Dear Creative,

You do not yet know it, but the world is grateful for you!

Your art is an expression of you, and through your creative endeavors, you are sharing immeasurable gifts with the world. Perhaps, you dream of being a well-known highly acclaimed artist – maybe you want to be an accomplished writer, a world-renown sculptor, or an eclectic artist using a variety of mediums.

Good for you! Let yourself shine!! Share your creativity with us, we need you!

I will warn you though, that the road of a creative life may not be smooth, it may be plagued with sharp turns, unexpected dips, and potholes the size of the Grand Canyon. Yet, despite it all, I can assure you it will be a worthwhile journey.

Unfortunately, as we grow and flourish we may be cautioned to stay small. Things may happen to remind us not to get too big for our britches. You may feel a war within, an internal conflict, where one part of you is all in, and another part holds back, afraid of what might happen if you share your art and yourself with the world.

You may feel raw and vulnerable. Or be excited, but in the back of your mind, you may be waiting for the next shoe to drop.

You may have already felt a little of this. As you step up and share your art with the world, in a grander way than you have experienced before, you may have noticed that something comes up to challenge you. Maybe just little things that you easily navigated. But, what if the next time it’s a huge deal. Something that threatens you or your family, perhaps a financial or health challenge. This event may feel like the worst thing that could happen and you may blame it on your stepping out and being vulnerable.

Shocks like these may either squelch your creativity or inspire you to new heights. You will not know until, or if, it happens to you.

While in crisis mode, you may stop creating entirely or perhaps you continue to create, but cocoon and stop sharing your art and yourself.

Events like these, the ones that challenge our very core, may simply be the Universe asking, “Do you really want this?” And, “How bad do you want it?”

Happened to me, as I set out to write my memoir, I experienced severe health issues. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Chronic Lyme disease. I had had symptoms for years, but never knew they were Lyme related. The healing process has taken two long years, some days I could barely manage, let alone stay focused on my goals.

I have a few years under my belt, so over the years, I learned that in every challenge deep down inside there can often be found a gift and lesson.

I wondered, what is this illness meant to teach me or do for me? I clearly received the message from the Universe that I needed to write and share my writing with the world. Great! For a time, I womaned up and did just that. I created memes and shared bits and pieces of my writing on my writer’s page, and my blog, sharing comments in groups and on friends’ posts. When the symptoms exacerbated I found it hard to stay focused. It was easy to blame the illness. During this time, I also started to doubt my talent. I began telling myself that I was kidding myself to think that what I wrote was important or interesting enough for people to read. I kept writing not every day, but most days, but I stopped sharing my own work for a while. I allowed this challenge to get the better of me.

Then fast forward two years to June of this year. Another health issue in which I nearly died. In the three days, I spent at the hospital receiving four blood transfusions and having an operation, I was clearly shown that there were only two things that were imperative for me – focusing on the loving relationship I share with my sweetheart and finishing my memoir. That’s it! The things I worried about like the dirty dishes in the sink, not being up to date on my bank reconciliations, and an array of daily worries lost their power over me. It took a near-death experience to get me back on track and realize what is important.

Recently, five pieces of my writing were published in Breathing Words. It is a work of love, an anthology, by twenty-seven amazing and talented writers’. We met several years ago in an online writers group. This is the first time, other than a letter to the Editor of my hometown newspaper when I was 15, that my writing has been published.

The day my copy arrived I flipped through the pages reading what others had submitted. Then I had an attack of Compareitis. I gave myself the proverbial 40 lashings – as I compared my submissions to my co-authors’ convincing myself that their work was far superior to mine.  By the end of the second day, I had done enough energy healing and tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique-EFT) to work through the bulk of the crappy self-doubts and the internal nay-saying. I realized these emotions were just the precursor to what might come up when I publish my more personal and vulnerable memoir early next year. This was the ideal opportunity to set my inner creativity destroying gremlins straight!

With those illustrations shared, let’s get back to you.

If you are or have been experiencing a negative event. I invite you to consider that instead of it being the worst thing that could happen, what if the universe is responding to your desires to be a full-time artist by pushing you out of your comfortable nest? Sounds crazy, I know. But what if, this event – the thing that feels like the worst thing to happen – worked out better than you could ever imagine?

What if after the dust settles, you have done enough emotional or physical healing that you find yourself creating your art full-time, and rubbing elbows with artists whom you admire?

What if through this event the universe is inviting you to fully expand your wings and soar high like an Eagle or like the Phoenix (because an event like this may leave you feeling scorched and rightly so) rising out of the flames? What if this results in you rising exponentially higher above the mundane into the full expression of your Soul’s purpose here on the planet?

It may take time to come to this place, but I assure you have it in you to do it.

You are needed, you are worthy of greatness because you are already great. Let your light shine brightly!

“Blessed are the weird people:

poets, misfits, writers

mystics, painters, troubadours

for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” ~Jacob Nordby