I saw an amazing theatre production a few days ago. While I generally enjoy going to the theatre anyway, what impressed me so much about this particular production was the impeccable attention to detail from EVERYONE involved, from the director, to those playing the lead roles, to the sweet little boy who played a younger brother, to everyone behind the scenes.

The result showed up as a spectacular production that put everyone watching into that lovely hypnoidal state of being completely absorbed in the experience.

That level of impeccable work from so many people working together has to stem from passion. There has to be a real passion to prepare on that involved a level and to do a performance like that over and over again. Dedication has to be involved too of course but without the passion, dedication can get quite dull rather quickly!

The price of the ticket doesn’t even begin to cover the gift we were given as a result of the fire and enthusiasm from that group of people. I sat back and received this gift with the delight of a child!

Of course it got me thinking about how this applies to our daily lives.  My own essence is one of an artist. My passion is creating stories. I write more than I express them physically – I have 5 WIPs at the moment (though my novels do tend to have ‘infinity issues’) – but ‘story’ permeates every level of our lives. Even here at Boost Your Vibe, I not only have mostly artists and seriously creative people as clients (so I’m well aware of the chaos that occurs before the impeccable production!), but the whole coaching process I use involves story.

But I’m going to have to share with you something that is slightly embarrassing.

My own dedication towards what I’m passionate about has not impeccable lately. Every interaction with clients has been fine, but my dealings with my own creative work has not. I was part of an intense  writers conference a couple of months ago and I immersed myself in it so deeply for a week that I forgot about self-care – I think I burnt out a bit. Since then, I’ve not been up to scratch in this area. I don’t dedicate as much time as I used to, towards sitting down with a beautiful blank piece of paper and a pen. I can’t sink into it like I used to. I let my tiredness be an excuse for not letting my passion drive my creative projects towards exquisite expression and most importantly, drive me to feel self-actualised.

While it’s only been a couple of months for me, I have seen people put off what they’re passionate about for years. I have seen that inertia creep up and choke the joy out of someone’s fire – sometimes without the person even realising it. A life goes by, wasted on what isn’t really important and details that are not even remembered … for no good reason. Because of procrastination and settling for numbing comfort instead of dancing into the fullness of one’s self.

So my questions to you today are:

Have you allowed your fire to go out about something that is important to you?

Have you been putting off what gives you supreme joy with one excuse or another?

I’m not talking about just creative work but anything that feels oh so good! when you do it. It can be sports or tinkering with the engine of a car or taking your kids on nature walks … whatever makes you happy.

Have you been putting off the most important things in your life, the things that give your life a deeper meaning?

If you have, what is ONE SMALL STEP you can take in the next 24 hours, to get back into it? Will you make the decision to do it, to find even 10 or 15 minutes even if it’s only to plan your next step?

This last week shook me out of my 6 week sludge. Tonight I am going to watch the new Dr. Who (thank you Steven Moffat, storyteller extraordinaire) then after a juicy chat over coffee with my friend Anne, I have firm plans to sit down with a crisp new notebook and scribble to my heart’s content. Worlds will be built, motivations will be uncovered and my characters will just have to deal with the monsters that show up.

And my heart will feel as big as the world …

Chrissy

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 23rd, 2011 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.