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One of my fondest memories from childhood was being dropped off at the Largo Public Library around age 8 and spending an afternoon in the children’s section.  The carpet was deep red and thick with reading tubs, some vertical and some horizontal, scattered around the room.  There were tall bookshelves, posters for some of my favorite books, like Charlotte’s Web, tacked to the wall, and a sunken living room for story time with purple bean bag chairs.  The first 30-minutes of my time was spent scouring the shelves for new adventures to become a part of and then I would crawl into one of the tubes until my mom or the librarian found me to go home.  When I was amongst those books my imagination came alive and not only did I devour as many stories as I could, but after getting back home, my creativity was on overdrive.  I had all of these ideas for stories I could write or adventures my friends and I could create in our backyards.  To this day, I am drawn to libraries and bookstores where I can easily lose myself for hours and feel the 18-inch path between my heart and mind open to new, divine ideas.  And because I want and need a space in my home where my power of imagination is able to flow, and I have the freedom of expression whether I am writing, painting, meditating, dancing or reading, I created a sacred space to get still and embrace the silence.

Naysayers be warned, I NEVER buy into the retorts of “I’m not creative” or “I’m not an artist” or “I’ve never acted on stage” or “I don’t know how to draw or paint” because I work (insert ridiculous response here ~ i.e., “on Wall Street”, “in Finance”, “for a law firm”).  Creative expression isn’t limited to those who draw, paint, act or photograph professionally.  Think back to when you were a child and you would color.  How often was the sky purple instead of blue, the grass red instead of green, and really, who needed to color within the lines?  Do you remember squishing your fingers into clay or smearing them into paint?  What about the giant fortress made of pillows, sheets and dining room chairs?  Close your eyes and hold onto the energy you felt.  You were invincible, powerful, and unstoppable!  Draw a picture of the room in which you first created something you liked.  It could be a room from your childhood, adulthood, classroom or office.  What was the room like, what furniture was in it, what pictures were on the walls?  Was there a window and could you see outside?  You can draw yourself in the picture doing the activity, which connected you with your inner artist or just allow the image to represent your delicious space.  I’ve had clients draw themselves during show and tell in elementary school, cooking for the first time with their easy bake oven and building a fort in their bedroom on a rainy day.  After reconnecting with these amazing memories, you might find that you have recreated your creation room somewhere in your life and weren’t aware, or you might make the conscious decision to design it now.

The power of imagination combined with the use of our senses leads to visualization.  When we hold back our inner artists, we find our days long and boring.  More often than not, we aren’t aware that we are creating every day ~ cooking meals, developing presentations, working with numbers and multitasking all require vision.  With an awareness of the inner artist we’ve always had comes more and more creativity.  When we create, we are blocking out the “rules” and ignoring the “norm” which allows us to receive divine ideas and dreams we’d been pushing away because we believed they were impossible.  You can start off small by writing in a journal or dancing in the middle of your living room ~ even if only for five minutes.  Don’t think; just do it.  Feel the pencil or pen in between your fingers and hear it brush against the paper.  Turn up the music and let the sound vibrate through your body as your arms, legs and hips move.  Acknowledge the thoughts, feelings and ideas that will come to your heart once you ignite the power of creativity and imagination.  Clarity will appear in areas of your life where only blocks once existed.  Make sure you’re ready and grab your hardhats because what you’ve unleashed is powerful and will result in an abundance of tremendous opportunities.

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