This is going to be my last post for awhile. As the year draws to a close and rethinking reshapes itself into resolutions, I too have reached some conclusions.
The life of a creative is a lonely life. It is also an outdated model. For hand-in-hand with the emerging business trend to work remotely is the trend, too, for shared spaces. Different flavors are surfacing everywhere, labeled “co-working,” “hives,” “incubators,” and an assortment of other brands. Coffee shops are filled with lone rangers working within the community of others. “Strategic partnerships” have become the new buzz phrase and business strategy.
All are variations on a theme. A new model is rising up organically on the social web. It is showing us how to live and work and form the relationships and community necessary to our survival. And although I cling to the old model because it is familiar, it is not sustainable; it does not serve me on multiple levels.
Life is a process of waking up to who you are and what it is you came here to do. But part of that process also involves learning to let go of the shape that contribution takes. It’s the old story of dismantling the ego and its agenda so the soul can direct the course. Deep in my bones, I know this. But when the nights are long and the days are desperate, I forget. That’s when I look to the past and my own story to remind me.
When I entered graduate school 10 years ago, the only thing I was sure about was my work and the form it needed to take. Over the course of three years, however, I was asked to let that form go. It wasn’t easy. The path was filled with grief and sadness. I was a failure. I would never contribute anything of value to the world. This, at least, is the story my ego wanted me to believe.
My soul whispered another story though. It came sweetly and gently as it is doing now. And as I opened myself up to the possibilities embedded in its mystery, I found my way in the darkness. I also found my work and my Self, this time richer and more dynamic than my ego ever could have envisioned.
This is the dream, the promise, the soul’s call of partnership I sit with on the eve of this New Year.
Your Story: Are you holding too tightly to a form, a pattern, a way of being that no longer serves you? How can you loosen your hold and allow the soul’s mystery to unfold and offer its magic?
