their personal, professional, and creative goals; and reduce the stress in their lives. It was my own personal journey, however, that deepened my fascination with the creative process and was the catalyst for my own creative awakening. That journey, which gave birth to this book, began quite unexpectedly.
We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.
—MAYA ANGELOU, POET AND WRITER
When I was thirty-five and in the midst of a successful career, I was suddenly overcome by chronic fatigue syndrome. I was exhausted and plagued by a number of terrifying physical symptoms. I had all kinds of x-rays and diagnostic tests, including an MRI to rule out multiple sclerosis when I began to have trouble walking, but they all tested negative. I saw doctor after doctor, searching for answers, but because of the negative test results they all minimized my symptoms and wrote me off as possibly depressed. As a trained psychotherapist, I knew the symptoms of depression and would have gladly taken Prozac if that made sense, but I was running a temperature, experiencing numbness in the left side of my body, overreacting to medications, having heart attack symptoms, and feeling too tired to perform the tasks of daily living. I was not depressed, just tired. I got up every day wanting to chase my goals, not escape from them. To me, life had always been a seductive, stunningly gorgeous, and appetizing buffet table—but suddenly I couldn't stand in line long enough to have fun sampling. I decided to take matters into my own hands and in the course of doing research, I found a book on chronic fatigue syndrome and diagnosed myself.
According to everything I could read on the subject, it was a syndrome, not a disease, so it was unacknowledged by the traditional medical community.
I think the creative process is not about creating something else; it's about the process itself creating who I am.
—MAYUMI ODA, ARTIST AND WRITER
Worse yet, it was dubbed a women's illness and was too easily dismissed. I also learned that other autoimmune illnesses common to women, like lupus, had gone unrecognized for years until definitive tests were developed. No blood test for chronic fatigue syndrome was in sight, so it was up to me to try everything I could to get well. I located two doctors, one Eastern and one Western, who confirmed my diagnosis. I began intensive acupuncture treatments as well as herbal and vitamin therapies to boost my immune system. I spent a fortune on healers, herbs, and visualization workshops as well as other alternative therapies. Fortunately my intuition warned me to cancel my appointment with a nationally known physician who was later exposed for sexually abusing women with chronic illnesses after dosing them with the drug Ecstasy. As I tuned into my body, the potency of my intuition grew and guided me to the right choices along the way to recovery. The truth was that rest worked best. Similar to when I had had severe mononucleosis in my twenties, I started subtracting things from my life. I cut back on my consulting work, gave up relationships with people who drained my energy, dropped out of professional organizations and networks, and learned to say “No” more effectively. My focus was self-restoration.
My work is giving space to the creative spirit—learning to get out of its way and be in its service at the same time. We each have responsibility to express ourselves. And in this expression is the key to our healing.
—GABRIELLE ROTH, DANCER AND HEALER
Along with alternative treatments and lots of sleep, I married the man I had been involved with for years and transitioned my psychotherapy practice into more of a coaching business with an emphasis on career and stress issues. As one healer told me, I had been psychically absorbing all of the pain of my clients, and now there were holes in my aura. I knew intuitively that she spoke the truth and that I needed to create a limited and more selective client practice.
Responding to Creative Callings
In the midst of all of these changes, I suddenly became fascinated with art, beauty, and creative expression. I started buying new magazines like House and Garden (although at that time I had neither), Country Living, and Architectural Digest, and I craved visits to English country antique stores, watercolor exhibits, art galleries, and shops that featured handpainted anything. Color seduced me from everywhere.
What you love is a sign from your higher self of what you are to do.
—SANAYA ROMAN, WRITER
I started wearing coral, red, and purple outfits to my office instead of dull navy and gray suits. I also found myself reading women writers exclusively.
Many years earlier in graduate school, my plan had been to have a clinical practice and then write self-help magazine articles and books. My excursions into writing had consisted of only a few published articles, but now my short-circuited fantasy of becoming a writer beckoned again. Several years earlier I had co-authored a book called Fearless Speaking: A Work-Life Guide to Conquering Communication Anxiety. My writing partner and I had secured a literary agent who raved about the book but encouraged us to pass up offers from two small publishers and wait for a bigtime publisher. Foolishly, we took his advice, but he never sold our book. Discouraged, my partner and I dropped the project, and then my partner, who kept the manuscript on his computer, mysteriously lost the files. Our already-written book vanished into oblivion. Despite the pain of the loss, I had to simply let it go. During my struggle with fatigue however, my mind, unlike my tired body, kept generating new ideas. While I felt some stirrings of recovery, a trip to the grocery store still felt like a backpacking expedition. I had transcended the New Age distortion that I was to blame for my illness and stopped trying to regain my old life. Every time I pushed myself to do work that was overly stressful just to earn money, I relapsed immediately. I finally understood. It was time to redesign my life in line with my limitations and with total allegiance to my truth.
Experimenting with New Processes
I learned about a creativity class called “Technologies for Creating” based on the work of Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life. My teacher was Marilyn Veltrop, whom you will meet in this book, and who is now one of my best friends. From Marilyn, I learned about the concept of “structural tension” as a key part of the creative process. The dance between a vision of “what I wanted” and “my current reality” challenged me to engage with my creative energy and reinvent my life. I needed to stop seeing my chronic fatigue as simply a problem to be solved and instead needed to focus on manifesting my vision of a balanced, fulfilling life. The truth was that I was ready for a major work transition. Like so many other midlife women, I was burned out from too much caretaking. I yearned for a gentler, slower pace and wanted to express my creativity more directly. The nurturance of marriage and decorating a home beckoned as well. The tools I learned in class with Marilyn made the venture of reconfiguring my life all the more enticing. One of the goals I set in her class was to begin writing, immediately.
One exciting aspect of the current ferment by women is the fact that as they struggle for authenticity, they simultaneously illuminate their personal creativity.
—JEAN BAKER MILLER, WOMEN'S RESEARCHER AND WRITER
Dressed in my pajamas, I wrote the script for my audiocassette workshop called Positive Choices: From Stress To Serenity, based on the stress workshop I had developed and been teaching for years. My goal was to create a “portable” workshop so I could stop traveling. Creating the tape preserved my energy and reconnected me with my desire to write as a way of teaching.
Making art is a rite of initiation. People change their souls.
—JULIA CAMERON, WRITER
Heeding
