Category: Crazy fairy random moments

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A cup of tea with Em






I have only met Em from Tea Cups Too three times, maybe four in fact and each time I have encountered her, there is something about her heart and presence that makes me smile.

We have some mutual friends and we live a stone’s throw away from each other, but I stumbled across her blog whilst looking for pictures from an event we both went to on the weekend and I stayed at her place online for a while.

So, today I have put my little man to bed, my big man is scraping the peeling paint off our wooden window sills that have been corroded by the sea air and I wanted to have tea with Em online.

The isolation of motherhood has the capacity to take us to beautiful places and dark ones also. As I read your recent post on motherhood, it reminded me of a quote I have been repeating to myself lately.

‘Embrace the chaos’

For those who don’t know me, I am a stay at home mum with one son Maximus, one husband (who works in Juvi with young offenders and is a body builder, I know not sure what happened there…) and I write often here and also here.

Aside from my writing, I do heaps of other stuff, which you can find more about here. To say life is chaotic is an understatement. Max just turned eighteen months; 6 days ago, and the last year and a half of my life has tippled into toddler oblivion,my priorities and preconceived judgements on mothering have been dramatically turned upside down.

This is the quote recently that made me smile and I have decided to make it my summer mantra.

chaos

Chaos (especially in my house and my diary) often makes me feel overwhelmed, but there are moments when I stop my mind from trying to control the moment and I embrace the cry of my heart to live a life that contributes significantly and my little heart secretly starts to roar.

It’s like I have a little dinosaur inside me, that when I think thoughts of beauty and creativity, when I produce moments of inspiration and life, whose eyes grow large and a mighty roar begins to emerge. A roar that no-one can hear but I can feel it rise in my heart.

Finding a sense of purpose and contribution in my days, helps me to embrace the chaos and to allow the dishes to harden, the washing to stiffen, knowing that my time is being given to that which makes an eternal impact.

Your post Em, reminded that the times I spend with my son, screwing the lids on and off, the times that I walk slowly so that he can rip lovely flowers apart, are just as valid and important as the times that I am recording moments for radio, writing books and helping women in far off places.

Embracing the chaos and not trying to contain its place, allows us to live in those moments that full vibrant colour filled memories are made and allows us to build a life of beauty rather than contained order.

Does it mean I think allowing our lives to be messy and out of control everyday is helpful?

No, in fact spring cleaning, keeping my housework at bay and structure allow my creativity to thrive.

However, its just changing the priority scales of its importance and allowing the opinions of others to fade and the ideas that brew late in the evening hour, to become reality.

Embrace the ROAR Em.

Each time I have met you, I have sensed a great potential for beauty, awaken-edness and life.

You are delightful and your life produces beautiful things.

Let’s have a real cuppa soon, or watch the sun on the ocean go down with a glass of wine and forget that toilet training creates a lot of mess, on top of the dust piling on my lovely wooden floors.

Smile often,

Mumma V.

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Finding my place

photoIt wasn’t until I had a toddler that I realised how important ‘placement’ was in my creative internal vortex.

I place things on my desk with finesse, I drop things on my bookshelf with purpose, to a shallow glance it looks a little messy, it looks a little crazy, but to my internal Dewey Decibel system it is just right.

My son has the most beautiful nature, but he is a fiddler. Everything he touches is fiddled with. I am sure he is bursting with innovation because he finds anything he can to feel, to explore and to replace in his own way.

Two weeks ago I turned on the washing machine to hear a regular knock, that isn’t a part of its usual rhythm and after digging the water logged inhabitants, I found my brand new smart televisions water logged remote control.

It wasn’t until max started to press my placement control buttons that I realised how important place was in my creative routine.

I rearrange my desk.

I play with my notes on my side table.

I light candles.

I make coffee.

I muse with placement until my idea is ready to be birthed.

How about you?

Do you feel out of place?

Is finding a place and creating a place, an important part of your creative expression.

booksThis new season for me has taken so long to settle, because of this one marker. Place.

I didn’t realise how much team, how much the people I collaborated with, the location of my workspace, the routines, the deeply enriched rituals, how much they enabled my creativity and innovation through place.

Slowly I am finding my new place.

And I kinda like it.

How about you?

Do you need to find your place?

Do you need to find your fit?

Explore this today.

Amanda

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SPARC inspired

erwinSquareTwitterI have just come back to earth after an amazing weekend spent with creative people from all over Australia. There were many themes throughout the conference but the most resounding one was ‘A life of authenticity’.

I believe everyone is creative. It is just how we allow that creativity to pervade every part of our lives that is the problem.

The guest speaker for the conference was Erwin Mc Manus who is a regular speaker at TED conferences.

He spoke openly and honestly about his creative pursuits, the future and his failures. To hear someone who we perceive as being so successful talk about all the things he had failed in, was so refreshing.

Here is a highlights video of our conference:

http://vimeo.com/user10306509/review/72184724/f6e7a9d58b

If you would like to come with me next year, blind registrations are open here: http://www.sparc.org.au/2014-registration/

Here is a message from a few years ago from Erwin Mc Manus for those who have never heard him before.

Exciting Days

Amanda

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risky business

‘Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.’ Oprah Winfrey

Safe creativity is possibly the worst type of innovation there is. You know that song that just pervades the elevator, you know that painting that is passed by because it just fades into its environment, that event that was ummm nice?

To be a true influencer of culture, to create something that has never been created before, one must take risks.

Playing it safe, knowing what your creative outcome will be is no fun at all and in the end you end up reproducing someone else’s vibe.

Copying another’s work, rather than taking the due diligence, to create your own is as fake as some of your instagram accounts.

I have copied a quote and photo here and there, off pinterest in the interest of a quick fix, however the most rewarding creative times I ever have are when I am creating something completely new.

If you are not failing, it’s probably likely that you are playing it way to safe.

If you are not taking any risks then it is very likely your work may be a little too beige.

Risky creativity is challenging and thought provoking.

It stops you in your tracks.

It is vulnerable.

It is authentic.

It is anything but safe.

‘I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.’ Marissa Mayer

Breakthrough creativity is that which is full of risk.

Take some today.

A

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a vulnerable heart

heart feltLately I have been stretching out and creating new and exciting networks mostly in the name of creativity.

It has been really exciting on one hand and super vulnerable on another.

I remember doing some counselling once and the counsellor told me that to acheive the depths of creative pursuit, highs and lows are all a part of the emotional creative process. We must go to the depths to be able to express them.

Her wisdom to me was to not be hard on myself for feeling those emotions, because they were deeply intrinsic to the creative process but find ways to travel them with health.

I realised quickly it is how I handled those places and also how I involved those closest, in both negative and positive ways that was fruitful or destructive.

We all need to learn what our triggers are, finding ways to process the vulnerability and loving those close to your deeply in the process.

I have been really deeply processing who my real friends are in this journey. I think the consumerism of our age, has created a false friendship that is so counterproductive to true relational intelligence. This is significant to this topic, because I believe only true friends have the capacity to journey with us through the highs and lows of creative process and we only have the capacity to be able to do this with a small group of people.

Two of my great friends Jeff and Julie Crabtree have written a book called ‘Living with a creative mind’ and they have a whole chapter dedicated to creatives and how to handle the emotions expressed as a part of the creative process.

http://livingwithacreativemind.com

This week I pulled this book out, I sat and read this chapter and reminded myself about the creative process and how emotional it can be.

Every new connection we make creatively, whether its with someone we are collaberating with or a new pursuit of something we are producing, a whole level of deep thinking and criticism is a part of the journey.

Here is my little insight of wisdom though.

Be very careful who you allow to speak feedback into your life.

Be very careful who you listen to critically as a creative.

Why?

Because the vulnerability of the creative process is full of enough criticism already (mostly from your own mind and emotions) so allow people who believe in you and love you to speak loudly and let everyone else fade away.

If you listen to the crowd, you will lose your own voice.

If you create for the masses, you will lose yourself at their expense.

We know what creativity for the masses looks like: two words ‘clip art.’

Create out of your own lived experience, out of your own wisdom, out of your own uniqueness and you will make a creative impact that leaves a legacy.

For today, my prayer is that you would live inspired and also you would have safe people to explore creatively with and you would allow the noise from the crowd to fade away.

All my creative love

Amanda