Creative Mamas

Hi there Creative Mamas! You know by now how hyper I am about knowing the precise definition of a word so I have provided some Googled definitions for the word "manifesto" below:

Definitions of manifesto from Google:

Isn't that neato. Check out number 3. I had a fairly good idea that a manifesto was a public declaration of what you stand for, but I had no idea that there was a history of artistic manifesto. Which leads me to the question - What is your artistic manifesto? What do you stand for? What theories, feelings, perceptions, social causes do you long to express? Answering these questions in your journal may lead to an enlightening conversation with yourself. This process can open doors through which your passion and vision can be released with greater energy and purpose. The process of writing these is not a "get it right" exercise but rather an invigorating and energizing exercise that will evolve with you. I invite you to declare your artistic intentions and empower your creative vision.

You may want to have different manifestos for different portions of your life: mother, writer, artist, daughter ...

I've rewritten the Creative Mamas homepage to reflect my personal manifesto on what it is to be a creativity coach. And I am in the process of brainstorming my manifestos as mother and writer. I will share as they come to life and I invite you to share your manifestos by posting a comment below. I would love to hear from you!

Declare yourself, Mama! Let's go!

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The last post Shift Your Mood to Shift Your Life has inspired a new Creativity Map Workbook Exercise! Try it for yourself. You can download the workbook pages here for free: The Creativity Map Workbook

I hope you enjoy it. Let me know!

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I don't love mornings. That's putting in mildly. And my dislike for mornings has been passed on genetically to my daughter. Neither of us want to get up. The covers are warm. We are both dreamers. When the alarm goes off I am usually starring as the lead in a very exciting cinematic action epic. I put the alarm clock across the room so I have to get up to turn it off. Even with that strategy I am still capable of walking across the room, hitting snooze, and crawling back in bed in an effort to continue the story where I left off - not once, but three times.

When I do finally decide that I absolutely must get up, I am usually in a hurry because I hit snooze three times. Have you ever tried to get a grumpy seven year old to hurry. Ha! I know better - yet still I try. So what happens we end up walking out the door fuming at each other because we have been bickering for the last 30 minutes about getting ready, finding shoes, brushing teeth, and arguing over what is appropriate for a seven year old to wear to school. Bicker, bicker, bicker. It ruins half the day for me and probably for her too. And it isn't the relationship I want to have with her. I hate it.

Lately, though, things have been great because I have been waking up my usual sleepy self - reluctant to start the day, taking the dog out while half asleep and crawling into the shower.

Here comes the shift. 

As soon as the warm water hits my body I consciously choose to shift my mood. I get happy. I get excited. Whatever it takes - singing, telling jokes, pretending I've won an Oscar (you should hear my brilliant acceptance speeches) - I decide right then and there that I am going to be happy and excited about the day. I want to emphasize here that this does not come naturally to me. I have to make a conscious choice and take action.

I've been doing this as a little experiment for the last week and the rewards have been phenomenal. I get out of the shower all hyped up and happy and wake up my daughter. She hates to be woken up. She's grumpy. She hasn't accepted her Oscar yet. But, mom is in a good mood and good moods are contagious. Eventually she warms up to it and we figure out a way to have fun and hurry at the same time. She loves to compete so we have been having races to see who can get dressed the fastest. Who can get to the door first. Who can finish their morning chores and find what they need for the day (car keys, backpack, permission slips) before the other one can.

In the car, she tells me stories as opposed to me lecturing her about how it is her responsibility to know where her shoes are. She sings. She talks about the funny things her friend Ellen said in circle time. I laugh. We sing to the radio. It is almost as if the old Kirsten and Emma, the fuming bickering ones, have been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by unknown happy people. The difference is that amazing. And the benefit is we are having the relationship I have always wanted to have with her. The love has always been there, but now we also have the fun. This alone is worth my weight, her weight and the car's weight in gold.

And here's the kicker...

The hidden benefit is my creativity is ROCKING! My mind is free and happy and the ideas are flowing. That time in the shower has washed away all the funk and gunk that has been clogging the creative flow. There has been a shift from...

working to be creative
to
overflowing with creative energy.

This has changed my life. My guess it that it could change yours too. Okay Mamas, get in the shower and accept your Oscar! If like me you aren't a morning person, it may feel like a "fake it till you make it" performance at first, but I guarantee it will be the performance of a lifetime! Have fun! Get flowing!

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Yesterday morning I finally got myself out of my warm and cozy bed after hitting the snooze button three times. I let the dog out, showered and woke my daughter up for breakfast. I gave her breakfast then went into the kitchen to fix mine. I like the old fashioned powdered slim-fast in a tall glass of milk stirred up with a spoon. I got my glass. I got the milk. I walked over to the pantry, pulled out the cereal box and poured myself a full glass of Honey Bunches of Oats. I stared at the glass of cereal for probably 30 seconds before I was able to figure out what had gone wrong.

On a not so light note, later that day after picking my daughter up from school, I pulled up to a busy intersection to make a right turn. I was looking directly at an oncoming car when my foot slipped off the brake pedal and my car lurched into the intersection directly into the path of this car. It was too late to go back and too late to make a turn so I accelerated and flew across the intersection. Brakes squealed behind me and I waited to hear the impact of the collision I had just caused. Luckily everyone kept going and there was no accident. I thank heaven for that and pray for forgiveness from the other drivers who no doubt experienced the same moments of terror and panic that I did in that moment.

I can’t for a fact say this was entirely due to me being tired, because accidents do happen. But I do know that my reflexes would have been sharper if I had the rest my body and mind need in order to function.

Being too tired is a big deal. So what to do?

First of all let’s take a look at everything you are doing right now. I’m working full time, parenting a child by myself (with help, but without a second parent present), acting in a play that rehearses every evening, for this play I am learning to tap dance all over again after a 15 year hiatus, participating in committee work, attending meetings, ignoring the laundry, trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, eating fast food, writing my novel on any available scrap of paper while standing in line or wolfing down my lunch… I'm sure your list can more than compeat with mine.

What are we doing? Too much!!!

Again, so what to do?

1. Rest
   This is obvious, I know. But it can be the last thing that comes to mind. Say no. Give yourself a break and get some sleep. We have to give ourselves permission to take the time we need to care for ourselves. It really is the only cure. Now, what happens if you just can’t?
   
2. Ask for help.
   Don’t expect those you care for to notice that you need help. Don’t expect them to know how to help you. Make specific requests. Let’s face it mamas, we are the caretakers. It’s a great gig. We’re good at it. Unfortunately this may mean that those we care for can forget that we sometimes require care too.
   
3. Don’t try to remember anything!
   Get a notebook, calendar, legal pad – whatever you can carry with you – and write everything down. Empty your head! Don’t’ say to your self, “I’ll write that down when I get home.” Write it down right then and there wherever you are whoever you are talking to. They will wait.
   
4. Collaborate and Delegate
   Remind yourself that you are not responsible for the success or failure of all things. What responsibilities can you share with someone? What can you give away? You will have to make an objective assessment of this. Sit down with your list and only take on the things that require your unique genius.
   
5. Hire someone to do it for you.
   If you have the money, go for it. Your time is more valuable. I promise you.
   
6. Nourish yourself.
   Eat good food that supports your bodies’ needs. Avoid any food that subtracts from feeling good.
   
7. Stay calm.
   Listen to music that calms you. Take one minute and look at the scenery around you. Listen to the birds. Breathe! These little things can be forgotten and can make a big difference.

Okay, what’s the big deal? None of this is new to any of us. The big deal is that we forget. We think we can handle it. We think we can push through it and catch up on our rest when the weekend comes, when the project is complete, when the play is over. (Yeah, right!) We think we are invincible. There is a big difference between being powerful and being invincible. We are most powerful when we remember to care for ourselves.

Being too tired is a big deal. And as creative, intelligent, responsible women, we don’t have time to be too tired! I’ll say it again – We are most powerful when we remember to take care of ourselves.

I forgot this very simple fact and I got a couple of wake-up calls. I’m going to take the call. I’m going to take a nap.

Get some rest, Mamas! Then, let’s get out there and be powerful (and alert)!

Part I
People-Pleasing: The Curse

Does being responsible to/for someone else mean you have to please them? 

I’ll speak in the first person because I know this role so well. Being a chronic people pleaser often makes me feel as if everyone else is in charge of my behavior. It makes me feel that I have no control over my time. It makes me feel that I have very few choices. In reality - I KNOW I am the only one in charge of me. I KNOW I have numerous choices (sometimes limited by circumstances - but choices nonetheless) that only I can make for myself every moment of every day. I think art, theater, and writing remind me that I do have those choices and having these acts of creation in my life on a daily basis shakes me out of the people-pleasing stupor. 

The desire to please others, the belief that I can please others and the perceptions I have about having pleased them well or having disappointed them are for the most part fictional. It is a story I make up in my head. Unchecked, this fictional narrative becomes my primary source of motivation. I hand over my free will and my personal creative power to my perception of another person’s perception of me. 

This feels yucky and powerless. So why do I do it? I think the first answer is survival. I think we learn it in the womb - okay maybe that’s going back a bit far, but I think you know what I mean. If we please the big people when we are little people, the big people reward us and protect us. The second answer is that I don’t want to grow up. I am not a little person anymore. I am responsible for my own rewards and my own self-care. Therefore I no longer need to please the big people in order to survive. But, instead of individuating (becoming the whole, self-governed individuals we are meant to be), I carry the little person’s operating system out into the big world with me and project big person status onto various people like my boss, my co-workers, my collaborators, some peers, teachers, doctors, police, the media … and my daughter. 

Wait a minute! Did I just say I project big person status onto my daughter and behave as if I am the little person who needs to please her in order to survive? Yes, I did. Now, that’s just backwards, isn’t it? So what would frontwards look like? I am me. My daughter is her own person. My boss is his own person. My mother is her own person. None of us has to please the other in order to survive. My mother may be disappointed in me, but those are her feelings based on her expectations. My daughter may be disappointed because I won’t let her have a second popsicle. She may throw a fit because her expectation of a second Popsicle has been thwarted by mom - again. If she throws a fit, we will all survive. None of us has to please the other in order to live through a temper tantrum. And for the bigger picture - how do I raise my daughter to be a self-governed, powerful, creative human being. I know there is some magical parenting fairy dust out there somewhere that will allow me to set age appropriate limits for her without making her feel like a “little person”.

In summary, people-pleasing is a story we make up in our heads which unchecked can become our primary motivating force. When this happens we are giving our creative power and our daily choices away and acting as if we have none. It is funny, sometimes, when I catch myself people pleasing (sometimes I do it when I am ordering my dinner in a restaurant) and I think, “Wow, I just gave my free will to that poor waiter over there and he has absolutely no idea what to do with it.”

Part II
People-Pleasing: The Blessing

In Part I, I confessed to a lifelong struggle with my compulsion to make everyone “like” me. This is my curse. Before I get to the flipside of the curse, however, I would like to share with you the words of a very wise woman (to whom I am eternally grateful and will always love). These words were the wake-up call that shook me from the people-pleasing trance:

This is the “Rule of Thirds”

Whenever you walk into a room of people,
1/3 will think you are fantastic,
1/3 will dislike you no matter what,
And the other third won’t even know you are there.

Attribution Unknown (If you know, let me know.)

Onwards with the flipside of the people-pleasing curse. It is important to note, if you are a chronic people-pleaser like me, that people-pleasing can only be a blessing if you are aware that it is part of your operating system. When you are aware of it, it can become a blessing in the following ways:

It alerts you to your fears:
If I can catch myself in the midst of a people-pleasing moment and reign it in, I have the opportunity to ask myself, “What am I afraid of?” My people-pleasing is almost always fear based. Remember, it is a survival instinct. Asking “What am I afraid of?” is a fear busting act. Once you can identify the underlying fear behind the “automatic” behavior of people-pleasing, you can face your fear objectively and be closer to attaining personal freedom.

It means you are observant and sensitive:
If you are a people-pleaser you are probably alert to non-verbal clues, shifts in tone and voice. You probably listen for the meaning behind the words of the person you are speaking with. You may not even be aware of these skills, but you most likely own them and use them daily. This is a good thing as long as you can engage in objective observation and not projection.

You know how to work it:
A really skilled people-pleaser can fit in almost anywhere. I’m a very WASPY middle aged mom who has successfully people-pleased her way through a biker party without engaging in any activity that would make me ashamed. This was actually a REAL Harley Riding Biker Party not a wannabe biker party. Tough guys and even tougher women! I was the only one there wearing pink! Now, tell me people-pleasing is not a valuable skill. (And don’t ask me how I got there. It’s a long story.)

I do have to add here that the biker lifestyle; the camaraderie, freedom, and nomadic adventurer thing – is intriguing. It would be cool to have another lifetime just to explore living like that. But, NOPE, I’m a WASPY middle aged mom – can’t go there.

There you have it: The three blessings of being a people-pleaser. And the bonus of some unwanted insight into my closet biker wannabe personality. Please keep in mind that these are merely my opinions based on personal observation. I have no research to back up my claims and I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a mom who likes to hear herself write.

Go out and enjoy your free will today - create something powerful for yourself!