Giving Yourself Permission

I've been reading a book called 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMefkin. If you are someone who wishes to expand their creative self or need to give yourself permission to explore that side of your personality, I really recommend this book. It is broken down into a variety of chapters and has exercises for you to try that give you some interesting insights about your creative self.

This book made me think of a friend of mine that is leaving the corporate world, at least for a little while. I think that part of the reason she is leaving is due to her health. Frankly, this job is killing her. I cannot tell you how much her health has deteriorated from the stress of her job. Which leads me to another reason she is leaving: I think she finally got tired of the crap she had to put up with, being a woman in a small Southern town trying to run a non-profit. Every issue was a political battle. Every meeting was either a war or an attempt to undermine her since she was a woman doing a job that had always been done by a man. I am so glad she has left this place. They didn't deserve her.

She is a highly creative person. She is a published author and an artist. I'm hoping she'll take some time to enjoy her talents. We spoke the other day about her transition and I told her the hardest part will be allowing herself to value herself. By this I mean that she has to realize that preparing dinner, being at PTA meetings, planning a birthday party and so on are things of value. This will be hard for her. I know this. But she'll get so much from this. She'll get to know her daughter as she enters her teen years. She'll get to know the community and the people who live there. And she'll get to know herself, something that she's put on the back shelf for far too long.

In this book, the author shares a quote from a book published in 1938 by Brenda Ueland, called If You Want to Write: A book About Art, Independence, and Spirit:

"Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly. Say that you want to write. Well, not much will come to you the first day. Perhaps nothing at all. You will sit before your typewriter or paper and look out of the window and begin to brush your hair absent-mindedly for an hour or two. Never mind. That is all right. This is as it should be, though you might sit before your typewriter just the same and know, in this dreamy time, that you are going to write, to tell something on paper, sooner or later.

And you must also know that you are going to sit here tomorrow for a while, and the next day and so on, forever and ever."

Here's to the the gift of time and to sitting still, lost in a dream.