"Big Magic": A Beautiful Reminder To Create

And while the paths and outcomes of creative living will vary wildly from person to person, I can guarantee you this: A creative life is an amplified life.  It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life.  Living in this manner - continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you - is fine art, in and of itself. 

Because creative living is where Big Magic will always abide. - Elizabeth Gilbert


Sometimes so many people recommend a book to me that my only choice is to read it.

Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" is one such book.  When I saw that it was featured as a signed book at Barnes and Noble for Christmas, I gently suggested to my husband that it might be a book that I would love to see under the tree on Christmas morning.  He listened and it was mine.

Unlike most books that I get for Christmas, I waited to read this one until I was ready to fully take it in.  I read it with a pencil in my hand to underline important passages and to let Elizabeth Gilbert's message really sink in and resonate with my soul.

My reader relationship with Elizabeth Gilbert is hot and cold.  The book that propelled her to success, "Eat, Pray, Love" was good, but definitely not one of my favorite memoirs.  At times her story of self discovery during her world travels really mattered to me, but at other times I felt completely disconnected to her journey.  I felt the same thing with "The Signature of All Things."  I really, really loved parts of it, but other times I found myself flipping pages to just get it done.

Regardless of this relationship with Elizabeth Gilbert, her Ted Talk titled Your Elusive Creative Genius is one of my favorites of all time.

So I figured that an entire book dealing with the same subject matter would speak to me.  

And it did. 

Gilbert's conversational tone throughout the book drew me in immediately.  It was as if she was talking to me as a friend, a confidant, a fellow creator on this planet who has a voice and a message and doesn't always know how to use it.  She tells stories of her own creative process, her failures and her successes.  

My favorite part of the book was when she explained that ideas are living entities that are waiting to find a medium to bring them into the world.  "Remember: All it [an idea] wants is to be realized.  It's trying its best.  It seriously has to knock on every door it can." She illustrated this point by recounting a book idea she had.  It was set in the Amazon and included an adventure for a reluctant heroine named Evelyn whose ordinary life gets overturned when she travels to Brazil to recover a missing young man.  Gilbert had to side track this idea even though it was bought by her publisher. 

Life happened and she neglected this book idea, and then several months later, she attended a panel discussion about libraries and met Ann Patchett.  They formed a strong friendship that was forged mostly through old fashioned letter writing.  In one letter, Ann mentioned her new book idea which was about an adventure in the Amazon jungle.  When they met for lunch a few weeks later, Ann told her more about the book idea which was so similar to her own that she got chills.  She realized that her idea got impatient and jumped to Ann who could realize the idea's full potential.  Ann wrote the widely renowned book "State of Wonder" which essentially was Elizabeth's idea.  Sometimes if we wait too long, an idea will do what it needs to do in order to be brought to fruition.  

From this story, Gilbert goes on to talk about her own journey with writing- how she was persistent even when she didn't feel like she was any good at writing.  When she got rejections, she would work harder, and she never quit her day job nor did she go through a fancy MFA program.  She worked hard and listened to ideas as they came to her.  

At times Gilbert does get a little preachy, but overall, she remains true to her message that creativity is a beautiful gift and that all of us need to create, even if it's just for ourselves.  Even more she says that if you create with only your audience in mind, you are doing yourself a disservice.  Create because you can and then maybe your message will reach others in ways that you don't even anticipate just like her success with "Eat, Pray, Love" which she really wrote in order to work through her own emotional turbulence.  

For anyone that ever wanted to create but was afraid to do it, and for anyone who lost their way as a writer but still feels like they have something to say - pick up this book which is a beautiful reminder of why we should uncover the jewels within us and bring them to life. 

"The Power of Habit": A Fitting book for New Year's Resolutions

Do you make New Year's Resolutions every year and give up after a week or a month? Maybe you need to take a closer look at the habits that surround your resolution - study your cue, the routine and the reward. Then, dig even deeper into what makes you crave a certain habit.  New York Times investigative reporter Charles Duhigg's book "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" explores the truth behind habits - the habit loop, our cravings, how we can change habits and how habits can lead us to success or failure as individuals and even societies.  He could end up helping you transform your life (or stick to your New Year's Resolution) by understanding why you do what you do.

Duhigg says this in his introduction:
"In the past decade, our understanding of the neurology and psychology of habits and the way patterns work within our lives, societies, and organizations has expanded in ways we couldn't have imagined fifty years ago.  We now know why habits emerge, how to break them into parts and rebuild them to our specifications.  We understand how to make people eat less, exercise more, work more efficiently, and live healthier lives.  Transforming a habit isn't necessarily easy or quick.  It isn't always simple.
But it is possible. And now we understand how."

I found parts of this book fascinating, parts a stretch of comparisons that didn't necessarily fit together, and then others more about mob psychology and societal change than habits themselves.  Regardless of the slow parts or the parts that made me scratch my head a bit (in one section he compared a gambling habit where a woman gambled away her life savings to a sleepwalking habit of a man who accidentally killed his wife), the rest of the book was compelling enough for me to read sections aloud to my husband who is tasked with transforming his growing company.  I kept asking him, "Have you ever thought about that for your company?" He listened intently.

As I read about Hopkins transforming the dental hygiene of Americans by creating a foaming craving and tingling sensation in Pepsodent toothpaste, I was intrigued.  This was a necessary habit to stop the epidemic of bad teeth.  As the government put it when they started drafting men for WWI "so many recruits had rotting teeth that officials said that poor dental hygiene was a national security risk." Look at us now - consumed by foaming and tingling sensations brought about by whitening toothpastes.  The choices in the toothpaste aisle are dizzying thanks to the habits Claude Hopkins helped to create in the early 1900s. What would our teeth look like today if Hopkins had not helped us create that habit?

Another part of the book that was fascinating to me was Paul O'Neill and his ingenious reformation of ALCOA.  Unlike the previous CEO, O'Neill stepped into power and made one thing his goal - safety.  By changing the way people thought about safety, he improved every aspect of the company.  He improved their profits, and higher quality products.  Researchers have found that tapping into the right keystone habit can transform other habits.  For example, "studies have documented that families who habitually eat dinner together seem to raise children with better homework skills, higher grades, greater emotional control, and more confidence." Just like they have found that people who habitually make their beds are more productive and better with sticking to a budget.  "It's not that a family meal or a tidy bed causes better grades or less frivolous spending. But somehow those initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold." Eye opening stuff.

When he uncovered the secret behind the success of Febreeze, the buying habits of Target shoppers and Target's marketing analysts (totally Big Brother stuff), Michael Phelps and his routine of success, and Tony Dungy's winning coaching strategies that all focus on the habits of players, I again was fascinated by how humans can be broken down to a series of routines and reactions.  Just like when I read the part about recovery from surgery or success according to Starbucks stems from creating a habit - a habit of how to help someone in stressful retail situations (LATTE is ingenious) or a habit of writing down an intention.

I somewhere read that a study showed that students who attended Harvard business school and wrote down their goals were more successful than students who didn't which makes perfect sense according to Duhigg's research.  I also like to think that my husband and I are more successful in reaching our goals because we meticulously write them down and try to come up with one intention for the year.  Last year my intention had to do with a successful cross country move for me and my family, and things worked out really well.  This year my focus is on creating more of a balance in my life.  Am I working on my habits the right way? I'm not so sure about that, but I am way more aware of the psychology behind successful and not so successful habits thanks to reading this book.

Duhigg's book will stick with me for some time to come (and many more New Year's Resolutions to come as well).

"10% Happier": Meditation 101

It's been awhile since I've been able to write (so this will be a long entry), because my life has become a chaotic blend of boxes, upheaval, packing, unpacking, letting go, moving on and reentering in a new location.  People move across the country every day, but no one ever really talks about the physical and mental toll that it takes to do it.  Brene Brown included moving as one of the one of the "great unraveling journeys" in her book "The Gifts of Imperfection" (which I am currently reading).

Somehow through my "great unraveling journey" from our home in Pennsylvania to our new one in Illinois, I have kept a mantra in mind: "I am exactly what I need, exactly when I need it."  Through our epic moving adventure, that mantra has worked beautifully.  We put our house up for sale and got two great offers within the first 48 hours it was on the market.  We found a new home in our new location on the street that we wanted in less than 24 hours.  We made it through the appraisals and inspections, the loans and approvals, the paperwork and the legalities unscathed.  Even our cross country trip with our 10 year old pug who hates cars, our 14 year old cat who hasn't been out of our house in 12 years, our 9 year old daughter, and our 5 year old daughter went well.  We only hit traffic in Chicago the whole 12 hour journey.

So here we are.  In a new home.  In a new neighborhood.  Everything is new.  Everything is possible.  It's scary and exciting.  Frustrating and wonderful.

With each new moment (today I was so proud to find my new grocery store!) I keep my "I am exactly what I need, exactly when I need it" mantra in the back of my head.  I think of all the "self help" books I have read or books like "The Alchemist" that teach when you are open to the universe, the universe opens up to you. That's how I feel about Dan Harris's book "10% Happier." I needed to read a book about someone else's journey to find their calm center in a world of chaos and uncertainty.  It helped as I went through my own "unraveling" by giving me hope that if I just stayed focused and open to the universe that I would be okay.

Dan Harris wrote his book "10% Happier" to explain his experiences and spiritual journey to daily meditation.  Harris co-anchors "Nightline" and the weekend edition of "Good Morning America." After deeming the voice in his head "an asshole" he decided to find out how to get more centered and stumbled into the realm of meditation which he believed was everything that he hated - sitting still, being calm, being present, and even occasionally chanting surrounded by people that smell like feet.  His years of covering various extremist religions left him skeptical about anything remotely spiritual, so his journey really speaks to the every day person who is fed up with feeling stressed all the time but doesn't know what to do about it.

I loved this book from the very beginning.  I thought Harris's narrative of his early news anchor frenetic days and his out of control substance abuse, his journey to spirituality all rang true and pure.  He showed me reasons why meditation works and reasons why he and many others doubt the validity of meditating, but how the tides are turning.  I also loved that he offered practical advice for those just starting out with meditation (there is a nice guide to meditation for beginners in the back of the book).  Mostly, I loved how he met the gurus along the way like Eckhart Tolle and how he explains their philosophies on life and meditation.

I needed this book to help guide me through my "great unraveling journey" and direct me to a calmer place.  When Harris attends a Joseph Goldstein meditation retreat, his thoughts on the days spent in quite meditation really resonated with me especially when he raised his hand and asked how to not worry about things since there are genuine things to worry about like missing planes.  Goldstein answers, "But when you find yourself running through your trip to the airport for the seventeenth time, perhaps ask yourself the following question: 'Is this useful'?"

During my moving journey, I continually asked myself that question.  Is it useful to worry about my buyer's buyer's loan? Is it useful to worry about whether or not we will make our closing date in our new home? Is it useful to worry about how my animals will react to a long car ride? Every time I answer the same thing: It is not useful to worry.  I still worry, but now I remind myself that it isn't useful to do it.

I mostly love that Harris doesn't propose that meditation is the answer to happiness.  He claims in his own life that it has made him 10% happier which is a great percentage.  Who doesn't want to be 10% happier?

I know I do.