The aesthetic details at Cienfuegos: one of many things that inspired me this week

As an antedote to yesterday’s post – not to nullify it, only to surround it with other things that are also true in my life right now (good old “yes, and”) – I offer up this jumbled list of things that have inspired me in the past week:

• Poetry by Billy Collins
• The latest issue of HOW Design (thanks, @dloehr)
• Stinky, a beautiful food shop in Brooklyn full of beautiful things
• My friends – their strength and grace and humor and spark
• Party Down – good comedy
• Peonies
• Hydrangeas
• My parents’ photos from their trip to Europe – the gardens in southern France, the vistas in Spain
• Defying Gravity
• The beautiful decor and attention to aesthetic detail at Cienfuegos, where we drank pink rum punch served from a shiny silver bowl
• Photos of brownstone apartments
• Volunteers who are helping clean up the BP oil spill
• The “Tweets of Old” Twitter feed – so simple and creative
• Jonsi
• The Artist’s Way – paging through it for inspiration
• And so much more

What inspired you this week?

Today I took a Zumba class at Peridance Capezio Center. (If you haven’t heard of Zumba, it’s a mix of Latin dance and aerobics… or, as the New York Times puts it, a “cardio-dance routine.”) I have no formal dance training, and I haven’t done an intense cardio workout….well, ever. So today’s class kicked my butt. But also: It was so much fun.

I looked ridiculous, trying to shake and wiggle and follow the instructor’s moves, but it was engaging, and the music was contagious, and…well, it sounds cheesy, but I was proud of myself for doing it. Proud for pushing myself so far outside my comfort zone.

I still feel spent, 7 hours later – it was intense, and it’s going to be a while before I can take a class that doesn’t knock me out for the rest of the day. But I did it. And sometimes, we just need to show ourselves what we’re capable of.

Here’s a zesty video showing you what Zumba’s all about…

“Life is a creative endeavor. It is active, not passive…When we experience our lives as flat and lackluster, it is our consciousness that is at fault. We hold the inner key that turns our lives from thankless to fruitful.” – Julia Cameron

In The Artist’s Way,  Julia Cameron writes about two essential tools for creative living:

• Morning Pages: Write three pages every morning. If you can’t think of anything to say, write your to-do list, or your grocery list, or a list of things you see out your window…just write. The point is to empty yourself so you can be fresh for your encounter with the day ahead.Morning pages aren’t about “good writing,” so put aside any judgment or self-criticism; no one will ever see these pages but you, and it’s the process of getting things down on paper that will help you — so don’t worry about the product.
• Artist Dates: Just as we need to empty ourselves, so do we need to fill ourselves up with food for our creative selves; Cameron calls this “filling the well.” Commit to taking yourself on a date each week (at least an hour long) that quenches your creative thirst; if that sounds too high-minded, then just follow your impulse for fun. Go to a movie, take a class, go for a stroll…whatever makes the kid inside you go “oooh….”

(To read about these tools as Cameron herself describes them, click here.)

I read The Artist’s Way back in 2004, and it changed my life (this is not an exaggeration). It made me realize that I was an artist, and that the greatest source of my dissatisfaction (with just about everything) was the absence of art in my life. Within a year of reading this book, I’d re-arranged my hours at work to give myself time to write every morning, and I’d found the art of improv, which continues to be one of my greatest sources of joy and fulfillment (not to mention, the way I met many of my closest friends).

Sometimes I get away from the habits I list above, and then I come back to them; rediscovering their gifts is like catching up with an old friend, and remembering how deeply you connect with one another.

As I contemplate which direction I want to go in over the next few months — what work I want to take on, what classes I want to take, what projects I want to develop — I’m recommitting myself to morning pages and artist dates.

Wanna join me?

Also: Learn how to start an Artist’s Way reading group, or “creative cluster.”

“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.” – Julia Cameron

Stuck in the mud

A friend of mine is feeling stuck – needing a push to do the thing she wants to do. I gave her some advice that I thought might be helpful for anyone needing help moving from dream to action:

• Surround yourself with people who support your dream, and you. (Some people energize us; others drain us. Pursue the former.)
• Do things that make you feel like your best, most powerful self. For me, this often = yoga.
• Turn the abstract into the concrete. Make a schedule of all the steps you need to follow to turn your dream into a reality, and commit to it.
• Write about your dream. Write down what scares you: why aren’t you taking action? Don’t censor your response – why try to keep information about you, from you? YOU will know that you aren’t getting the full story. Tell the truth. The sooner you can start admitting what you want to yourself, the sooner you can articulate it to others, and commit to doing what it takes to make it happen.

Then, of course, there are opportunities like the blogathon in which I’m participating – a structured challenge that takes the choice away from you, in part, and puts you on a track to just doing something, without deciding whether to do it.

What else do you do to get unstuck?

Photo above by David Schenfeld on Flickr

Related Reading:

• Be in the scene you want to be in
• Sage advice from Martha Graham (from my former blog, Creative DC)
• Creativity: daily practice, or fevered state? (Creative DC)

Cartoon by Steve Heath

As I’ve said before, I consider my yoga practice a template for how I live my life (credit for the “template” metaphor goes to Cyndi Lee, though Kimberly Wilson was the first to introduce me to the larger concept). Once you immerse yourself in yogic philosophy, it’s hard not find connections between yoga and, well, everything (I feel the same way about improv). And yet, despite the fact that finding meaningful work is one of the major themes of my adult life, I’d never connected the lessons of yoga practice to the process of finding my “right livelihood”…that is, until I came across this article by Tama J. Keives on the Kripalu website.

Even if you don’t know a thing about yoga, I recommend spending the 5 minutes or so it takes to read this article. The main idea: Finding meaningful work is a lifelong practice. If that sounds overwhelming, recognize that practice means small steps that can lead to breakthroughs at any point along the way. It’s not about deferring fulfillment, it’s about realizing that fulfillment is fluid.

Kieves is a an honors graduate of Harvard Law School who left a corporate law practice to pursue her dream and help others do the same. Isn’t that a familiar narrative, at this point? I’m sure you can conjure examples of similar stories: The lawyer who opened a bakery, the woman on the corporate ladder who decided to walk dogs/write a novel/etc. I’m afraid we relegate these examples to charming or inspiring exceptions to the rule of how one lives an adult life, without paying attention to the universal lesson they offer, which is this: You can change your mind, and you can change your life. By “you,” I mean, anyone – it doesn’t require a special gene.

Maybe you always wanted to be a journalist. And then you didn’t. Yes, it’s hard work to bring everyone in your life up to speed – to help them understand why you’re changing, why they need to change how they see you. And it’s even harder work to allow yourself to want what you want, and to acknowledge that voice inside you that says “Hey! I’m not so sure about the status quo.”

The fact that it’s such hard work is one reason we should take stories like Kieve’s seriously. We should pay attention to people who insist on aligning their outer and inner lives – who make their lives a true expression of their values and voice. These aren’t cute, light human interest stories – they’re roadmaps. Lessons.

So check out Kieve’s article. And ask yourself, What is your purpose in life? How does your work relate to that purpose? Could it be time for a change?

Then ask yourself again. And again. Savor the insights that emerge, and be patient when all that emerges is nothing. The only way to find the answers is to ask the questions.

Everyone gets the experience; some get the lesson.
—T. S. Eliot

Related Reading:

• Be In The Scene You Want To Be In
• Seeking Fulfillment, a post from my previous blog, Creative DC
• How to Find the Work You Love, also from Creative DC