Procrastination Unleashed My Creativity

?“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito”

~ Dalai Lama

PROCRASTINATION?is ALIVE and well within me, and somehow?I feel that by breaking this dam of?dilatoriness, which is so aptly keeping me?from musing, all hell may?break loose. By the way, if this so far makes no sense to you, welcome to my confusion and to my mind and body lately. My central nervous system seems to feel something coming and has me wanting to bury my head under the covers so as not to see what it is. I have been asking myself and mySELF for a couple of weeks, as I am gripped with paralyzation.?

• Is it impending doom, dread, or lack? No, that's not it.
• Is it impending overwork? Nope, not it either.
• Lack of support? Noooope, guess again, Laura.?

Well, these are most of my go-to's when feeling paralyzed, so this morning, after a beautiful weekend of love and connection, when I realized the feeling was still quite present and in full force, I gently asked, trusting I could handle the answer, and giving up my attempt to lead the witness, I asked:

• Dearest amygdala (and GOD), what is it? I plead with you to let it be known so that I may get on with more than just the bare basics of my business life.?

Do you want to know what I heard?

• It is creation and creating and creativity and everything you believe in and use all day, every day.

"Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead. Everything that ends is also the beginning of something new. Pain is not a punishment, pleasure is not a reward"

~Pema Chodron

Wow!! I didn't see that coming. I guess it makes sense because for these past weeks, I had no problem talking about creating, dreaming of what I want and intend to create this fall and into 2024, but the implementation, the simplest of tasks, could not and would not get going. The funny thing about procrastination is that I did get some things done that have been on my to-do list (not having to do with creating) for months, and if you reached out at all for a phone call or text, I was probably pretty available...HA!! So, it is not all bad at ALL, but what is vital in my experience is that I was feeling off, and now, as I write this, I feel my pranha returning simply because I am now aware that I am afraid or creating. It is so very liberating!! I can feel myself breathe, and I wasn't even aware I was holding my breath.?

The truth is I can understand why I was feeling so immobilized and why it was full-throttle this morning as terrifying news once again hit the airwaves. Brutality, inhumanity, ugliness, pain, and?suffering are all on display in real time. Although this weekend's happenings around the globe are certainly not the cause of my two-week bout with powerlessness and uncertainty, nor are they something that is not happening every day, today I could not look away, and it led me right back to my own pain and my own choices.? The suffering is true, the pain real, and the thought of making a difference is confusing. And that is where I landed; to create is confusing, and to create is to dare to dream and dare to fail to make a difference. Yes, there is risk in creating the risk that we will create turmoil, pain, and suffering. But by not creating, we risk never knowing a world without suffering and a world in peace.? So today, as I sit and write, I choose to risk creating, to bring breath back to myself and maybe one other being, to be in community, to not let go of the realization that we do matter individually and as a collective, and that although confusion is scary, it is not anything but not knowing yet. Today, I choose to covet, adore, and treat preciously my lack of knowing what I might create and my incompetencies in doing so. Because to create from a place of uncertainty is true creation. If we want to make something out of nothingness, our attention must lie on what we don't know, with curiosity and with a willingness to listen.? Today I choose to write, trusting that that the suffering we all feel from time to time can be abolished and that peace can be lived. I don't know how, but I do know, and that is enough to keep me creating today.? AND MOSTLY today, I surrender to the uncertainty of not knowing where my creativity and creations will take me.

“I excite myself with my incompetencies.”?

~ Yogiraj Achala

The Six Seeds of Surrender

This is an excerpt from my blog on surrender that feels right today. ?

Desperation*

• I feel sick and tired.
• I feel exhausted.
• I feel at the end of my rope.

* A note on desperation. I do find that a level of desperation or at least exasperation can be useful I also hold the belief that we can all find a place that is not the utter bottom and that our new sense of desperation can come before suffering has arrived.?

Humility

• I may not have all of the answers.
• There may be another way.
• What I am doing now is not working.

Hope

• for change.
• for something different.
• for anywhere but here.

Courage

• to wonder.
• to broaden my perspective
• to see the possibility of another way.

Trust

• in something greater.
• that I am not meant to suffer endlessly.
• there is another way, even if I cant see it yet.
• that I am loved
• that I am safe.

Love

• myself enough to surrender.
• my experience enough to surrender.
• my life enough to surrender.

"It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.”

~ Maya Angelou?

Another important aspect of today as I lean into creating is forgiveness of myself for being paralyzed and feeling powerlessly alone. As I feel the forgiveness, I am able to move forward with my words, and then the most amazing feeling washes over me. It's a floodgate of gratitude.? I am grateful for my teachers, my practices, and my discipline that keeps me willing to sit in stillness, move my body intentionally, listen, and show up for life, even when I don't want to. I am even grateful for procrastination's appearance to show me what was up with me.? I also have great gratitude for the practices themselves that never fail me. It may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow, but I have a deep reverence and trust that my practices will always, at some point, liberate me from any chains that I am most recently feeling bound by. This way of being is truly the only thing I have found that consistently keeps me willing.? And in the spirit of imparting some of what has been shared with me by my teachers, and which is always relevant yet feels even more so today please use this link for a beautiful traditional Tibetan meditation Tonglen as taught by Pema Chodron at Gampo Abbey.?

As I close, I will leave you with this. There is much to come in the way of offerings, words, and ideas from me, and I am so utterly grateful to every one of you that these musings reach. Whether you resonate with what I share or not,?I trust in your ability to choose not knowing and curiosity over stagnation and even violence toward yourself. May we all be free from suffering. ?

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