I compassionately marveled at the thunder in my chest. In a pregnant moment before I spoke into the microphone, I paused to notice these internal movements. Doing so was curiously comforting, and a sense of nervousness gave way to joyful exhilaration.
I would come to understand that my sense of comfort and excited joy were responses to a new level of self-acceptance and intimacy. I believe everyone is here to discover and share the “magic” of their being. By taking the stage that night, I simply claimed my innate magic and value…regardless of how others might perceive me. In our world, that’s a radical act.
This blog is another step in that journey. Thank you for being part of my adventure and for letting me be part of yours.
The following 20 slides are what I shared in that 2012 presentation…
SLIDE 01:
Last June my heart cracked open. In a prolonged, transcendent experience, my life was glimpsed within poetic images from a fourteenth century Persian mystic.
SLIDE 02:
I realized that God—or the Universe—is alway delivering me a gift, which I often don’t receive, because I’m too busy ordering or looking for another package.
SLIDE 03:
Like peeling an onion, my new perception pulled back the layers that prevent me from experiencing the preciousness of the present moment.
SLIDE 04:
With startling clarity and humility, I saw my pattern of trying to manage or control every aspect of living.
SLIDE 05:
I witnessed how I miss the ecstasy of this moment by anticipating moments that are yet to come, or by clinging to moments that have ceased to be.
SLIDE 06:
I perceived how trying to categorize and project meaning onto what-is—every feeling, being, and encounter—can keep me from fully experiencing what-is.
SLIDE 07:
With a quality of unhurried spaciousness, I marveled at life’s exquisite generosity; how it continually offers up beauty and delights.
SLIDE 08:
I felt immense compassion for myself…the one who misses so much of life’s beauty and joy, without the slightest idea, because my attention is focused elsewhere.
SLIDE 09:
My lived experience of Hafiz’s poetic insight would read something like this.
SLIDE 10:
After that profound shift in awareness, I returned to “regular life” with the intention to more directly encounter the world as it arises, within and around me.
SLIDE 11:
As a storyteller, I make a living crafting stories about other people. Before that transcended experience in June, I’d scheduled a 3-weeks hiatus in August. My plan was to begin a personal writing project.
SLIDE 12:
However, my June experience made it clear that I did not need to practice DOING. I needed to practice BEING. For three weeks I would surrender all planing, projects and prearrangements. I turned off email and social media and would simply be.
SLIDE 13:
This might sound relaxing, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve done. Just a few days without my regular orientations was excruciating. I became uncomfortably aware that my whole life, even “free-time,” had been organized around a desired outcome.
SLIDE 14:
I discovered that I could rest in the flow of the present moment for a few moments—occasionally a few hours—before my habits of mental managing returned. Witnessing my level of “drift” was overwhelming at first.
SLIDE 15:
But sometime in week two my capacity for presence noticeably increased. As I relaxed into the continuous present moment, I was noticing more of life. I was becoming more loving, more peaceful, more joyful, more full.
SLIDE 16:
In the final days of my hiatus, I strolled into a used bookstore and a worn paperback made itself visible to me. In this memoir, Natalie Goldberg describes parallels between her writing practice and her Buddhist meditation practice.
SLIDE 17:
I was reminded that my long ago practice of stream-of-consciousness writing had helped me tap into a kind of expanded consciousness that is typically obscured by my mental managing.
SLIDE 18:
Inspired by her practice of writing in community, I invited a few friends to join me. Now, one night a week, we come together to unleash and witness the wildness of our minds. We are learning to embrace and share ourselves, however we happen to be.
SLIDE 19:
Each evening, we draw a writing prompt from a basket, put our pens to paper, and watch what appears on the page. We then take turns reading what we’ve written, without comment. My internal critic who compares is receding. My inner appreciator who loves is expanding.
SLIDE 20:
Little by little, I’m meeting life with less agenda and judgment…and noticing when agenda and judgement are obscuring my perception. I am learning to trust life’s mystery—messy and unpredictable as it is. I am learning to practice the art of being.
Explore with me through Creative Catalyst or The Gladstone Creative Community Lab, a community supported project to artfully co-create a New Earth culture.