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What it Takes to Actualize Your Creative Talents

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 4:51 pm

Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade? – Benjamin Franklin

The most exciting place to discover and actualize your talent is in yourself. What does it mean to realize your talents, and how do you do it? When you actualize your talents you understand them clearly and bring them forth out into the world. Understanding and expressing your talent is an active, continuing process of knowing what you can do and who you are, at your deepest level.

People who actualize their talents actively participate in the ongoing process in which one’s abilities are fully, creatively and enthusiastically expressed.

“Self actualization means working to do well the thing that one wants to do.” – Abraham Maslow

The roots of developing your natural talents are in your learning and coping skills. Do you seek opportunities to learn and grow, stretch beyond your current abilities even if part of the process includes mistakes and criticism? Or do you keep safely within limitations that allow you to evade judgment and vulnerability? Authenticity, self-confidence and self-worth development is an important to the expansion of your talents as is the mastery of actual skills and knowledge.

Emotional intelligence, mental health challenges and other aspects of being human can impact how you relate to the world and other people, and express your talents. Living authentically with passion and purpose instead of though the well-meaning ‘should-be and suppose to’ directions of others is essential to your growth as a creative person in all areas of your life. How you react, and your awareness level of your reactions, to the events of your life shape your ability to express your potential.

As with suppressing emotions, suppressing your natural creative talents ultimately results in dissatisfaction and depression. Simply put, holding yourself back is bad for your health, emotionally and physically. Expressing your creative talent is not just about splashing paint on canvas or writing or performing in the latest Broadway hit. Full creative expression involves the application of certain attitudes, such as curiosity, metamorphosis, playfulness and experimentation, to any aspect of life

“Authentic treachery is found when we abandon ourselves, becoming deaf to the whispers of our spirits and blind to the powerful potential therein” – Joaquin Mariel Espinosa

To live creatively, actualizing your talents, is to live your life in the moment and at full-blast. If your ego, that woefully misguided Inner Critic, has held you back from living out loud in your creative expression, disarm it; take away its power to direct your choices, actions and that which you experience. Tell it that it can come along for the ride but for the rest of your life journey, your Inner Critic will sit in the back seat, perhaps with a bankie and a sippy cup.

There’s an easy way to determine whether or not you are expressing or suppressing your natural talents. Pay attention to how you feel. If you’re tired, unmotivated, or unfulfilled you are holding yourself back. You have given your personal and creative powers over to your Inner Critic. If you feel good, productive and full of energy then you have tapped into the vast resource that is your birthright, your personal power, inborn talent and higher self – or what I playfully call the Wizard that is Within you.

The Wizard that is Within you knows you by heart. She knows your truth, purpose and passion in life. She is the voice of your intuition and inspiration. She is your Muse. Reclaim your personal power, acknowledge, honor and nurture your talents that are your birthright to mindfully and intentionally maximize your full potential.

“Speak, look and act in the direction of your dreams.” – Wizard Wizdom

Copyright (c) 2009 Valery Satterwhite

Valery is a Creative Mentor who helps people get out of their own way so they can move overcome the struggles that come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Empower the Inner Wizard to actualize your authentic talents. http://www.InnerWizard.com Free “Empower the Inner Wizard tips”

Article Source: What it Takes to Actualize Your Creative Talents

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Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Fear: A 4 Step Process

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 7:15 am

“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.” – Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

Underneath any unwanted self-sabotaging pattern of behavior is fear. These undesirable experiences can include career self-sabotage, any form of addiction, workaholic or shopaholic lifestyles, a series of bad relationships in your personal and professional life and constant financial struggles.

Repeating the past and making the same mistakes is repetition compulsion. You are repeating the past, making the same mistakes, and constantly complaining about the results and yet we keep doing it! Why do people keep repeating bad experiences over and over again? Because, even though unwanted, this perpetual state of circumstance has become the comfort zone. People cling to comfort zones because they are known, familiar, and therefore ‘safe’. Moving beyond comfort zones into new territory, even if desired, is a scary prospect.

Repeating past experiences involves recreating the same dynamics that you experienced as a child. If your childhood was filled with conditioning that invalidated your authenticity as a creative spirit, then you may be more comfortable living with people who invalidate you as an artist as an adult. You may have been told repeatedly that you could never earn a living as an actor, painter, drummer in a band or novelist. You pick a partner who tells you to put aside your passion and go get a ‘real job’. This is repeating the past. If you spent your childhood as the good kid who didn’t cause trouble and always minded her manner, you may be inclined to make people happy and have become the perpetual obsequious people pleaser. Again, you’re repeating your past and making the same mistake.

Unwanted repeated patterns of behavior often involves getting into business relationships with people who take advantage of you, or accepting jobs that don’t offer a chance of promotion or professional development. Repeating the past is pursuing the same dead ends over and over again, or engaging in the same self-destructive behavior. It’s making the same mistakes. To stop repeating the past, you must first determine if you are repeating the past.

The place to begin is to discover what stops you from moving beyond a comfort zone that is clearly not working for you. What are you afraid of? What could happen if you change the way you show up in your world? What would it mean to live centered in the truth of who you are, authentically, and in integrity with your passions and dreams for your future?

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” – Jim Morrison

Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them. Fear often shows up in the form of the woefully misguided Inner Critic. Your Inner Critic works hard to keep you safe, keep you in that comfort zone. If you try to move beyond the comfort zone the Inner Critic will serve up fear and drama to pull you back to where it believes you will be safe.

The goal isn’t to get rid of this Inner Critic, this fear. The goal is to recognize it when it presents itself, examine it and master the fear so you can effectively transition into newer and better patterns of behavior. One way to tell that you are making choices and acting from a place of fear is when you are Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to do or not do something so that you can ultimately stay right where you are, hold yourself back.

Here are 4 steps to examine your self-sabotaging pattern of behavior.

1. State the pattern, the repeating unwanted experience.

Unwanted experiences can include unsupportive or even damaging personal and business relationships or performance anxiety of any kind including stage performances, auditions, interviews, networking, presenting your work to a person of authority and calling up your agent.

2. Examine the beliefs and thought processes that lead to the choices and actions that created the unwanted experience. Ask yourself, “What within me is creating this experience over and over again?”

Common fear based thoughts and beliefs include a fear of criticism or rejection that are stated in as an “I’m not ________ (talented, smart, young, pretty, experienced, etc.) enough”.

2. Test the validity of the underlying fear.

Is the fear true? Is it absolutely true? Can you identify any experience where you were, indeed – enough? Can you identify other people or other events that fly in the face of this belief? For example, if you are over 40 and you believe there are no roles for actors over 40 can to find any examples of actors over 40 who are working steadily in their craft? What specific circumstances trigger your fear? Is there a pattern? Can you think of an early experience of this fear? What happened?

3. What would your life be like if you didn’t cling onto your comfort zone? Who would you be, what would you have, what could you do if you didn’t have this fear running you?

Imagine and visualize yourself showing up in your life every day as that person. Try it on even if only as a costume at first. What choice would a person living that life make as the events of your day unfolds?

4. Check how you feel.

Your emotions are indicators of whether you’ve moved into or out of fear. Simply stated, you don’t feel good when you are functioning from a place of fear. You can experience that sick in the pit of your stomach feeling, physical symptoms such as sweaty palms or a desire to Fuggedabout Everything And Run (F.E.A.R.). From now on this feeling is a signal to you to stop and take a moment to deliberately and clearly make a newer and better choice; a choice that will result in a different action that will deliver a better outcome, a different experience that breaks the unwanted pattern of behavior from the past.

If you’re feeling good about yourself, your potential and the opportunities available to you then you are mastering your fear. You are headed in the direction of your dreams. You have moved beyond the old unwanted comfort zone into a new zone that supports your desires. If at some point you notice that you slipped back into that not so good feeling of fear just know that you are reacting to the voice of that frightened little Inner Critic who is still scared of this new way of being. Calm it down as you would a 4 year old and show this Inner Critic that you are still very safe even if you venture into newer and bigger experiences.

“Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom.”- Marilyn Ferguson

Copyright (c) 2009 Valery Satterwhite

Valery is a Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can move beyond the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free tips”!

Article Source: Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Fear: A 4 Step Process

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