I love this question: “What do you love enough to create?” Robert Fritz, pioneer in understanding the creative process, posed it at a workshop I recently attended. He was discussing the natural inclination of the creator to focus on her creation—not self—during any creative process.
Fritz emphasizes this focus in his aptly titled book, Creating:
“Creating is not therapy, not psychology…not religion, not a science, and not a method to bring you riches, happiness, rewards, and success. It is a method for you to bring creations into the world. Creating is not designed to heal you, fix you, or satisfy you, but a way in which you can bring your talents, energies, actions, imagination, reason, intuition, and yes, even love to the creation you desire.” (Pp.19-20)
While writing comforts me and developing the Parent Coach Certification® Training Program certainly has been immensely satisfying, I have to agree with Fritz that creating’s central purpose is to bring about the creation itself. And it is the love for that creation that propels and compels the completion—especially during the predictable rough patches.
As you probably know, creating usually takes heavy doses of self-discipline mixed with plenty of persistent patience. Yet, with love, we’re steeled to do whatever it takes to birth our creation. Fueled by heart energy, we confront risky odds or meet impossible deadlines—maybe not entirely with ease, but at least with peace of mind. Hey, we’re in love—we’ve got the energy to do this!
Everything is allowed, except interrupting a manifestation of love. Paulo Coelho
So what do you love enough to create?
This doesn’t have to be a huge major deal. It can be a tender, seemingly trivial thing that becomes golden when centered in your love. One example comes to mind.
Growing up in a traditional Italian household, we lingered after meals, talking up a storm. This was especially true when relatives came to visit (and they came often), turning a random mundane weekday evening into a Party—with a capital P. Convivial conversations, boisterous laughter, even earnest debates regularly surrounded my family table. Loving connections filled my childhood’s air. I loved the essential feeling of these family gatherings so much I was determined to give this same experience to my sons.
Yet, without any extended family members in our locale, I was challenged to pull this off—especially during the times I was a single Mom. But, I loved what I was determined to create, so what could stop me?
I did little things that you know if you are a parent, delight children. While very young, I made up conversation games for them to play at the table after eating. And sometimes even while they ate they chose brightly colored strips of paper where I had written questions to spur their thoughts in case they couldn’t think of something to talk about. I even instigated this during the teen years, amid, the “Oh, Mom’s.” They lived through it and I learned much more about their day, their trials and triumphs, than I would have known without such tactics.
Over the years we approximated that connected feeling of Italian table discussions. While we didn’t perfect it to the degree I would have liked, occasionally on Sunday brunch days or Friday night pizza nights, I saw my sons and husband getting lost in each other’s ideas. I witnessed real respect and mutual give and take, while a definitive new aliveness grew in the room. How I enjoyed these times around the family dinner table!
I worked to keep such moments alive in other places, too. (When we love something, how do we ever get enough of it?) For instance, I made it a point to serve dessert after we watched a movie together as a family. They wanted the goodies, so I got the goods on their thoughts. When we went out to see films together, my husband and I tried to arrange a meal or snack afterwards for the same purpose.
Alive conversations became my family’s norm, I do believe, because I was intent on making that happen. And what I have found over the years, whether creating energetic family discussions, or writing a book or preparing a workshop, there are ways to create what we love, if we love it enough.
The trick is figuring out what we love enough to create. Then, it’s all downhill from there.
Copyright, Gloria DeGaetano, 2015. All rights reserved.