Let's talk spiritual creativity

Man's greatest asset is his mind. With it, he has the power to turn negative thoughts into positive, a question into an answer, and tragedy into triumph--a power which I believe resides in a person's spirituality, in other words, who that person is at his very core.

Maybe not always (if we consider the Edgar Allen Poes in the world), but for the most part I think the creative mind has the ability to think it's way out of trouble. Yet, it's the follow-up action that will make the most impact on how a challenge is addressed. Therefore, I think a person who denies his creativity also denies his ability to problem-solve--and he does it at the detriment of who he really is.

I think this is why Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, has been so successful. It addresses this internal struggle. And it has helped so many people learn how to tap into their own creativity and live a more complete life. That's where a person's ultimate success lies--within his potential, that part of him that illustrates who he really is as a spiritual being, his inner core.

I remember telling my son something like this when he was having a terrible time in high school. He wasn't spending enough time studying. He expected to just know things. He wasn't developing his mind's ability to absorb information. He wasn't developing his confidence. He was just getting by. When his grades didn't match what he thought his grades should be, he had a hard time dealing with the truth; he needed to spend more time studying. I tried explaining to him that he wasn't living up to his ability, but he didn't want to hear that. He wanted it to be because his teachers wouldn't let him debate things. Or, because this or that teacher didn't like him.

It was only later, a few years after he'd dropped out of college, when he realized he could have done better. But now he has a family, and it's not as simple to go back to school. He's a good example of how we can do ourselves a huge disservice when we fail to grow our potential in order to discover who we really are inside. Rather than risk failing, he failed to do. He had put so much emphasis on the grade itself that he didn't realize the growth he would have gotten had he put more emphasis on the work.

This doesn't mean he'll never grow his potential. It just means he'll have to be much more creative about it. He'll have to work even harder. And if he's smart, he won't allow giving up to be an option. He needs to do some more work on who he really is within so that he can discern what he needs to do without. But how, you ask? He might consider looking to Holy Scripture for thoughts on how to connect with your greater good. For me, that would be a derivation of 1 Corinthians 13:

TRUST
First and foremost, you have to trust that the creativity is there. Just by being you, the living human being that you are, you've been given a mind. You can choose to use it to think through any challenge set before you.

FAITH
You have to have faith in your ability to look at a challenge as only the beginning. When you do that, you'll realize that it has to have an end. That's the only logical conclusion. Beginnings beget endings. They just do.

HOPE
You must have hope that you will find the solution. Nothing in life is worse than a person without hope, a person who cannot see light at the end of that dark tunnel. We've all been there. We've all seen it in one form or another. Without hope, the darkness stays. With hope, you know you'll find your way out. And you will be prepared to do what it takes to get there.

LOVE
You must love yourself enough to accept your weaknesses so that you can seek out what you need to build on your strengths. That means you will gladly reach out to others who might know better than you. You will not let pride get in the way. Instead, you embrace humility.

From there, you will find peace. You have done all that you can. The rest is up to the universe.

I am also a big fan of concentrating on the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22):

• Love
• Joy
• Peace
• Patience
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness
• Self-control

When I was going through my divorce, I wrote these words out on a Post-it Note and stuck it up on a kitchen cupboard I looked at daily. The words reminded me of what I wanted in my life. I saw them as a guide, my values. By focusing on what you value, you can tap into who you really are, thus, freeing up your ability to tap into the more productive and creative way to respond to any challenge. In the end, how you respond is what really matters. Don't you agree?

(Photo of the creatively painted truck was taken by Jackie Dishner in Globe, Ariz., 2009)