Failures as Opportunities

  • Failures as Opportunities

    “Life is trying things to see if they work.” — Ray Bradbury

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray:

    I recently met a man in line for coffee who works for a company that offers technology for grade schools that allows learning to be personalized to the level of the individual student so each can get the specific support they need. I love hearing about such innovative practices.

    As we talked he mentioned a report about why gaming is so popular among the young. Even though they experience an 85 to 90% failure rate as they play, they learn from their mistakes and get better in the process. “It gives them a safe place to fail” he said.

    I love that idea. “That’s exactly like creativity,” I responded. It’s why as a creativity coach I encourage people to fall in love with the process. Just like the experience of gamers, when we relax and play with the process we learn and grow and that feels really good. It’s also the only way we can create something new, original and authentic.

    Our culture and educational systems teach us that mistakes aren’t okay; that there are real negative consequences to making mistakes; that we actually can fail. Yet the only way we learn is by our willingness to fail, and discover what works and what doesn’t.

    So how do we give ourselves a safe place to fail, when the world around us doesn’t support that. What if our heart and soul know the value of failure. What is the safe place to fail is the love, kindness and encouragement we can extend ourselves from that deeper place of knowing regardless of how the world sees it?

    From my own years of writing I have had countless pages of stories and poems that never really took off and were never finished. I always instinctively knew that this was part of the learning process of being a writer. Enjoying the process without being attached to a particular outcome gave me a safe place to learn and grow. This allowed me to finish pieces that gave me a deep sense of satisfaction.

    I love the story of Steve Jobs, who after being fired from Apple, went to work for Pixar films and entered into one of the most creative times in his life. Rather than seeing it as a failure he saw it as an opportunity. Can we learn to do that for ourselves? What does our safe place to fail look like? How can we create that to ourselves?

    Wishing you the joy of playing with your creativity, Suzanne

    Originally posted on Suzanne’s Blog, Creativity Goes Wild as “Giving Yourself A Safe Place to Fail.”

    Suzanne’s many talents: Creativity Coaching, Writing Process Coaching & EFT Sessions

    THE HEART OF WRITING COACHING

    Do you want to ignite your creativity and show up to your writing on a regular basis or go deeper into the process and craft?

    Suzanne offers online coaching to support you and coach you through any resistance or problems along the way. She holds the space of unconditional acceptance and support to nurturing your unique voice and work on the stories that are important to you.

    The Heart of Writing eBook

    Jumpstart the Process, Find Your Voice, Calm the Inner Critic and Tap the Creative Flow

    CREATIVITY COACHING

    Suzanne offers practical, emotional, and soulful strategies to help you uncover your creative gifts and support you in expressing them.

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)
    Combining Western psychology with Chinese acupressure, EFT works to rewrite subconscious patterns and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck.

    Marlene C

    , , , , ,

  • Just Walk!

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray suggests walking to inspire creativity.

    WALKING HELPS YOUR CREATIVITY

    When you are engaged in a project and feel the creative inspiration has dried up, take a break.

    Anything that occupies the consciousness mind in a physical way can open you to the flow of fresh ideas and insights. Doing the dishes or taking a shower are good ways. One of my favorites is taking a walk. You could simply stroll around the block or walk deep into nature.

    I have not been alone in my awareness that walking opens creative channels. There is a long list of well known creatives who walked to allow ideas and connections to flow. Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf, William Wordsworth, Nikola Tesla, Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Beethoven to name but a few.

    Scientific studies have now found that creative problems can indeed be solved by walking, especially in nature. While walking, the brain undergoes physiological changes that lower frustration and stress, increase your awareness and engagement with the world, allow for a natural meditative state and improve your mood. All of this helps you to experience more creative connections and flow.

    Walking on a regular basis has also been shown to be good for your brain. It promotes new connections between brain cells, reduces atrophy of brain tissue that can come with age, increases the volume of the hippocampus, part of the brain important for memory, and stimulates the growth of new neurons.

    Walking also allows you to balance two states that enhance creativity.

    Mindfulness, where you are present in the moment, and mind wandering or daydreaming, where you allow ideas, connections, dreams and visions for the future to come to us from the deeper realms of consciousness.

    Next time you are looking for some creative inspiration, take a walk.

    If you aren’t used to walking or don’t have a lot of time, simply start with a walk around the block.

    Find a park or a trail in nature and see how your muse opens up for you. Your body and health will love it too.

    Suzanne Murray is a writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives.

    She writes about creativity and inspiration on her blog, Creativity Goes Wild.

    “Fall in Love With the Creative Process,” more inspiration from Suzanne on The Write Spot Blog.

    You can follow Suzanne on Twitter at @wildcreativity where she tweets inspirational quotes for creativity and life.
    CREATIVITY COACHING

    Experience the pleasure and joy that comes from adding satisfaction and meaning and a sense of well- being to your life through creative expression. Suzanne offers practical, emotional and soulful strategies to help you fully uncover your creative gifts and support yourself in expressing them. “We will work through the issues that get in the way of your creativity including career concerns, blocks, limiting beliefs, relationship issues and the existential and spiritual questions that can arise from wanting and needing to create.”

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

    Combining Western psychology with Chinese acupressure, EFT works to rewrite subconscious patterns and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck. 


    Marlene C

    , , , ,

  • Calm Your Brain

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray has this to say:

    With anxiety and fear running high in the world these days, I wanted to share how we can make friends with these feelings and use them to our advantage. Anxiety and fear can prevent us from being creative or living a life we love. To live and create fully, we be must be willing again and again to step out of our old comfortable life and into unknown territory. This always feels scary.

    Many years ago I read the self-help book Feel the Fear, And Do It Anyway which presents the premise that just because we feel a sense of fear about a project or moving in a new direction in our lives doesn’t mean we are supposed to stop ourselves from proceeding.

    More recently I’ve been fine-tuning my understanding of what this really means and feels like, how to best use it in my life and creative work, and how it fits the idea of following my internal guidance of my intuition and heart to bring my soul and creative gifts into the world. Any time I stretch in a new direction in my writing or my personal and professional life I have to step out of my comfort zone which gives rise to a feeling of anxiety.

    I’ve found it’s important to learn to distinguish between the kind of anxiety that represents our bodily intuition signaling a real threat (like don’t walk down that dark alley or that new relationship really isn’t good for you or that’s really not the best art project for you to pursue) versus the kind of anxiety we feel when we step out of our comfort zone in a way that stretches our capacities, capabilities and sense of self. The anxiety that is genuinely trying to warn us off feels heavy with fear whereas the anxiety that simply marks stepping out of our comfort zone has a sense of exhilaration to it.

    When I’m at my desk writing and I start to feel a lot of resistance, if I make myself sit in the chair and keep writing, (even when I desperately want to get up and make phone calls or clean the refrigerator), I find that I will usually move through the anxiety into what I really want to say and find myself very excited by the work that results. The same is true every time I do anything new in my life that feels like a stretch. I feel nervous and excited whenever I push past the feeling of fear and take action to make the new idea or vision happen.

    When you are trying to decide what the fear or anxiety is trying to tell you, just take some deep breaths and get clear on the exact quality of the feeling in your body: whether you feel contracted or expanded by the thought of what you desire. If you feel expanded then you need to “feel the fear” that comes with it and begin to take action however small toward achieving your desire. Also new neuroscience shows that the simple act of naming or labeling a negative emotion like fear calms the brain which makes it easier to get clear on what to do.

    Wishing you many blessings and creative flow, Suzanne

    Check out Suzanne’s coaching opportunities:

    Creativity Coaching, Creative Life Coaching, Writing Process Coaching & EFT Sessions

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

    CREATIVE LIFE COACHING

    CREATIVITY COACHING

    Creativity Goes Wild Blog

    Marlene C

    , , , , ,

  • Cross new thresholds into being creative.

    Today’s Guest Blogger, Creativity Coach, Suzanne Murray, asks:

    DO YOU RESIST ENGAGING YOUR CREATIVITY?

    Suzanne’s thoughtful answer:

    Recently I got a note from one of my writing students saying that she was really enjoying writing when she managed to find the time. The three top reasons that people give for not being able to fully show up, move forward or change some area of their life are, “I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough money or my health isn’t good enough.”

    On the surface these excuses appear valid and hard to argue with. In truth they always cover up some deeper resistance. When we really want to do something and commit to it we can always manage to find the time, the resources and a way to work around any physical limitations.

    Robert Olen Butler who won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection of short stories A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain worked full time and had a difficult home life so he wrote everyday on the train computing into New York City. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was a single mother struggling on state aid in Edinburgh Scotland where she sat every day in a local cafe writing the first book in the series that would turn her into a multi-millionaire. These stories point to the reality that you don’t have to have everything together or know exactly what you are doing or how you are going to make something work to begin whatever it is you want to create. Beginning opens you up to new possibilities.

    With my writing coaching clients, I start by asking for a commitment to write a minimum of ten minutes a day. It would seem like everyone could find ten minutes, but if there are some unconscious beliefs and fears around expressing yourself or being creative then you will put it off until the end of the day and then say you are too tired. This is what resistance looks like.

    If you are having trouble showing up to your writing, painting, music or exploring your creativity in some way, stop and get quiet. Take some deep breaths. Ask your deeper or higher self:  what’s in the way? Then just see what comes to you. It may be a memory of your third grade teacher humiliating you in front of the class by criticizing a drawing you did or your father’s refusal to let you take the dance class you so much wanted.

    Such events really can impact the tender, vulnerable, innocent part of us that is our creative self and years later have us not wanting to risk being creative. If something comes up for you, honor your feelings around it. If you feel sad or angry feel those feelings as a way of allowing them to shift and release their hold on you. Then send love to that part of you. 

    We also resist our creativity because it can take us into unknown territory and our mind, which is committed to keeping us safe, will put the brakes on when we veer from the routine. Becoming aware of what’s in the way of your desire to create and being mindful and patience and kind with your self will help you cross new thresholds into being creative and finding time to show up.

    Check out Suzanne’s new website.

    Work with Suzanne Murray:

    Creativity Coaching, Creative Life Coaching, Writing Process Coaching & EFT Sessions

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

    Combining Western psychology with Chinese acupressure work together to rewrite subconscious patterns and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck. I’ve had miraculous results and have been working with EFT in new ways that allow us to laser in on the issue and shift it at the core and change your life from the inside out. We often make significant shifts in a single session.
    Sessions are available by phone and Skype.

    CREATIVE LIFE COACHING

    Would you like to live from an expanded place of grace, ease and flow? Would you like to tap the wisdom and power of your heart and soul? We work with soul based ways to let go of limitation and gain clarity of the next steps to living a more joyful, authentic life.

    More about Suzanne Murray.

    Marlene C

    , ,