This Inspired Life

The garden is looking quite lovely right now. With the summer heat and sun finally here, I've noticed a huge growth spurt in nearly everything. Yah! Here are a few images from around the garden.

If you haven’t already, you may want to read my brief review for more information on the book The Creative Entrepreneur, by Lisa Sonora Beam. As well, here is a post about the first exercise in the book.

Chapter 3 is titled "Soul Proprietor: Building with Creative Blocks", and it's pretty intense. It challenged my thinking and even some of my truths about how my brain works. Lisa writes that what we creatives think of as a "block" is really an opportunity for growth; however, "without the proper orientation to creative blocks, creating can feel like going off the deep end." I feel like that a lot. I can't seem to focus on one thing for a long stretch, which is likely why some people think of me (myself included) as slightly nutty, and extremely sensitive.

I circled items in the list of attributes for both the left and right brain. While I definitely feel I have more qualities on the right (12, versus 5 on the left), there were a few surprises for what I circled on the left: manifests conscious awareness, has clear priorities and written lists, focuses on details and facts, reads instruction manuals, and is future oriented. (I always thought it was a tad strange that I'm an instruction-manual reader. I need to see the pictures or it's near impossible for me to figure out how something works.)

The most interesting thing I learned from this chapter is that whenever we do something with our non-dominant side of the brain, we actually strengthen the dominant side; thus, we become better at our natural abilities. Neat, huh? So, um, I'm guessing this takes some practice? Because I've been quite creative lately, and still no sign of increased left brain activity; specifically, external focus, accomplishing one task at a time, planning, time management, and generating conclusions and clarifying steps for the achievement of my goals. My brain is feeling rather "messy" lately.

The chapter contains a visual journal exercise for discovering your left brain / right brain capacities, and I wanted to share mine with you.

Clicky for the biggy.

"Creativity is the soul's journey," says Lisa, and she's bang on. It doesn't matter what your career is, what your hobbies are, how you think, what your relationships are like...no matter who you are and what you do, creativity in the widest possible sense of the word is essential to learning the most and being the best of who you already are inside. Stimulating both sides of our brains is the antidote for this, and the collage above is a great example of this.

How do you exercise your brain?

One of the things I love about a garden is that nearly every day there is something new to marvel at. And to know that I had a small hand in creating such beauty, it literally brings me an immense feeling of joy and a deeper connection to the earth.

The tomato plants are growing like crazy, and many of them need to be planted up to bigger pots, but the weather has prevented me from putting the time in to harden them off. It's been cold at night, raining a lot, and windy. I tried about a dozen a couple of week ago, and they absolutely did NOT like being outside. They rebelled. Leaves withered or turned spotty. A couple of them just let go, flopped over and expired. So I brought them inside and I've been waiting impatiently for the weather to turn. One nice day, then rain. Mother Nature just keeps doing an about-face on us here on the West Coast. Let's just say I'm looking forward to getting the grow op our of my studio! The fruit flies are starting to drive me crazy.

The garden is flourishing though, as you can see in the slideshow below. I made a couple succulent hanging baskets, which I'm totally in love with. So pretty. I seeded eight or so runner beans, and after 10 days nothing was coming up. So I left them by the back door, thinking they were over-watered and not warm enough. Whaddya know, a few days later one pops up. Yah! Then the next week another one. Just on Saturday, as I was bringing the tray to the potting area for removal of the dirt, I noticed that another one had sprouted! Maybe it's warm enough now - I think I'll go out shortly and seed a few more.

As for the veggie garden, things are growing slowly. Some of the kale is doing really well, while others are struggling. The lettuce is still tiny. A lot of the carrots didn't seem to germinate, so I'm going to plant some more today or tomorrow. One day a couple week ago I found that a deer had walked right through the raised bed and munched on a few things, mainly the parsley, dill, and a couple garlic stems. I think this week it's time to put up a deer fence around the bed. The peas are beginning to grow a lot faster. I ate a shoot last night and it was absolutely delicious. Yah!

Oh goodness, where to begin.

Job hunting sucks. The whole game plays with your mind. And not in a tic-tac-toe kind of way, where after a few matches you figure out how to win nearly every time. It's more like in a mud wrestling kind of way: you didn't want to play in the first place, and then you got your ass kicked and you're covered in mud. Then you realize everyone's staring at you because your bathing suit top is not where it's supposed to be. Yeah, that's what job hunting is like. It makes me feel embarrassed. Awkward. Inferior.

I look at my résumé and I think, holy crap, you've got mad skills girl! My friends and family tell me this, too. And then I think, hey, you're nice too, really friendly and personable. I've never met anyone who didn't like me! So why can't I land an interview (I've had three), much less a job that pays more than $12 an hour? That's when the questions start rambling through my head. The demon questions...

My entire life I have bounced between standing in the shadows of others and living my life out of the ordinary. Because of this, I have learned much about myself. That doesn’t mean I’ve succeeded yet in becoming the best of me. I struggle with a lack of prolonged motivation and self-discipline, a burning desire for instant gratification, and an addiction to spending money. These are the demons I am fighting. I feel I’m losing. I’ve been losing the battle for most of my life. Otherwise I wouldn’t be 36, unemployed, broke and in debt. My weaknesses keep me from being the remarkable human being I know I am. (Who's to blame for that?) Or perhaps that is simply a veiled attempt at hiding my fear. And laziness.

Keeping a journal and writing for the front page magazine here is hard. Really hard. And stressful for someone with generalized anxiety. I want it to be remarkable in every way and that idea of perfection causes me "action paralysis". Which seems so silly because you should see the list of article ideas, special features and more that I have planned for This Inspired Life. But maybe my focus is missing. Did I miss a crucial step?

Seth Godin tells us how to be remarkable, but it’s not as easy as following his 10 steps. Actually, they aren’t even steps. Most of those points contain information, not instructions. Besides, I pretty much know all that information. I need to learn how to commit to being remarkable.

This is all coming up today because we went to see David Gray last night at the Royal Theatre (my review will be online tomorrow), and while David and his incredibly talented band captivated me, I kept thinking about being remarkable. Because David is remarkable. His intensity and engagement with the music demanded respect from every single person in the audience. It was also powerfully inspirational for me.

I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m damn scared and I don’t know why.