The Courage to Create a New Life

“Life is the highest art.”

- Anonymous

The Power of Creativity isn’t just limited to creating works of art.  I’ve heard it said that life is the highest art and some of the most passionate people I know create from a place courage and necessity.   

I have a client who had a major stroke two years ago.   He is a man who values his strength and always took his physicality and sports abilities for granted.  His great love is golf.  His stroke was sudden and debilitating.  His whole life changed. What came easily to him no longer does.  To regain his physical awareness he needs to find and make new pathways in his brain.  His left side is the side that is affected.  Holding a golf club – what he once took for granted – is now a wonderful feat of accomplishment.

Slowly, he is establishing new pathways and is able to do more and more.  He can walk with a cane; slowly.  He can brush his teeth, and can mostly dress himself; all accomplishments.  He is a proud man who had much taken away fro him.  At least that is how it feels to him.  In fact, yes, he has had much changed in his life. And, because of the stroke, other avenues are opening up for him.  These new avenues are not ones he would have cultivated before his stroke.

Now, he is passionate about walking and having control of his left arm and hand.  He is also passionate about opening emotional pathways that were not available to him before.  He is closer to his wife than ever, and is becoming an emotionally available man.  This emotional opening takes a lot of courage for him.  Developing new brain pathways for his movements and for awareness of his left side of his body takes a lot of imagination.  He has to visualize the connections and acupressure meridians which help him to connect his brain to his body parts.  Before his stroke he would not have used his brain in this way, nor would he have used his imagination so religiously.

What came easily to this man before his stroke is no longer easy.  He is using his imagination and passion for growth, physical and emotional in a way he never would have before.  And guess what?  He values all his achievements in a way he never would have.  This hard work and creative passion is giving him a new lease on life and a new connection to his wife and parts of himself he didn’t have access to.  Would he consider this use of his imagination a feat of creative passion?  He probably would not.  Yet, it certainly is, and it takes daily courage and vulnerability as he uses his imagination in ways he would never have had to before. 

Like my client, we never know what is in store for us.  But what we do know is that it is our daily connection to ourselves and to our imaginations that helps us create a life of meaning.  Creative passion is necessary to fuel the courage required if we are to live fully and completely in the service of our souls’ unfolding.

Shift Your Story: Guided Visualization/Meditation

Take a seat and grab a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil.  Imagine what it would be like for you to have something taken from you that you value and are proud of.  Write down how that would feel to you; what it would take away, and what it would give to you?

Write down the ways you can imagine to deal with the changes. Visualize how you would handle the changes and also visualize yourself dealing with the changes in a new way.  Literally see yourself moving, or drawing, or dancing, or painting or loving in a whole new way.  As you see yourself also feel how this is for you, and what it takes from you to accomplish these actions.  Feel where the motivation and desire and fuel come from in your body.  Imagine what it takes as well as where and how you can find the strength to work with these changes.  Feel how passionate you are about your new life and the part your courage and imagination takes for this transformation.  See yourself creating new pathways for yourself.  Enjoy this to your greatest ability.

Thank yourself and then begin to see yourself as you are now and today.  Imagine yourself as you are right now with the strength, courage, and passion that you had when something was taken away.  This is yours for all your creative endeavors, whether it is the mundane or the special.  The more you have to work for your passions, the more you value them.