Creativity

For a loving couple, the womb is a sacred vessel in which spirit is joined to flesh. In the instant of germination, the sperm and ova merge the intentions of parents. The spirit of the growing fetus guides the seeking of cells as tissues and organs emerge. Mother, with patience and forbearance, attends, filters and provides all that is necessary for growth. Father protects the sacred process, affirming the emerging virtue and clearing away psychic weeds.

We don’t usually talk about pregnancy with the focus on spiritual process. We talk about eating, exercising, working, stroking and growing. But each of those physical acts has a corresponding spiritual consequence. It is in the service of creativity that those correspondences become clear to us.

No participant wholly determines the way a child enters the world. Any one can corrupt the outcome, creating wounds that may take a lifetime to heal. But pregnancy unfolds according to its own timing, each serving in their own way, and only with birth is the outcome known.

Truth empowers us to create change. In creating a child, parents manifest that fact at the cellular level. After birth, the susceptibility of a child continues to expose our strengths and weakness. We cannot impose adult expectations upon our children; character emerges in stages. We must respond to children as they are, rather than as we imagine they should be, while still seeking to support them as they become what we hope they can be.

A parent’s surrender of control seems obvious – we cannot see what is going on in the womb, nor would we hope to control our child’s every act. Why should we? We have lives of our own.

This long introduction is offered to prepare us for the change in perspective involved when we enter the realm of creative collaboration. Living in truth, as loyal partners we learn that commitment remains as we emerge from the psychological chrysalis. To change is allowed us; our partners adapt with us.

Given that privilege, we naturally ask “Who do I want to be?”

This seems to return us to the second step on the path to maturity (Sex). The difference is that we aren’t driven by untamed urges. We have years of experience managing personal and professional relationships. In working with our partners, we identify skills, attitudes and behaviors that we’d like to add to our personality.

The introverted accountant might wish to project the personal warmth of the sales representative. The pragmatic housewife could learn to paint. The jet-setting athlete may yearn increasingly to remain with family.

What controls those choices is the weight of our involvement in the realization of goals pursued by our community. That community might be a household with school-age children, a high-tech corporation, or a society confronting a drug epidemic. Under the right circumstances, a single person might be committed to serving each of those communities.

But under no condition is anybody able to focus exclusively on a single community. We all serve in multiple roles. The housewife will be asked to authorize pediatric vaccinations and sex education. Consent implies informed trust in the medical system and school board. Objection might require home schooling of her children, and compliance with complex educational standards.

Again, this seems to reiterate the considerations of an earlier stage of development – exchange. We must weigh costs and benefits to each action and seek to maximize the return to our community. The difference is that during exchange the community’s commitment to our survival is contingent upon the value we generate. When we are creative, we instead find our security in spiritual immersion.

As we inspire and adapt, the barriers between self and other begin to melt. Our intellectual, physical and emotional strength is dependent upon theirs. We discover gratitude for the gifts that we receive from them. Life isn’t about measuring and counting – it’s about being in harmony.

The greatest challenge in expressing creativity is the dislocation experienced by those still in earlier development stages. Those persons are not fully immersed in the creative process. Change is continually forced upon them, undermining the behaviors they use to survive. If they fall back into fear and anger, the creative gestalt can be wounded.

A sophisticated hypnotherapist helps to manage those boundaries and heal those wounds.

Within the community, an old self-centered behavior pattern may not be triggered except in specific circumstances. When those arise, a session or two with a therapist can release the pattern so that the creative effort can be resumed.

Other situations are less malleable: relocations, marriages, divorces, births and deaths focus the need to change. Group imagery sessions can help communities visualize change and prepare for a smooth reorganization. When dislocation comes as a sudden shock, individual or group grief process can be facilitated by hypnotherapeutic imagery.

Individuals also benefit when hypnotherapy is used to focus attention and energy for key events: corporate board meetings, final exams and a sports competition are all examples. Hypnotherapeutic imagery is again a powerful tool in ensuring effective outcome in contexts certain to include distractions and disruptions.

Part 1 || Part 8 | Part 10