Six Fluid Steps to Creative Strength

on the place where strength and philosophy meet, plus Know Yourself Through Movement Week 2 is here (at the end of the post)!

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.” 

— Martha Graham

Before

I did not grow up knowing the value of work. Actually, I grew up with the understanding that I didn't have to do much of anything except look busy, and everything would take care of itself. Society would take care of me. A man would take care of me. Something would, surely. 

To make it more confusing, along the way I committed a grievous fallacy: because I’m a good person, I told myself, I can rest on my laurels. I’m loving, loyal; I’ve got my wits about me; I’m curious, strong, attractive if a little vain (though aren’t we all?). My bases were covered. 

Morality plus busyness was my ticket to success. Ha! I also had the wrong ticket; little did I know the American dream is a nightmare if you’re composed of creative bones. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to create my own thing. Screw being busy. What use is that? Turns out this creation stuff requires strength of greater caliber. You, my curious friend, know this; the ability to resist outside influences demands the development of an internal force greater than most can fathom. Maybe we should’ve taken that “fight peer pressure,” and fuck capitalism thing a little more seriously. 

Alas, at some miraculous moment I felt with clarity how I’d been standing at an open door, living in the liminal space between a false reality and the mysterious purpose of life’s poetry.

Phew. I made it through the threshold and what awaited my arrival was a beautiful mess of work and play. 

Creative strength in six fluid steps

1. Have an idea
2. Contemplate. Steep in the mystery of how this is going to actualize
3. Listen as the muse delivers bits of information
4. Consider connections, build bridges, allow the straggling bits to coagulate or fall off
5. Get comfy with the discomfort of all this information creating new pathways to emerge through your being
6. Let it come out in focused rushes of powerful work

***order of steps 2 - 5 is prone to change. 

Day to day, this looks like moving between the utter satisfaction of a thoroughly planned curriculum and the complex process of bringing idea into reality; a mixture of mind mapping, researching, sweet yearning; waiting, sometimes patiently, sometimes incessantly drumming your fingers on the counter, for inspiration to strike like lightning; and the sheer discomfort of not knowing how or if the sensational information traveling through your nervous system will coagulate into something coherent. 

All my life I’ve enjoyed organizing. The art of it. Books arranged into piles by topic and thickness. Gift cards and stacks of mints in perfect rows at the checkout counter of Trader Joe’s. Pieces of jewelry and memories spaced atop my dresser just so. My body arranged into pleasing shapes. My mind, ditto. 

Training is the gateway to mastering the process of self organization, embodied transformation. Planned, precise, present action to support the channeling of mystery into something useful, something on purpose. Controlled chaos to prepare for uncontrolled chaos. 

As you know, it’s not all sitting back and waiting for the muse to come knocking, though gee does that feel good. What about the extensive list of topics you want to write about? Damn, isn’t that intense? To have all that information waiting to pour through the organic machine that is you? How, oh how, are you going to do all that work?

I’ve got an idea: what about following a curriculum of strength?

That’s the thing — strength, which begins with the physical but extends far beyond, requires purpose, organization, a training schedule, a program. Like an editorial calendar for your transformation journey. Of course, it’s a little more fluid than “publish X piece by X date,” but the idea is the same. Plan to do. And as much as possible, make it make sense. 

The calendar does nothing if you don’t put the time in, yet there’s something to be said for seeing it laid out all pretty. Puts the mind at ease. Who knows how hard your subconscious is working to remember its mission — how often you’ve wondered when the next thing is coming, or what it is. Where else could that energy have been directed?

When it all comes back to purpose, the work makes sense. How convenient that when the purpose is strength, the weak bits in the system become of utmost importance. The challenge, then, is the path to greatness. 

As a bonus of my own strength journey, I now love spreadsheets, which I used to resist with all the force I could muster. 

Maybe it’s not obvious that strength is not random. It’s malleable, yet entirely on purpose. Are you sick of that word yet? And if it’s not, chances are there are undiscovered faults in the system. As any machine (our organic machines included) will demonstrate, a minor glitch unaddressed eventually becomes catastrophic.

There’s a lot of stuff on the internet about purpose. You do need a purpose. You don’t need a purpose. We all have a purpose. Your purpose is to serve others. Your purpose is to just be. I mean… they all have their place. You’ve just gotta choose, for you, what purpose works. And when I say works I mean works for the whole system. The integrated power network.

If you’re perfectly content where you are, fine. But chances are, if you’re reading this, you want something more. And The Missing Key seems to be a down and dirty investigation into your purpose, your values, your desires. Simple. Not some woo woo scavenger hunt, not sitting and waiting for your “spirit guides” to whisper into your ear in an ayahuasca ceremony (can we stop with this already?) or obsessing over your astrology or some other covert way of passing off the responsibility of action. Nope. Purpose takes desire, drive, conviction, intensity, and clarity, from the center of YOU. A long, slow inhale in communion with the white hot flame of passion does a purposeful mission incite. Now the key is to keep fanning that flame. Keep the channel open. Do the work to breathe through the lessons.

“Action is life, power, success. Inaction is failure, impotence, death. Proper action is the basis of all physical, mental, and moral progress.”

— David P. Butler, 1868

•••••••••

Know Yourself Through Movement Week 2 has arrived!

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If you’re that wonderful, weird combination of strength & movement curious +  philosophically driven + poet at heart, and want help figuring out where to begin with all this movement stuff… or if you’ve been in the fitness world for some time and are looking for something deeper than the commercial hype… Know Yourself Through Movement is for you. 

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