Creativity is how we solve the problems of living in a way that can bring joy and ease. Flexing creativity takes practice, commitment and patience, like all good things in life.
Elemental Balance
Do you ever feel buried under commitments and obligations, or like life is just a series of waves crashing on you, tossing you around, leaving you gasping for breath, or like your fire has gone out?
A few years ago I started to ache for balance. My intuition told me there had to be another way. I had worked hard to build a life that I wanted, so why did everything feel so unmanageable? My question was answered (as usual) with a book.
“The Missing Element” by Deborah Silverman taught me about the four elements, to understand how they function in me, and what I could do to balance them out.
In ancient astrology, the world is divided up into four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Understanding how these elements exist with in us helps us understand our own tendencies, and how we might help to to balance ourselves when we feel off.
Creativity too can have elemental expressions.
Fire burns through us to express our vision.
Earth grounds us and awakens the senses.
Air gives us an intellectual approach to creativity.
Water opens us up to let new ideas flow from intuition.
As I began to study the elements, observe and play with them in my own life, I began to have a language for what I was experiencing, and what I needed. I had always identified especially with water. I love to be in water, near water, look at water, smell water, drink water. Remember, Bruce Lee told us to be like the nature of water? Water is soothing and renewing. But the problem is that too much will put out fire. My fire was just a flicker, I needed to do something to stoke it so that it could keep me warm, curious and alive.
I created my program Elemental Magic to guide women through the four elements and to share the tools of transformation. You don’t need anything you don’t already have, and you don’t have to live out of balance.
That being said, everything in life is in motion, so balance is an ongoing experiment. Sometimes we burn ourselves out, sometimes we get lost on social media or weighed down with obligations, but we always have choices as to what we do next. Creativity is how we re-imagine our lives and experience more joy and freedom.
If you’d like to learn more, contact me for a discovery call.
Don’t dismiss the elements. Water soothes and heals. Air refreshes and revives. Earth grounds and holds. Fire is a burning reminder of our own will and creative power. Breathe them in. Swallow their spells.. There’s a certain sweet comfort in knowing that you belong to them all. — Victoria Erickson
Not All Coaches Wear Whistles
Artwork by Christine Soja
When I first heard the term “life coach” I’m sure I winced. Growing up in athletics, I was oh so familiar with coaches. There were some good ones, but I’ve had plenty of coaches who motivated with humiliation and competition. Coaches who put winning over everything else. Coaches who crossed the line with inappropriate comments about players’ bodies, abilities, and personal lives.
We are all pretty familiar with coaches in the realm of physical fitness, but the concept of coaching is expanding. Coaches are popping up all over the place: health coaches, financial coaches, ADHD coaches, and it makes sense. We all need support at times in different areas of our lives.
I have used coaches to take many of the big leaps I have taken. When I quit drinking, I used a coach. For the last two years I have been part of a group coaching program where we work to grow beyond our current limits. When I started this business, I used a coach.
Coaching isn’t therapy, which focuses on resolving past traumas with a mental health practitioner. Coaching starts where you are today, and sets you up to tackle challenges to reach the next level.
I learned the about the Karpman Drama Triangle and Empowerment Dynamic from Martha Beck, the Queen of coaches. Before I understood this concept, the thought of becoming a coach was kinda cringy to me. I did not want to be someone who is perceived to have figured it all out, who is saying everyone needs to be more like me. But I do have a deep drive to follow my curiosity, and a dream to work with others who are interested in learning.
Karpman Drama Triangle - I am a victim who needs to be rescued
Persecutor - Victim - Rescuer
In the Karpman model, the person at the center, the client (the one with the “problem”) is seen as a victim. This problem is keeping them stuck, from moving forward and evolving. It is holding them back from living a life they perceive would be better. This problem is caused by the persecutor. The persecutor could be an individual, it could be an institution, it could be society. I was raised on the story of the Princess being rescued by Prince Charming “Someday my prince will come...”
I definitely spent many years hoping that someone would come and rescue me from a myriad of problems. I think women in particular are taught this, and we become quite comfortable blaming our problems on the lack of rescuers. Oh life would be better if only someone would come along and notice me, notice my talents, tell me what to do!
Even if someone does come along to rescue the victim, it can never really work because the rescuer pities the victim. The rescuer sees the victim as helpless, weak and needing to be rescued. This might work in the short term, but the victim will always find another persecutor, and be at the mercy of a rescuer. Therefore never really learning how to wield their own power, free themselves, and life life on their own terms.
Empowerment Dynamic - Every challenge is an opportunity to be creative
Challenge - Creator - Coach
The empowerment dynamic changes everything. In this model, we are not victims, we are creators. We are powerful beyond measure, and we have what we need to create a life that is right for us. That’s not to say we don’t have challenges and problems, that’s not how life works, and frankly, it’s not even desirable. We have challenges, we don’t feel happy, we know there is a better way, we want to have a greater impact, or fulfill a dream that has been living in our hearts for many years.
This is where the coach comes in. The coach is able to work with the creator to see the challenges in a new light. The coach is the witness, the coach is able to be objective and guide the creator to seeing challenges as opportunities. The coach can offer a reframe and witness the creator, which is part of the magic. We all have what we need already, but the irony is that we can’t do it on our own. That is one of the zillion paradoxes of life. When I learned that a coach can work in this way, I felt like I could accept the role. And guess who helped me understand that? A Coach!
If you know something needs a shift, I can help. I have developed a program based on the 4 elements framework to guide you through a process to access your own innate creativity and live with more flow.
Click here to learn more at Art Alchemy or
email me info@art-alchemy.com
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Baby Steps
When a baby learns to walk, does the baby have aspirations of immediately running (and winning) a 100 meter dash? I don’t know… but I do know that something inside that baby decides that it is necessary. Something deep inside the baby says, let’s do this. And the baby body begins the process. The baby follows its intuition and takes the next step toward the goal that it can handle in with it’s doughy, top-heavy frame. Eventually, the baby is walking around like it’s no big deal, and is on to new challenges like grabbing toys and not choking on grapes.
This month, after gentle yet persistent niggling from my intuition, as well as a coach I’ve hired to remind me, I took a wobbly baby step in a direction my intuition has been pointing me toward.
I have been wanting to have conversations about creativity and connection and life. I have spent the majority of my life trying to understand my own desire to make marks on paper, collage magazine images together, and put words on a page. In some way, I know that when I do these things, I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. I feel connected and I feel more whole. When I don’t do those things, I lose myself and become a distracted, grasping, unsettled version of myself.
I want to remind and support other people to take steps toward their intuitive, creative desires. We have all pretty much bought into the idea that we need to keep our physical bodies strong and healthy, why not our creative ones as well? So I am offering to coach women who are ready to take the next baby steps.
What I have learned from these conversations so far is that I am not alone. All of the women I have worked with also know that their creativity is important, yet they aren’t making it a priority. I am able to remind them that when they listen and honor their intuition and creativity, they become a better version of themselves. When we are fully alive, everyone in our lives benefits.
Art Alchemy is a six week private coaching program where we meet once a week to uncover, plan and practice following our intuition. In this way, we continue on the path we started when we learned to walk, one step at a time until it becomes second nature, and the world opens up again.
Visit art-alchemy.com for more info and let’s talk about what your intuition is whispering to you.
At the Water's Edge
Ten years ago I was sitting at the edge of a lake, looking out into the calm blue waters and still waiting for the whisper. And I heard it, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped for. The voice in my head said “You did what you were supposed to do, is this all there is? I immediately felt guilty. This is a lot! I should be grateful for this. I have a supportive partner, two healthy kids, a home, I’m on vacation! This is comfortable and healthy and I am lucky! But the voice wouldn’t go away. I had done all the things and yet still, I could sense that what was missing from my life was me. Soon after that I found The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and while I never dared to call myself an artist before, her teaching was about creating a practice of connecting to my creativity and that practice has grown and morphed and become an opening of joy, connection and self-expression. It has shown me, me.
Creativity Cures
Ten years ago I found myself in a lull. It seemed like many of the questions I had fantasized about as a kid had been answered: Would I ever kiss a boy? Where would I live? What kind of career would I pursue? Would I marry? Would I have kids? And while I could now answer these, there were deeper questions I couldn’t shake: What’s my purpose? How do I contribute? What am I here for?
At the end of that summer, sitting at the edge of the still waters of Great Pond in Maine I gazed out and these bigger questions got louder and louder. This visit to my parents’ cabin provided me the much needed relief from my boys (.5 and 2.5 years old) to be able to begin to hear the questions in the first place. My mother is a student of life and a collector of books of all kinds. In one of her stacks I pulled out Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way.” I’d seen the book before, but my inner voice “you’re not an artist” had kept me from digging in. Now I had the time and the space to open the book and begin.
The practices were gentle and available. I quickly took to the morning pages and made a commitment to follow the book to the end with whatever pockets of time I could create. I had intermittently kept a journal, and the new daily routine of sitting down with paper and pen felt comforting. I wasn’t writing for others, or to publish a book, but just for me, and there is magic in putting words on paper. I truly believe that if we could all commit to connecting to our authentic expression, the world would be a better place.
Today the word creativity feels a cringe-worthy. Creativity is sold in the aisles at Michaels; it’s bedazzling your pocketbook, but it’s so much more. Researcher Brene Brown says “The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.” It is how we express ourselves. It’s taking some unnamed thing inside of us and spinning it into physical reality. We use our hands, an extension of our heart, to make something that wasn’t there before. Brown also says “You want to move stuff from your head to your heart? You’ve got to use your hands.”
Now, as we endure COVID19, we are asked to draw heavily from the well of creativity. How will we make this new way work? Fear may be using a lot of our energy, but if we turn toward creativity, in any form, we can begin to get into the flow. Fortunately, Maya Angelou says, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.” We will figure out how to live in a new way. Our fear of the unknown would have us re-create something as familiar as possible, but is that what we want?
