Tag Archives: honoring life

March 20, 2017

541. Creativity and Self-Creation

By Marlen

§  Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

 

This word right here is ‘close to my heart’ so to speak considering how I have previously conceived creativity in a rather limited way, linking it to artistic skills for the most part and traits within myself and others that would be geared towards expressing oneself in any form of art or doing something ingenious, witty or clever that serves a practical purpose.

However throughout this process with walking the tools of self-support at Desteni, I’ve learned to understand the actual depth of who we are as creators, created and creation, which might sound a bit too ‘out there’ initially – and it certainly does require a vast context that one can find support to walk through step by step in several series that can be found at Eqafe.com. Here I’ll focus on debunking this limited perception of how I can at times still perceive that I can be separate from my ‘creative abilities’ by defining that only related to ‘doing original work’ or creating a particular trademark in relation to artistic creations, instead of realizing that these are all results, the byproduct of a much more intricate and personal self-process of understanding self-creation and the actual ability we have to determine our lives and so our destiny, not only in creating something ‘out there’ but as ourselves, identifying ourselves as our own creators too and honoring that creative ability in our lives.

Here I am therefore giving a step forward from my initial approach to this word as seen in relation to ‘liking another person for being creative’ and taking this word back to myself, to see who am I as this word and how I am living it, what needs to be fine-tuned and what I want to continue creating of myself and my life in the context of being an individual that can stand as an example of what it means to honor one’s creation and one’s contribution to the whole that we are all a part of.

Perceiving that we are not the sole creators of our lives leads to a sense of disempowerment, of ‘atrophy’ in believing that we are always subject to our weaknesses, our faults, our ‘human nature’ in which in my experience can show up at times being very quick to judge things or determine that something is not ‘good enough’ and get doubtful about myself and the totality of what I am doing in a moment, tending to compare myself to others or get impatient in this process of self-creation. All of these aspects are precisely the points that I have to continue working on and being detailed about, because whatever we eventually create and manifest not only as things we do or create in the external world, but every single thought, word and deed will be ultimately influenced by the very core of our being, who we are in every moment of our day = what we accept and allow to determine ourselves in our minds and so in our reality.

What does that mean? I’ve noticed that if I for example accept an experience of pointlessness or defeatism within something that I am doing, and believing that ‘there’s no point for it’ and lose my ground and initial vision to create something in my reality, I am quick to ‘give up’ on it and then judge it as something that ‘just isn’t for me’ and consider that there are ‘others that are better at it, but not me,’ resulting in separating myself from a particular capacity that I simply had to keep practicing and working on, but was very quick to give up to, meaning I didn’t live perseverance on it.

I discovered this when painting last year – which yes, certainly this is what might be considered a ‘formal creative activity’, but I’ve discovered that interestingly enough it is the one thing that had become a point I separated myself from due to reacting to what I was painting and drowning into judgments of pointlessness, dissatisfaction, lacking a purpose in it, ending up losing ground on what I was physically doing as the painting. The outcome? A painting that I was dissatisfied with and that I used as an excuse to say ‘I don’t want to paint anymore, this is useless, it’s futile, I’m done with this, I’m not good at it, there’s no point to it, I just give it up’

What I became aware of within that process is how I created my own outcome in relation to painting entirely through having allowed these judgments, thoughts that translated into emotions creeping up and completely directing myself in that moment as I was painting. I also realized that my very starting point for painting was flawed, because in that one day I was using painting as a way to evade my reality and a particular conflictive situation I was experiencing with someone in my reality, but not dealing with it in myself – so I essentially created my ‘sabotaged outcome’ when attempting to create something while I wasn’t stable within myself  or ‘at my core’ in that moment, and using painting as a way to ‘evade’ instead of being there and create as myself. 

So, who was I as creator in that moment? Evading myself first of all, believing I could create a better experience through painting and forgetting about the inner conflict in relation to something else in my reality. This created an outcome of recreating all of my weaknesses of the past and bringing them through in my act of painting charged with all of these judgments and inner-annoyance that I allowed within myself even before painting and it eventually outflowed into what I ended up painting.

The painting itself stood there for over a year as a reminder of something I left half way through and as a statement of ‘this is why I don’t want to go back to painting again,’ which I knew was unacceptable, but interestingly enough I also procrastinated getting back at it.

A month ago I took that same canvas and reworked it into a different outcome that I decided to experiment with, mostly to precisely in real time work on changing my relationship to painting itself, this time being aware of having a clear starting point, being stable and grounded within myself and my decision and ensuring that I wasn’t entertaining backchats and thoughts of how ‘terrible’ it was or how ‘pointless’ this was, but instead decided that: this is me directing myself to express in this painting, being flexible and open to the outcome of it, not having a fixed idea on it and walking through that resistance that I kept ‘alive’ within me for a year or so to not paint.

While having this clear starting point, of course the ‘usual doubts’ that I had experienced in the past emerged, the notions of ‘I should be doing something else’ and various other judgments, but I decided to continue doing it anyways, continuing directing, not focusing on the ‘result’ only but rather focusing on ‘who I am’ in this whole creative process. And this can stand as a good analogy to our lives where many times we can be very ‘result-based’ and if we don’t manage to create what we want, we drown into a low, a depression, a giving up – instead of rather seeing what can we learn about ourselves in the process of creating ourselves, what skills do we develop, what challenges can we identify and practically work on overcoming? All of this makes any creative process much more enjoyable where we don’t only focus on ‘a result in the future,’ but rather focus on who am I all the step of the way to get to do or become something, which is what matters in the context of life.

This example is a way to illustrate how we are the sole creators of ourselves. If I in that past moment of painting defined myself as not good enough, as having a ‘bad experience’ while painting, then of course the outcome became a reflection on that and I would resist painting after those few hours when I started that painting – and I ‘gave up’  even attempting to do something about it and instead made of my experience ‘who I am’ by letting everyone know how pointless it was to paint, how I am done with arts, how there’s no point to it – lol – now having to eat my words and forgive myself for it because I realized how it was a way of throwing a tantrum as a result of my own self-created sabotage. It was like deliberately cutting an arm off and then believing that “I’m fine without it” This is not only about arts though, but it can be applied to anything else in one’s life.

Another example can be where I go into judgment about an expression in another and remaining with that judgment about another, not questioning, not seeing it as something I actually must debunk within myself and align within myself in order to stand equal to that person – and what happens when I remain in that judgment is I am in fact diminishing my capacity to get to know that other person, to really live the word equality and create that relationship that I can essentially establish with anyone in this world if I decide to create it and nurture it, because it ultimately is our creation: we decide, we make the changes, we live the corrections, we walk the talk so to speak and there one goes.

One can walk through a veil of judgments and into getting to know a person for real, which I’ve personally have experienced various times where there was an initial judgment toward them and through self-forgiving and stopping my participation in those judgments within myself- along with time and in a deliberate decision to get to know them better – I’ve proven myself how much I had ‘made up my mind’ about them and all that I would have prevented myself from creating if I had remained in my mind-patterns.

Self-creation therefore can be as simple as deciding to make a change about a behavior or thought pattern in our lives, we determine it, we decide on it and we ‘give it life’ by integrating such change or point of creation in our day to day living, and that’s precisely what living words is all about as well, where these words won’t ‘come up’ like thoughts or backchat in our minds as a ‘natural flow’ or ‘desire’ even to live and create  – nope, we are unfortunately not hard-wired to live creation as life, we are mostly hard-wire to self-sabotage which is illustrated in what I shared about my relationship with arts and painting when I allowed myself to be dictated by my mind, instead of standing as the directive principle.

My current relationship to self-creation is thus a relationship of self-discovery, self-awareness and ultimately self-empowerment, which comes also with the understanding that in being responsible for all that I am and create, it also gives me that certainty that no matter ‘what’ I create – if I make mistakes, if I ‘fall’, if I go the ‘wrong route’ in my choices, decisions and actions – I can trust myself that I have my self-honesty to assess myself and so do the process with self-writing, self-forgiveness in self honesty, lay out the corrections and stand up again to continue walking.

There’s no excuse anymore to ‘give up’ on something based on a ‘bad experience’ with something, I can instead practically assess what is practical to do, what makes sense to change as well as what’s practical to dedicate my time, breath of life and effort to, to be the sole director of who am I day to day – that’s self-creation right there and accordingly, we also then determine ‘who we will be’ because this reality works in patterns, so we essentially can re-wire or re-write ourselves by imprinting new ways to live from morning to night time, we can decide how we look at our day: a day to create or a day to ‘relive the problems of the past’,  we can decide to be solution-oriented, to learn to live words in moments where we see the emotions or self-sabotage creep up, to make that decision to stand up and be directive in the moment – all of these moment to moment changes and decisions are already a point of self-creation and this is precisely what this process is all about.

So, we are all creative, we all create every single moment –for the good or for the worse – and realizing that ability we all are constantly exercising and learning to honor it and act as creators with integrity, with self-respect and regard to life can truly be the way to change the fabric of the relationships we create in this world.

Also, I remind my-self not to be discouraged if things don’t work as intended in terms of change in a few first set of times, it takes practice, it takes diligence, it takes focus, it takes dedication and a commitment to self, which are all words we have to also learn to practice, live and integrate into the fabric of our very being, considering that they are also not ‘natural’ aspects in ourselves for now, but they can become part of us with the same diligence and consistency one applies to learn or create anything in reality.

We live in a physical reality, so patience is very relevant, persevering is the actual word here to look at which is also a timely reminder for me, to not lose sight of what I create on a daily basis and always see it within the greater context as well of contributing to create and bring life into the physical through my day to day living.

Sounds great isn’t it? But it takes actual work to do, so my only suggestion is to consider this creative capacity we all have and decide who we want to be as artists creating ourselves as our own masterpiece, one that we will live with and embody for the rest of our lives.

Thanks for reading

 

Multiple Possibilities to Express

 

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February 27, 2017

520. Self-Accountability and Tough Love

By Marlen

Or understanding and realizing the necessary nature of applying ‘tough love’ in order to honor our own lives and that of others in the name of what’s best for all.

Many times while being in relationships we lose track of our personal self-agreement and where we stand in personal principles and self-support because of perceiving that a relationship is an entity created between ‘two individuals’ – and yes in normal relationships this is how it goes where a lot of compromise and fears as well as positive experiences can be defined through the sum of two individuals existing ‘for each other’ and depending ‘on each other’ completely at an emotional or feeling level – which means at a mind level. However within this process from consciousness to self-awareness the notion of ‘relationships’ is redefined as the creation of an agreement where one or more people agree to support themselves to be the best version of themselves and do whatever is necessary to align themselves to the principles of life, of equality and oneness, of self-honesty and self-support.

Therefore it is about ‘who we are as individuals’ in a relationship where it doesn’t matter if one in the relationship isn’t aware of this process from consciousness to awareness, one can establish a self-agreement with ourselves in honoring these principles and ensuring that we work with our self-change and self-responsibility, honoring one’s life first and foremost.

This means that one’s personal point of focus should not be on what the other person does or doesn’t do to support themselves but instead, what defines us as individuals in the relationship is where we stand all the way in it, who we are in our lives, our principles,  how we work through our own patterns, how we apply our points of change, how we confront situations of conflict, how we are willing to let go of a righteousness and ego in order to recognize and so change one’s own faults and problems. And yes, at the same time decide for ourselves if one is willing to and is able to stand in a relationship where one knows the other person is not supporting themselves or standing in a principle of self-support at the very least – that decision and choice becomes part of our self-honesty as in seeing what we accept and allow ourselves to live with or not.

Here focusing on myself within the creation of a relationship, I found this point of personal accountability or ‘self-accountability’ to be quite supportive as in ‘keeping track’ of myself, who we are, what I’ve done or haven’t done in my self-relationship of self-support.  

In past relationships I would condition ‘me changing’ according to ‘others changing too’ or others showing or demonstrating that they were also doing their part, which becomes the perfect recipe for spite and developing an extremely conditional nature in our minds where the focus is on ‘others’ and not on oneself at all. Therefore this time I decided to not condition myself according to ‘another one’ and instead stick to my self-agreement where I can be able to recognize where I am reacting, where I am not defining me and my change in relation to ‘the relationship with another’ only or re-enacting past relationship patterns; and in general where I am conditioning my own point of change in relation to others changing as well or others looking into ‘their own problems or faults’ too, which is also a covert point of blame and ‘focusing on another’ only instead of entirely focusing on oneself.

Here I share this as a cautionary tale so that one takes into consideration not creating this kind of spite and expectations within a relationship where if one is holding the other accountable first and focusing on what another does or doesn’t do to then decide to change or not change,  the whole point of self-accountability and self-responsibility becomes null within oneself, because then we turn our focus and attention into blaming others for not doing their part, for not changing, for not living up to our expectations, and that’s definitely a point of self-dishonesty for the person that is keeping the finger pointed ‘at others’ only, but is not focusing or even willing to look back to self first.

What I’ve learned to do is to focus on myself entirely – and no, this is not ‘selfishness’ as it might be perceived, but a basic aspect of self-responsibility and accountability within a self-agreement within which I decided to step into the creation of a relationship with another. Therefore this allowed me to work every time on letting go of my expectations of what I wanted the other person to do or be for myself – yet also speaking up whenever something was very obvious to be opened up for their own awareness and self-work. At the same time, I had to also be considerate of another’s life, mind, characters and ‘ways of being’ that I learned to adjust in quite an effective manner – though also of course being ready and willing to draw a line whenever something is out of the agreed best for all and self-supportive habits and ways in our shared living.

This latter point of ‘drawing a line’ whenever one sees that a basic principle of committing to self-support in a relationship that is established at the beginning of a relationship is not being followed through, is what might be defined as ‘tough love’ where one is willing to be first of all accountable to oneself and so another in the sense that: in self-honesty and within the consideration of what’s best for all, allowing the other person to face for example the breakup of a relationship as the best way for them to realize what each one is doing to themselves and how not following through a self-agreement leads to consequences or results that are compromising for all individuals involved.

This outcome of applying ‘tough love’ is a necessity and an aspect of establishing an agreement – either with another or alone within oneself as self-agreement – where if the basic points of self-responsibility, self-honesty and self-support are not being lived in thought, word and deed and is causing consequences for each other’s lives, then one has to honor the starting point of the relationship redefined as an ‘agreement’ between two or more – and so all parts can agree how it is best to let go of the relationship in order to assist each other to face the points, the aspects where we didn’t stand up in it all.

It’s just like any contract or creation of a society as well or ‘team’ that exist to create, build, direct, expand, work on something – and if the basic functionality of this is not existent then it simply makes sense to dissolve the union and work on an individual basis to strengthen and change the points that led to the failure or inconsistency in the joint process.

This might seem like a harsh move or ‘insensible’ because of not considering people’s feelings but that’s exactly what we have to stop blinding ourselves with if we are to truly honor our lives. It might also sound like not being considerate, not being patient or not being lenient enough– but that’s also where self-accountability is a great way to measure ‘who we’ve been’ within the whole relationship or point of creation in our lives.

For example in my case realizing that I have in fact developed patience, consideration, flexibility, unconditional support, doing to another what I would like another to be an do for themselves, working to stop my own expectations, stopping being so exigent, being less controlling (yep still working on that one!) and be able to reference all of it with another who also in self-honesty would be able to recognize what has been done or hasn’t been done by each one in the relationship.

Therefore what I’ve realized is that what might be initially perceived as ‘tough love’ is from my perspective a very necessary measure to apply to allow another person to understand the nature of self-creation, to understand the consequences of not living up to one’s utmost potential and that includes of course myself first of all, where I can also see and become aware of my own points of compromise, my choices, my decisions, assessing ‘where I am’ and ‘where I am going next’ which yes would be directed to a supportive outcome and potential within a relationship. However this is precisely what I have to leave clear for myself and so share here as a general reminder for anyone reading: there is a vast and visible difference between seeing a ‘potential’ in a relationship and in one another and living such potential or actively working to become that potential and having physical reality proof of that in thought, word and deed as the nature of who we are at all times.

This is how in personal accountability, we can establish our own clarity to see who we are, what we have done or haven’t done, who we’ve been within an entire point of self-creation and hold ourselves accountable for it. This ability to ‘see ourselves’ and recognize our pros and cons to self-creation and be determined to acknowledge them is the essence of truly loving ourselves, caring for ourselves and so another – so that we can acknowledge it, face it, understand it and commit ourselves to work on it. This is the essence of this process and the essence of living in self-agreement within a relationship.

Based on these principles, whenever we see that reality is not ‘adding up’ to the self-agreements established at the beginning of a relationship, where the relationship itself can become a comfort zone for both individuals to not genuinely change and step out of the recurring patterns of self-diminishment in our minds and lives, then it is necessary to end such relationship in order to honor our lives, our individual processes and potentials, to be of more ‘good than harm’ in having to face ourselves individually rather than together which is an outcome that varies from context to context and all based on each one’s decision – and I’m here sharing it to have the courage to do so whenever it is needed and consequences are knocking at the door.

What is the benefit? What does one ‘gain’ or ‘gifts’ oneself from holding oneself accountable and so another in that agreement or ‘redefined relationship’? The gift of responsibility, of acknowledging our creation, of owning our creation, of developing integrity, self-respect, honoring each other’s lives even if that means having to separate to precisely understand the consequences we create for oneself and another if we don’t stand by our self-commitment to change.

This becomes a living statement, making it clear to one another that what’s best for all is to continue working on such self-agreement as self-support yet no longer within a relationship.

This is where one has to step beyond the self-interest of ‘keeping a relationship’ where compromise exists and where we might ‘hold it all up’ based on fears of letting go or settling to a point of ‘least effort’ in oneself in order to truly stand in that absolute self-agreement within oneself and so in relationship to others.

This is how then within Self-Accountability – which implies being able to take responsibility for one’s life, in self-honesty from beginning to end of our lives – one has to make decisions, to take charge of one’s ‘destiny’ and not leave it to the hands of hope or fate or even ‘potential change’, but directly act and do what’s needed to truly own our creation, to understand the consequences we are creating for ourselves and others in our lifetime and be able to stand in a position where it’s only ourselves, individually, that can decide if we fall or if we stand up – but not any longer ‘trapping’ oneself and others into consequential outcomes, such as it happens in any relationship or joint project, work situation or anything else where instead, each individual can assess their situation and therefore understand when it is best to ‘go back to the drawing board’ in order to be most effective in working, living, sharing oneself with another and standing in that self-commitment to be the best version of ourselves and so to each other in this lifetime.  

Here it is also where one’s personal self-interest is overridden to living principles, where a relationship or partnership, friendship, any ‘joint effort’ with others that is not resulting in a best for all outcome can be assessed and either worked on individually or cease to exist as such if the proof in physical reality is showing that it is not leading to a visible and tangible point of change in who we are in thought, word and deed.

Ultimately how I see it is that each one of us will have to walk through ‘tests’ of who we are in our lives: are we life or are we in the mind? Do we decide to settle in for a point of compromise and self-limitation and eventual destructive consequences or do we decide to stand in self-honesty even if it means having to ‘give up’ something that we find very comfortable and supportive in ‘some’ aspects  of our lives? That’s what I defined as the eye of the needle in my case, that one ‘point’ that we have defined as our weakness, our ‘tough points’ to walk through where we face a seemingly difficult choice: our mind or life, our personal interest or what is best for all?

What I’ve found is that even if it means having to cause some perceived ‘undesirable outcomes’ for my self-interest, what prevails in me and what I decide to always stand for is life, and life takes no ‘middle ways,’ because I know for myself how ‘full-fledged’ one has to be in terms of taking life seriously and living as such in thought, word and deed. Not about knowledge and information here or ‘pledging alliance to life’ as an ideological orientation – that’s what the world is filled with and shows no change at all. Nope.

This is about demonstrating with our whole being where we decide to stand in our lives, who we decide to be in every moment of our lives and yes, I know it sounds very challenging or even absolutist, but it is only common sensical to set the bar so ‘high’ for oneself considering how long we’ve been living in personal recycling processes of doing the least effort, repeating the same mistakes, leading ourselves to a path of self-destruction, of irresponsibility, dishonor and plain inconsideration towards our very own life.

I have expressed many times in my life how I want to change the world, how I cannot accept the ways in which we’ve existed in this world because it’s quite evident where we’ve gotten ourselves to in such repetitive patterns, habits and ‘ways’ of our human nature. Therefore life itself embedded in ourselves and our very creations leads us to find ‘who we truly are’ in our choices, in our decisions, in our stance – and I am quite committed to continue being accountable to myself because at the end of the day, it’s not about ‘fulfilling my mind’s desires’, it’s about the person I can live with for the rest of my life, the person that I can fully stand with every single breath of the way and that’s precisely the one person I can only ever truly change and take responsibility for: myself.

This is the marvel as well of this process where even if we would like to assist others, to give an ‘opportunity’ of self-change for another, to provide the necessary tools and environment to ‘give themselves a chance,’ it can only ever be supportive if the person decides to do all of this entirely for themselves as well and take it seriously all the way. Otherwise it won’t stand and one will be left as the ‘person that tried to save another that wasn’t willing to do it for themselves.’ I’ve definitely have had enough of this pattern so: till here no further.

Some ‘tough love’ is necessary for me to integrate in my ways of supporting others, not only in relationships as ‘partnerships’ or ‘agreements’ as defined within this process, but with every person that I am in contact with through familial bonds, friendships and relationships of self-support within this process as well. That’s the best I can do to honor myself, what I’ve figured out I am able to do and stand as for and as myself which means: if I can, others can do it too.

Thanks for reading.

Lastly a great quote from an audio I’ll cite here:

 

“…so many of us face in so many different dimensions of (being) afraid of speaking up, afraid of saying what we see, afraid of really being direct and sometimes knowing you have to be hard and intense and show some tough love but not be afraid to lose the person. Because I think, actually you know what happens if you don’t do that? You do actually lose the person, and you lose yourself because you’re losing them to the mind and you’re losing a part of yourself because you’re not being honest.” Sunette,  Compromising for Love (Part 2) – Relationship Success Support

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Creation as LIFE

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