My father was a tough man with a tough life. He was a war refugee and learned from a young age to survive and take care of his twin sisters alone. He was Basque, so the blood of warriors ran through his veins. He studied hard, worked hard, and became a highly successful engineer. His personal relationships, however, were disastrous, because he was extremely difficult.
I believe that my father died of cancer much earlier than he should have because while forging ahead he forgot to have fun. In spite of his conventional and overly mentalized approach to life, he loved art. If he were alive today, I’d counsel him to carve the time to take an art class or do some painting on his own, just for the fun of it. His life would have been so much lighter had he given himself the joy of a creative endeavor!
I often recommend my clients to further explore their self-expression by opening their creative gates in some way. Not only is it therapeutic to get out of your head by focusing on a creative task; it also connects you to the Divine Feminine within that holds the power to shape the life you want. And above all, it is fun! Joy comes from the spiritual layer of the soul and helps you transcend the ego-mind, which usually turns life into something too serious, heavy, or grayish.
Since it wants to remain in control, the ego creates resistance when you’re enjoying yourself, especially if you are enjoying something by yourself. Unconscious guilty or anxious feelings slowly creep in and before you know it, you’re experiencing some drama that taints your reality, questioning your choices, suffering physical symptoms, or having the blahs because things seem pointless.
Life can sometimes resemble a roller coaster, but if you have something to connect you to yourself, then you don’t feel like floating in space trying to grab any ballast to regain control (relationships, addictions, compulsions, material things, and so on). You can center yourself with an activity that makes the world around you disappear and puts you “in the zone.” It becomes a meditative practice that engages all of you, including the physical senses.
Anchor Yourself In Yourself
Once you develop the discipline to invest time and energy in your creative endeavor regularly, you can go back to it if you need to re-center yourself and you can also transfer the feelings of joy it brings to other activities and to life in general. Now you know that if you’re not having fun, you’re either doing something you shouldn’t be doing or you’re not doing it right. That is, your emotional compass is pointing at something you need to review or your ego-mind is trying to regain control.
How can you tell the difference? Well, it comes from the ongoing experience of being centered in yourself. Without a clear emotional anchor, it’s hard to discern whether your desires and impulses are reactions triggered from a wounded place or truly conscious choices. Anything that stretches your comfort zone is followed by pressure and discomfort, so those aren’t good indicators; no growth is possible without some type of discomfort because you’re breaking old patterns that carry a lot of energy.
The ego-mind knows you better than yourself and has access to your subconscious, so it can easily trick you to create chaos or overwhelm when you take steps to free yourself from its grip. The goal is to keep you stuck in the past, repeating the same patterns that shaped it when you were a child. So if you are feeling the same way you’ve felt for years and haven’t yet discovered how to have fun in life, no matter what your circumstances, you can bet you’re not in charge yet.
The truth is, fun is not the result of anything external, but an attitude based on where you place your awareness. Meditation brings you in alignment with your soul while creating a buffering, empty space where love, clarity, and insight can come forth. Focusing on a creative endeavor can have a similar effect. It’s much easier to concentrate on it, because your physical body is involved and there is no need to dodge your thoughts; you may simply observe them as they come while fully absorbed in what you’re doing.
In fact, if you’ve developed a creative self-discipline, you can reach meditative states much quicker and easily because your ego-mind is less resistant. The analogy of slowly boiling a frog before it jumps out of the pot comes to mind. In the process, you also pierce through the layers of your soul to experience contentment and joy. So contact me today to learn other tools and tricks to regain mastery of your mind and live the fulfilling, soul guided life that is your birthright!
© 2015 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.