Tightrope On Point

I’ve talked with people who believe that being creative means you’re either an artist, an entertainer, a writer, etc. I believe we are creative by taking a walk with total awareness.

Imagine your food is ready for you to eat. What would encourage your ease of digestion, you truly enjoying each bite? Switch hands! If you are ambidextrous, go to chopsticks with either hand, if you already do that, use bamboo utensils instead of metal, and so on. Stopping the routine increases awareness, that is being in the moment. Creativity occurs naturally when we are wide awake to the magical joy of being fully alive. Get up from your seat and, begin with the foot that doesn’t automatically start you walking. By the second step, you will feel a difference. That’s breaking a routine pattern. A simple act of stepping forward differently can help create an open door to finding solutions through greater intention. Stuck on an issue? We know pressure doesn’t help. New ways can be so simple yet provide more energy, better focus, and sudden inspiration.

Creative visualization is as important to my life as prayer, food, water, and breathing. I was in my late 20s when I lost the use of my left leg. My neurologist knew that there were no current means of help. Those five weeks I lay in a hospital bed were fear-driven. By the sixth week, I needed to break the pattern of frustrating waiting.. Basing it on my knowledge of split-brain studies from the 1960s, I thought that if my brain knew what was going on it could send signals to the muscles through the nervous system.

We all have some experience with remembering pictures in our dreams, remembering people’s faces, and daydreams. Brains have a literal third eye, the pineal gland, loaded with optical receptors that form images with lightwave activity. I concluded that focused belief, thought and emotions could move this mountain of inertia. I began imaging (imagining) something far more difficult than walking. Dancing on toe shoes on a tightrope. I had studied ballet and then toe for 11 years as a child. Lying in bed I believed “if only my body would remember how I moved then.” For three days I lived and breathed dancing on toes on that tightrope. The more involved my emotions got, the easier it became to stay focused. Three days after starting I was able to get up and walk as if nothing happened. I realized the more fun I had with the vision the less fear I had. No residual. A few years later new imaging equipment revealed that the severity of my condition was not just from the injuries I incurred as a crime victim. I was born with severe congenital deformities of the spine that could keep the nerves from sending impulses. Yet the power within helped me create the miracles I needed.