The four C’s of Creative Flow are:

1. Centering

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” – Albert Einstein

When you are centered, in alignment with the truth of who you are, life flows effortlessly. Your moments are largely spent “in the zone” of your creative spirit. You are engaged, unaware of the passage of time and firing on all cylinders of your artistic expression and life potential.

When you are un-centered, not in harmony with your authenticity life becomes a tiresome and often anxiety ridden struggle. You work exhaustively trying to fulfill the inauthentic expectations, the ‘shoulds and must do’s” demanded of you by yourself and others. Your heart longs to express and create one thing yet you hold yourself back to pursue another, often perceptively safer, path.

You may get brilliant at creating these false expectations but they will leave you unfulfilled, living a life of desperation.

2. Choice

“How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.” – Don Childre

Once you acknowledge and honor your truth, stand centered in the truth of who you are, it is necessary to base the choices you make and the actions you take upon this truth. If you step off your center, make a choice that is not in alignment with your center then you will struggle. Your creative flow will be blocked leaving you frustrated and unable to fully and effectively express yourself in your work and in your life.

If your choices are not grounded in your center, your core of being, you will not create the outcomes you desire. A choice acted upon and based on your truth will deliver the outcome, and experience, you want to create. A choice to take a different path, limit yourself and your possibilities in any way will create “less than” or even a train-wreck of an experience.

Choices that speak your truth feel good. Choices that belie your truth feel bad. It’s as simple as that.

3. Commitment

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi

If you show up in your life centered in your truth, making choices that honor that truth you must commit yourself to honoring the choices you make. If you quit or hold yourself back in any way then you have made a new choice that is not in alignment with your center. You have strayed from your path of authenticity and the road to creating the art you wish to express and experiences you desire.

Staying committed to yourself requires trust in and love of yourself. What you long for is your birthright. It is what you are here to create. It is your purpose in life, that is why you feel its calling deep within your soul. Even if the journey is a bit arduous, if you are committed to YOU the experience will be exciting and fulfilling.

4. Challenge

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” – Bernice Johnson Reagon

It is a challenge to stay committed to your choices and center of truth. You will be called upon time and time again to stretch beyond your current comfort zone. Moving beyond what you know is unknown and, therefore, scary. In your fear you may Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to step back from your commitment, your choices and your core of being.

You may not like your current comfort zone and say you want to achieve certain goals but if you discover that you are serving up excuses why you, others, or circumstance prevent you from maintaining your commitment then know that you are in a state of fear. Just take a deep breath. Breathe out. Center yourself. Listen to what your inner being wants. Let go of the voice of that incessant Inner Critic who works hard to keep you safe. Keeping you safe to this well-meaning yet woefully misguided egoic part of you is to keep you right where you are. It’s what you know so it’s safe.

There you have it, the four C’s of Creative Flow. As with learning how to ride a bicycle, you may fall on your butt a time or two as you apply these lessons in your life. That’s ok. Just brush yourself off and get back on your bike! Enjoy the ride.

Copyright © 2009 Valery Satterwhite

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Little choices we make thoughtlessly, mindlessly, change the very course of our life. You’ve made those choices – so have I. And, yet, the vast majority of us make those choices completely unwittingly, paying little or no attention to the consequences of each of our actions. Only the very few – what the University of Chicago might term uncommonly successful people – have the presence of mind, the self-awareness, to realise the importance of the moment – every moment – and, in doing so, are all the more likely to choose their actions reflectively, mindfully. The converse, for what the same university might call “normal people” is that we continually create lives that, at best, are “not too bad”, by not being mindful of the opportunities that each moment can potentially create.

As I tell my many clients, the people who are most important to you in your business and personal lives at present were once complete strangers to you. The logical conclusion we can draw from that blindingly obvious statement is that we never know when we are going to bump into the next stranger who will assist us further on our journey. Normal people interact with other normal people and situations without this realisation and, therefore, their life’s journey can rarely be described as exciting. Most normal people plod through life on what they perceive to be almost a pre-determined treadmill. People brought up in working-class environments usually go on to lead working-class lives. Where I live, village artisans – plumbers, carpenters, masons – usually bring future village artisans into the world. The same goes for most people.

Abnormal people interact with normal people and situations in a totally different manner – ever present to and aware of the potential that each new encounter can hold. The difference between these normal and abnormal people has nothing to do with socio-economic background, nothing to do with education, nothing to do with their friends. The difference is simply to be found in their state of mind. Research indicates that many abnormal people instinctively operate at this level – in these cases, their early upbringing may well have had a positive impact (or a negative upbringing might have spurred them into alternative action). But not all abnormal people are “made that way” – we can all be abnormal, we can all re-learn the ability we innately possessed as children to meet and greet each new person and each new situation with a childlike open-mindedness.

And therein lies the secret to abnormal happiness and success, far beyond the perceived pre-determined routes on which most normal lives meander. We simply need to re-learn to be attentive – not seeking out, searching for or hankering after life’s next opportunity, but simply fully attentive to and mindful of the present moment, the here and now, the only time and place we have.

Psychological research, quantum physics and the age-old wisdom of great minds all converge on the importance of paying attention. Your ability to pay attention to directly linked to your ability to be abnormally happy and effortlessly successful. And all it takes is a little commitment on your part to deliberately pay attention to small things in your life – so that the big things in your life will follow. By way of example, I invariably suggest to my clients that they shave or brush their teeth with the hand with which they do not habitually perform those mundane tasks. This has a double effect – because in deciding to do such a repetitive and habitual task differently, we realise, in that moment, that for every mundane and repetitive task in our lives, we have a choice – moment to moment. That, for many is the only revelation they need. But there’s more because, in doing something so simple differently, we are compelled to pay that simple task more attention. And paying more attention is the key to the life your heart desires.

So, you can take the first step on a journey of discovery that will change your life right here, right now. In doing so, you will realise that the choice between abnormal happiness and success and the mundane alternatives is not a matter of luck, education or social status – it is simply a matter of choice. Your choice.

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To have ambition and want to be successful is a fine thing but it isn’t enough. Ambition and want are just words that describe desire. To understand WHY you have such desires is quite another thing. True genius, true art in any form, comes from passion. Great actors aren’t great because of their technique. Anyone can learn technique. They move an audience as great actors because of their passion. Passion is the driver that motivates every bone and breath in your body to achieve.

“My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.” – Bette Davis

If your desires are not in alignment with your passion you can be successful but you will not be fulfilled, satisfied. You will live a rich famous life and still yearn for the elusive thing. You will get up in the morning wondering what is wrong with you. You have all that you desired yet you feel that there is still something missing. You are missing the nourishment that feeds your soul, your heart.

Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it. Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart. When work, dedicated commitment, and pleasure unite to become one and you reach into that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible. Through the experience of devoted passion you will reap richer stores of knowledge than any text-book or course of study can give you.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This dedication to authentic passion always and absolutely carries a demand and a responsibility. It is up to you to honor and stand centered in the truth of who you are. Speak and act in the direction of your innermost passions. If you do not, you are betraying your own authenticity. If you are Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why you cannot pursue your passion you are hiding your true estate. You are acting in bad faith. You are ‘dissing’ you.

Now it must be said that passion without action is just a dream. You actualize your passion, bring forth the dream into the world, you must do something! This is where the Inner Critic can, and often does, step in to hold you back. What if you really put yourself ‘out there’ and stood naked to the world boldly following your heart’s desire and fail? What will happen then? Will you just whither and die? If not, who will you be? Very scary thoughts!

You will not die. Your commitment to your truth and passion will motivate you to respect your actions and your reaction to the opinions of others. Failure is just a stepping stone on the road to success. Your passion will motivate you to look at the proverbial rocks you tripped over, examine them, and overcome whatever obstacles that get in your way. You will love the process of making mistakes, learning and growing as you expand and fully express your passion and talents that are your birthright. Whatever struggles you encounter will be met enthusiastically for they are definitely worth the ride of your life!

“Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel. Our reason is the pilot that steers her. Without winds the vessel would not move and without a pilot she would be lost.” – Proverb

Photo: micromoth

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