There’s the pressure from outside, when you have to make a decision, or you need to get to work on time.
And there’s the pressure from inside, perhaps you need to speak up to right a wrong, or have a difficult conversation, or write an article.
How do we let that pressure in and through us? The creative urge to paint, write a poem, dance, act, compose a piece of music – this is the stuff that really nourishes us, but it often has to beat at the door before we deign to answer.
Here are 4 things that I believe contribute to opening the door.
• Curiosity – are you curious? Do things intrigue you? Do you search to find out how something works or what makes it tick?
• Spontaneity – Do you go with your intuition, change your mind in a moment and go down this path? There is always a frisson of risk involved.
• Ability to improvise – Do you ‘make a plan’, not let the lack of ingredients stop you cooking something; make it up as you go along, and trust that all will be well.
• Openness to saying “yes” – that positive bright little word that immediately opens your world to possibility.
These qualities allow you to work with the pressure, so moving with the flow, not resisting it by habit (which is always such hard work!) They contribute to on-going learning and the discovery of the wealth of experience that is available when you truly live fully.
Of course the other option is to sit in front of the soap operas or newscasts and just let it all wash over you passively; to be spoon-fed every time you have a decision to be made, to have your hand held. That might have worked, even been necessary when you were a child, but now?
I guess if your tendency is to be a passive receiver of life, you will often feel the pressure banging on the door in front of you, demanding to be let in. It might look easier to numb it down or sound proof your experience, keeping yourself away from the creative force at work everywhere else in the universe, but the pressure never goes away that way.
Don’t ‘save things for best’ or leave the things that give you the most pleasure to last. Live now and risk the possibility that that creative pressure you feel is who you are, trying to get out!