A Shift to Creativity

As a middle manager, I sometimes feel like my job is one of the least creative spaces in the world. After all, I don't own the deciding and I don't own the doing, I just facilitate the in-between. This includes trouble-shooting the problems faced by the do-ers and managing the myriad issues raised by the deciders.

As I mentioned in this post, I spend so much time in problem-identification and reaction mode that I feel I am becoming negative in my focus. But in my class last week, I realized that I can use my skill for seeing "problems" as an opportunity for creativity. If I see problems as negative things to be fixed, I'm going to constantly resist them, which is just going to create more tension and more problems and drain my energy. (Here's a great post on this very thing!) But if I see them instead as challenges that are asking for creative attention, I can start to shift not only how I approach them but the very energy of them.

Instead of seeing it as my job to solve problems, I can instead see it as my job to create space for opportunities and solutions to arise. This makes me feel instantly lighter and simultaneously  more powerful. I feel my curiosity and intuition kicking in as I relax into the creative place. I am actually looking forward to tackling some of the issues that before have made me resist and tense up. 

In complete transparency, thinking about this shift also makes me tense and afraid. My mind (ego?) tells me I can't do it. That's because it's not up to my mind, which is a control freak. My following of my mind is what gets me in this stew each time and sends me further down the path of most resistance. This is a heart thing. A gut thing. A trust in myself thing. My mind knows when I do that, things change and it loses power.

So, if I am going to practice this I might as well start  now. Today I will practice reframing my approach. Problems are opportunities for creative thinking...

Finding the Courage to Change...

Last week I completed the first course on my journey to a certificate in Organizational Development. I literally spent the first two and a half days of the four-day course completely self-absorbed, flagellating myself with doubt. The last day and a half, I finally broke open and was able to be present and confident that whatever came was what was to be.

Now I am back in my life, in my job. And I see opportunity all around me to begin to take steps, to perhaps introduce what I am learning into my day-to-day and perhaps even let go of what is not working for me here while still being here AND contributing even more. (There's SO much potential!)

But first I have to be brave enough to recontract with my boss, because if I start to shift without communicating, there will be an even bigger rub than the one I feel now as I pretend to care about and engage in my current duties. Actually, back up...First, I need to get clear with myself on what I would propose to shift. A conceptual conversation about wanting to help work on breaking down the silos and help the organization realign and re-energize isn't going to help me sell my case to my boss...not if I don't detail it and buy it myself first.

All I know is that I need to start to make some changes, even if they are somewhat small, sooner rather than later. Because the longer I see what I want but have to see it through the lens of what I don't want, the farther away it seems and the smaller my life feels.

Daily Dose of Neurosis

I just wrote an email to an awesome author and blogger I found via the amazing sticky connections of the web. Her name is Susan Piver, and like me she is an enneagram type 4. (Go on, all you 6's roll your eyes...Yes, G, I'm talking to you.)

Since my email to her was on the same topic as a blog post I had been formulating in my head, I figured I would just copy and paste most of it here. But in the off chance that she visits my blog, I didn't want her to think I was just barfing out the same content everywhere. It was an email to you first, Susan. I swear!

Anyway, on to my neurotic spin of the week: As a type 4, I seem plagued by the analytical, breaking-things-down-to-get-to-the-truth-by-identifying-the-problem thinking that is a characteristic of the personality type. I constantly and forever see what is wrong/missing with situations, people, myself...Usually I am the only one who can see these things and/or is willing to articulate them, so I know that I am a necessary force in this world.

But after a while, when others seem to only be in denial or don't want to see what I see (even when I point it out in a nice, diplomatic way or couch it in a question - which is SO hard!!) then I decide, of course, that what is REALLY wrong with me is that all I see is what is wrong/missing with everything. In other words,  I am what the rest of the world would call "negative." And, naturally then I go trying to fix that and make myself more positive to see if that won't make me happier. Which means that I am stuck in the perpetual self-diagnosis and "what-do-I-need-to-change" cycle which really only amounts to beating myself senseless about who I really am.

Once, in the middle of such an episode, I had a boyfriend ask, "What if there's nothing wrong with you?" Which I found to be an amazing revelation, a great relief and extremely freeing for about a day until I, of course, figured out what was wrong with that statement. (I later figured out what was wrong with him too, which was also a great relief. But I digress....)

One of my main worries is, how does my personality type affect the law of attraction in my life (also known as The Secret.) If I always see what is wrong/missing, will I continue to manifest things or situations that are wrong/missing something with my "negative" energy?

Here we go loop-de-loop...