Fragmentation of our creative power and creative ability

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2009 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

Overview of fragmentation

Fragmentation is a dynamic process in which we disable our ability to manage and control our creative life energy. Although it is part of the creative process and inherent to the process it is also a disabling process if not experience with the creative process. In the creative process, fragmentation occurs at the bottom of the transition or mid way in the transition of not being in either world - the old world which is collapsing or the new forming. There needs to be a moment when we release the past to from that new. Fragmentation is about disassembling the belief structure of who and what we are that gave rise to the old. Until we from that new beliefs structure, our creative life energy appears to be scattered and fragmented when in reality it is only reforming. However, if new attachments are not form on the new creation, our creative life energy remains scattered and fragmented.

We are all malleable and capable of being molded. Sometimes we are more open to molding than at other times. The Dark Night of the Soul occurs when we are unwilling to let go of our attachments for the necessary disassembly of our belief structure.

Our problem arises from the fact that rather than spending the time to surrender and become intimately familiar with the feel of the flow of creative life energy within our being. Rather than learning to communicate with it and follow its lead, if for no other reason than to learn the feel of this energy, we attempt to direct its flow based on what our mind believes and how it thinks. In interjecting mind without the awareness of the direction of our energy flow, we cause our creative life energy to become scattered and fragmented resulting in separation, aloneness, alienation, and an inability to create the experiences of our choice. Additionally with out learning the feel of this energy and how that feeling expresses itself in our unique bodies, we are unaware and unable to detect when the flow changes directions in accordance to the intention that created our current life.

Outside of the creative process fragmentation occurs when we consciously, we choose to deny ourselves in one way or another. It occurs nonconsciously the way respond when we feel the pain of rejection and denial when we enter a person’s life to assist them in creating the experience they desire and we are rejected rather than be fully embraced for who and what we are.

We are extremely creative individuals and we are masters at creating an illusion to prevent ourselves from understanding who and what we are. It needs to be remembered that the entry process into life and growth into our body and becoming aware of our physical conditions is a forgetting process. Pain and coming to believe we are our bodies only help the forgetting process. The only question is, "How much do we fragment and scatter our creative life energy and creative ability in the process?"

However, when we talk about fragmentation, we should remove our judgments and remember that the entire world we experience is only a reflection of our deepest desires to have a physical experience. If we get too close to discovering who we really are and the power we have to create any experience, including the physical experience we are currently having, and we have not clearly set the intention to discover ourselves at all levels of our being, we have an infinite number of ways of shattering and fragmenting our energy to keep the illusion in going. It is not a simply task of just saying, "I wish to access and release my unlimited creativity." We must desire it, as any creation then attempt to manifest with the passion as intense as the passion of a drowning man grasping for air. Otherwise we will thwart our own efforts and uncovering who we really are.

Discussion of Fragmentation

We create our experiences and the reality we experience by how we manage, or don’t manage, our creative life energy. Fragmentation is about how we scatter or fragment the focus of that energy so that we are unable to create what we desire.

To understand fragmentation, look at our creative life energy as a river. Each choice we make drains some of the water from that river and directs it into whatever we choose. Sometimes the water is returned to the river after use. Sometimes the water is used to prime a pump making more water available to the river. At other times water is taken out of the river only to evaporate and never return. Depending on the choices we make, we can drain the river so low, we can’t create what we desire. Rather, we keep hitting the rocks and other obstacles that lie exposed because we don’t have the water, the creative life energy to float over them. Fragmentation is the process of draining our creative life energy in such a way you disable our ability to create the experiences we desire.

In its most simplistic description, fragmentation is about consciously or nonconsciously giving away our creative life energy and creative power by not taking responsibility for the choices we have made and the consequences that resulted from those choices. It is pointing to some external cause or source that does not allow us to do what we wish to do rather than looking within to see how our inner world is reflected in the outer. In many situations it is about creating a victim consciousness within ourselves that somehow we are victims of the world around us.

There are many different ways for us to fragment the flow of our creative life energy. Some ways are consciously learned and made habits whereas others are nonconscious. Most fragmentation occurs as a result of the way the physical experience is designed.

We can think of the human physical experience as an amusement park ride designed to give a particular type and kind of experience, the physical experience. Inhabiting a physical body as a human is designed to give you an extremely particular type and kind of experience, that of being a human being. There are infinite varieties of experience but the physical experience of being human is specifically designed to show us how creative we really are and an opportunity to exercise that creativity. It is specifically designed to help us to forget who exactly we are so we can believe that we are physical to have the physical experience.

Pain and coming to believe we are our bodies because of the pain we can experience while in the body only helps the forgetting process. Otherwise, if we fully remembered who we are we would not have the experience of being human. We would instantaneously create ourselves out of the physical experience for it can be a very challenging and painful experience. The only question is, "How much do we fragment and scatter our creative life energy and creative ability in the process of having a physical experience?" That is, how much of our creative power do we give away rather than believe that we, ourselves, are creating the experience we have. Yet in this forgetting process, none of us completely forget who and what we are. We always retain a glimmer or spark within our heart no matter how small it may become. We only need to figuratively blow on those embers within the heart and they glow brightly shedding the light to lead us back to who and what we really are. We blow on the embers by calibrating our internal compass, opening ourselves to what we feel, and learning to navigate from the heart.

Each of us seemingly stand between two world. We seem to be an infinite creative spirit (and we are), trapped in the limits and confinements of a physical body. Yet we seem to be a physical being that is constrained and bound to the laws of cause and effect  of the physical plane, which we are, yet that has access to all the realms of existence. The answer of course is that we are both. The task we have chosen to accomplish in our own unique way is to become fully that infinite being while in a physical body and to create any experience we can conceive of while in that body, never leaving the body but not being limited or constrained by that body either.

We are here to play and to experiment and explore the true depth and breath of our own being. The "trick" to this play, if we wish to call it that, is how we fragment our creative life energy to create and sustain the illusion that we are not this infinite creative being in a physical body. We only created a puzzle to challenge the full depth and breath of our own unlimited creativity.

There are three primary ways that you fragment your energy, two of which are extremes of the same process. One is to "bleed" ourselves into a myriad of pieces slowly fragmenting ourselves. The second way is to shatter ourselves into pieces much the way the consciousness within, or behind, Creation shattered itself. The third way is to put ourselves to sleep through habit allowing ourselves to forget what we have done and then deny responsibility for what you have created. In all cases we keep ourselves fragmented and in the illusion of separation by keeping ourselves secret and compartmented and unable to share the most intimate aspects of our being with ourselves or with others. There will be a time and a place where we will need to allow ourselves to become fully naked at all levels of our being and reveal all our secrets.

The Illusion of Secrets - the secret of fragmentation: There is ancient recommendation that permeates almost all of the ancient exoteric and religious traditions and it simply says, "Keep your prayers secret." The reason and logic for this statement seem to make complete sense in that if we share our deepest desires and wishes, we become subject to the judgments, opinions and thinking of all those with whom our share our desires and wishes. If they cannot respect us and hold the space for us to become what we desire (for we to become the creator of our own reality), they will cause us to doubt the wisdom of our deepest desire and wish.

The deeper the desire and longing, the deeper the pain when that wish is rejected by those around us. When we doubt, we loose all possibility of creating what we doubt. More importantly, we begin to doubt our own wisdom to know what our unique creation needs to fulfill itself. Hence the wisdom of "keeping your prayers secret" seems very wise and correct.

In reality, the opposite is true for two reason discussed below. In general though, the concept of secret is something that cannot be expressed and shared in the light and must be kept separate and compartmented. Keeping secrets, that which cannot be expressed, is the root cause of how we fragment ourselves and scatter our energy. In essence we are not free to become who and what we are so we need to keep our essence a secret. Keeping our essence a secret in turn becomes a habit. In time this habit become deeply buried and our secrets, that part of ourselves we do not feel free to express, lies buried, long forgotten. Often it becomes a dark side of our nature never allowed to be expressed in the light. We see mystery in life. We don’t understand how and why things happen the way they do but we never shed a light within ourselves to see what we ourselves have created. We need to come to understand and remember our inner world is reflected in the outer.

The first way keeping secrets is not wise is that there are no secrets in the universe. All is interconnected and all is known at some level. To think something can be kept secret is illusion. The inner world is reflected in our outer world and vice versa. Whatever we desire to manifest will manifest in some way in the external world and we cannot keep what is internal to us a secret. It will manifest and show itself externally. If in no other way, it will express itself in that which is missing or even conspicuous because it is missing.

If we do anything externally and attempt to keep it secret, we will become separated from the source of our own being and feel separate from the external world in some way. We will feel alone in that the separation we create to keep our secret cause us to separate from others in our external world (for our internal world will be reflected externally). To keep our secret we will have to fragment and compartmentalize ourselves. We have to build a wall or barrier of some type within ourselves to not allow that aspect to come out when we don’t want it to do so. we have to build a cage to contain it and that entire internal process will be reflected externally.

There is a oneness to Creation whether we perceive it or not. To intentionally keep any secret, internally or externally, causes us to separate ourselves from Creation and to actually cause the essence of our being to live in separation. That separation causes us, in turn, to separate from the Source of our Being. Hence, if we keep our prayer secret, the very thing we desire to manifest is cut off from the source of the energy that will allow it to manifest. Whatever we do manifest in the external world as a result of our secret will be a hollow shell of what can be no matter how fulfilling it may seem and it will not be able to sustain life. Rather it will cut itself off from life. It will eventually die. Our separation may exist for awhile but it will eventually dissolve and collapse back into the wholeness of being. It is why our physical bodies die. There is great symbolism when the umbilical cord of the child is cut of from the source of its life, the mother. Although the body becomes separate and self sufficient for a while (lifetime), it will eventually die. Only that which is not cut off from its source of life continues to live.

The second reason why it is an error to keep our prayers secret is that we need the strength of will that can endure the non-constructive and unsupportive judgments, opinions and doubts of others. If we are going to become the creator of our own reality, we will need to have a strong enough will to sustain the reality and all the criticism we may receive.

Consider for a moment what would happen to the physical world if the Consciousness that created it actually listened and responded to our criticism and the myriad of judgments, likes and dislikes about the physical experience. Creation itself would become very schizophrenic and literally be torn apart. There is nothing wrong with whatever we desire to create. The creative life energy of the universe is unconditional and will allow us to create whatever we desire. We only need to understand, we will have to live the consequences of what we create and that is true at every level of our being.

If we are steadfast and create the world of our choice, we will have to live the consequences of that world whatever it looks like no matter what criticism we may suffer. If we give up what we feel we need to create and do what others want us to do, we will still have to live the consequences of what we create and suffer their criticism. However, rather than creating the world of our choice, we will be creating the world as chosen by others and not have the satisfaction of having created what we desire. In either case we will live the consequences of whatever we choose to create. By keeping our deepest desires and wishes secret, we are not creating the world of our choice and we are not manifesting the strength of will that will ultimately manifest our desires and wishes. Rather, we are living in response to those around us and creating the world they wish us to create, not ours. Keeping our wishes and deepest desires secret, creates that seeds to become a victim and be at the mercy of those around us.

Why there are no secrets: Separation is how Consciousness creates the reality we experience. It separates into the observed and the observer. It literally cuts itself off from itself by fragmentation and compartmentization of itself, and there are an infinite number of ways in which it can do this.

To start this creation process consciousness separate itself into individualized playmates each a view or perspective on Creation. There is an infinite spectrum of Consciousness and each point of consciousness has a free will and can choose to be asleep or aware and can choose to be in wholeness, in separation, or moving into or out of separation. It is the superposition of this movement into and out of separation of these infinite points of Consciousness that gives the illusion to Creation. The miracle of Physical Creation is that our consciousness inhabits a physical body that encompasses this infinite process.

Our consciousness is never separate from All That Is (Creation) unless we choose to experience it as separate. The separation that results is only the illusion we create by how we think. Our body is a vehicle that has been created to help sustain our separation so we can experience what it means to be physical. As we can come to see as we work with the creative process, there is a Consciousness that created and sustains the physical plane. It is the energy of "Om" that lies behind Creation. The Consciousness "Om" holds within it consciousness what it means to be physical and has given Itself for us to have a physical experience. It freely and unconditionally gives Itself for us to take and eat Its energy in the form of our physical bodies in order to have a physical experience. The food we eat, the air we breath, and the water we drink is only the physical manifestation of the creative life energy of "Om" giving itself to us to sustain our experience of Physical Creation.

When we stop eating, drinking and breathing our bodies die and return to the source from which it came. What we do with that energy while we are in our body is our choice. But, whatever we do with it is revealed in the external world. Our actions are our fruits. We only need to look closely and intimately at what an individual creates and we will know their deepest secrets. Most of us are too busy and preoccupied with our own experience to truly look and see what another is creating, include Creation itself.

Creativity is the language of consciousness. What we create is what our consciousness is communicating about itself and its understanding of who and what it is. We only need to watch and observe to know the consciousness that lies within any human being. In the light of this understanding, all is revealed, all is made known. There are no secrets.

Issue of intimacy: In one way or another, we all have learned to keep a part of ourselves secret both from ourselves and others. Some call this secret part of ourselves the dark side or the shadow side of our being. Yet, there are secrets we have that go well beyond what we recognize as dark or shadowy and some are the most beautiful aspects of our being. There are some secrets of which we are very aware and live each moment consciously or nonconsciously suppressing them. Some of this is how we deny living what is in our heart although it often surfaces to get out. Other secrets lie so deep we do not even know they exist.

When Buddha wrestled with his demons, in many ways all he was doing was revealing his deepest secrets within himself as to who and what he had been or what he thought. Whether we believe he addressed his past lives or whether he only wrestled with the deepest, shadowy and hidden side of his being doesn’t matter. All the secrets within ourselves must be revealed. Secrets only represent that part of ourselves we are unwilling to share with ourselves or another. What each of us need to do is to become very deeply intimate within ourselves sharing these deep and darker aspects of ourselves.

The intimacy to which we refer is deeper than we have probably have ever been with ourselves or another. To become fully naked exposing the truth within our being is an understatement. It literally and figuratively turns ourselves inside out to see how our inner thinking an beliefs have created the external world we experience and how our external world can reveal to us the depth and breath of our inner separation, fragmentation and scattering of our energy.

How did we get into this mess (of fragmentation)?

There appears to be a mystery in Creation. We seem unable to understand exactly why we are here. There are many opinions and answers given. But, few of these answers seem to satisfy other than a few. However, the mystery only exists because we have allowed ourselves to forget and/or keep secret from ourselves both what we know about how to create the experiences we have and what we came to do.

We have forgotten for several reasons. One is because of the habits of our mind. A second is our preoccupation with the distractions arise from Creation itself and the creative process. A third is how we withdraw from life because of the pain and disappointment. A fourth is because we keep parts of ourselves secret because we are afraid of the truth of our being and what that truth may require us to do and become in the world. We have only created our own mysteries that only we individually can solve. To understand how we have fallen into this predicament of forgetting is to look at desire and at a simply story about desire to see how the whole process starts.

Consciousness has a particular trait that is best described as desire. Desire is inherent to our being. We desire things or experiences on all levels of our being. We think desire arises from being human. But, it is an aspect of consciousness itself. We will have spiritual, mental, emotional and physical desires. It is our desire, more importantly that intention that underlies the desire we have, is the vehicle the causes Creation to manifest and propels us thought Creation.

Desire itself is neither good nor bad. It is just is part of the process of creation. The problem is our desire, when coupled with the ability of the mind to form habits and the numerous distractions of Creation we tend to lose ourselves in creation. Desire held within a clear intention and coupled with a intense conscious focus our attention and awareness held very mindfully will not allow one to become lost. When one has this combination, they accept what is and work with what is, as it is, to manifest what they desire.

There is a story about a man who was told there was an extremely precious stone that was carelessly lost on one of the beaches next to a particular sea. This precious stone was rather unique in that if one just looked at the stone it would look like any other pebble. But, when viewed through sunlight by holding the stone up to the sun and looking inside, the stone revealed a beauty that was indescribable. It was just something that needed to be experienced.

So, the man, desiring this precious stone, went searching the beaches near this sea for this stone. However, as you may have suspect, the beaches were full of pebbles which explains why it was lost when it was first dropped. To find the stone, the man had to pickup each and every pebble looking at it up against the sun for that particular precious stone. As we said, at a distance, it really didn’t look that much different than a pebble. It was only in the light of the sun passing through the stone could one see its exquisite rare beauty.

He picked up pebble after pebble year after year looking for the particular rare precious stone. He would then thrown each discarded pebble he picked up into the sea next to the beach so that he would only look at each pebble once. Then one day he picked up a rather normal looking stone but in the beauty of the sunlight he was mystified and in "Ah" with the experience. He had never experienced such beauty in his life. He was entranced with the beauty. His whole being seemed to be transformed by what he saw. But before he could do anything with the stone, he threw it into the sea out of habit.

This experience of throwing away what we have been seeking sets that stage for a response and there are numerous ways we can choose to respond. One is anger. One is frustration. One is acceptance. And of course, there is the choice of what one does next - look into the sea for the stone that has been cast away or give up the search.

We too are like than man searching the beach. We form some type of desire in our mind and being to look for the experience of that desire or its fulfillment. However, unless we live life in awareness without being controlled by our past habits, we will be like the man on the beach. Out of habit before we realize that we have achieved what we desire, we discard that for which we have been looking before we realize what we have obtained. Additionally, if we get distracted by some other task, we may find we forget to look for the stone and in time forget why we are even on the beach. So we leave the beach, forgetting what we came to do. Or we could trip and fall hurting ourselves saying the search is too dangerous and/or painful. Or someone comes from the outside forcing us off the beach, forcing us to do something other than continue our search or otherwise interfering with our search.

Relative to habits, two particular problems faced the man searching on the beach that resulted in his habit of throwing the stones into the sea. First, a problem that we all have, is that the universe is infinite. As a human, we each are a limited view of this universe. In our story, the man could not look at all the pebbles on the beach simultaneously. He had to look at each an every one, one at a time and savor the experience of each stone and see if it was that for which what we were looking.

Since we each have a limited view, the universe will always be indescribable from the limited view that we each have. Said another way, every moment in time, we are experiencing and infinite number of experiences. We may focus on the major experiences and describe a few details. But, what we are really experiencing is something that is infinite.

We can do a little exercise. We just need to sit and look forward with our eyes opened. Allow ourselves to be present to all that is within our peripheral view and be aware of all that our body is sensing with all of its senses. We look to be aware of everything external to us and internal to ourselves and then try and describe it all in detail. If we are honest with ourselves we will have to admit we are have an infinite view and an infinite number of experiences or body sensations all happening simultaneously. But we just can’t begin to describe it all in detail. We focus on only a very few.

If we don’t believe what is said here is true, we can get a pencil and piece of paper and try listing all that we see and sense leaving nothing out at all. Include every detail and don’t forget to include the fact that we are sensing things but unless we place our awareness and attention on what we are sensing we probably are not registering the experience in consciousness.

For example we should not forget the feeling of our clothes on each portion of the skin that we will feel if we place our awareness on each segment of skin. What we will find is that it is extremely difficult to try and explain the details of the infinite in finite terms. Additionally, whenever we attempt to do this, that is, we are presented what appears as a mystery as to how we are actually sensing and aware of all that they are. We know that we can see everything and can explain any one piece in detail. But, we just can’t do it all. We don’t have enough time before we are distracted. It seems to be a mystery that we know we can see and experience it all. But, we can’t consciously express all that we know that we know.

What need to be understood from this experience is that each piece of the universe is very describable and explainable. We are very good at describing and explaining the pieces. It is understanding and viewing the whole simultaneously that we have problems explaining. This is one way we fragment ourselves. We look at a pieces and begin to live as if the piece is the whole discarding all else that is occurring.

The second problem the man faced in the story was that it took time to pick up and look at each stone. Very quickly the man developed a habit. If he was not aware of each stone, he began to operate out of habit. He may have observed each stone such that he saw the precious stone he was looking. But ,he acted out of habit and before he could capture that stone and hold onto it he threw it away.

So there are three things of which we need to become aware if we wish to start removing some of the mystery about ourselves and the world we are experiencing and reverse our fragmentation that has been created out of habit. The first is to learn to become mindful of what we are thinking and doing in response to our thinking.

The question is, "What is the habit we are creating and how is it taking over our life?" This includes becoming aware of how we are living our life and what we are learning and experiencing as we live life. The second is to hold our attention to our intention and make sure we either: 1) don’t fall into the habit of routine as the man searching for the gem on the beach such that, when we find what we are looking for we have sufficient awareness to realize it; or 2) get distracted and forget what we were looking for in the first place.

Third, we need to understand why we have set the intention that we have. That is, we need to clearly know what we are seeking and why. If what we are seeking will not give a lasting internal satisfaction we will only have a hollow experience once our intention is achieved. To search for a gem of rare beauty, the man knew the worth of what he was looking for. He also had the experience of observing the beauty of the rare gem. Yet he threw the experience away. He was then faced with one of two things. Either he experienced exquisite enjoyment that he had experienced the beauty of the gem even if for only a moment and achieved his desire. Or, he was faced with exquisite pain, that he threw way the source of his happiness only because he was not aware of what he was doing.

However, as described in the above story, there are several other ways we scatter our energy other than habit. They have to deal with how we respond to the experiences we have and the role of others in our life. How we respond to life and others in our life both allows us to bleed ourselves into fragmentation or we can instantaneously shatter ourselves.

Bleeding ourselves and shattering ourselves are actually the same process but lie at different ends of a spectrum. Their difference is only the magnitude of the pain and/or discomfort we feel. What happens is that we have an experience of life that causes us a set back for what we desire. The set back itself does not fragment our energy. Rather it is how we choose consciously or nonconsciously to respond.

If we allow the set back to move us away from our desire a little bit, we only lose a little bit of our creative life energy. However, slowly over time all the little set backs add up totally draining us. If we totally abandon what we desire because we are totally overwhelmed by the setback we will totally shatter our creative ability and have to regain the courage and strength to desire again. Here however, if we have not totally healed, nor completely regained our courage and strength, we will never regain our fully creative ability. On first glance one would suspect we lose our creative ability in proportion to how much we have not healed or how much courage and strength we have not regained. In reality, it is not a linear relationship but more of a multiplicative or exponential relationship.

A way to look at this fragmentation process is that when we are born, we are free to grow and expand in any direction. As we explore life, we focus our attention and awareness into, or onto, some effort. If the energy flows freely and unobstructed into the object or direction of our focus, we have an experience of life that fully dissipates the energy. If however, we encounter some obstacle such as pain, the dissatisfaction of those around us, or some frustration in what we were trying to accomplish, like throwing away the gem we are searching for in the above story, the energy is bounced back in only what can be described as a shock through our being. Look at this energy being bounced back like running ourselves into a wall and bouncing back off the wall.

If we are able to fully process what we feel and we are in a safe environment which we can allow ourselves to heal, our growth and expansion will not be impeded, limited or bound in any way. If we are unable to process the shock of what we feel, we automatically erect a barrier within our being to protect us from what we felt. Although this barrier may provide future protect to prevent a repeat of what had happened, it takes energy to maintain that barrier. Or from a consciousness perspective, it takes some of our attention to hold the memory as something which we need to protect against. In time the memory goes from the conscious mind into the nonconscious and continues to divert our energy to hold that barrier. In this manner, we bleed away our creative life energy. We erect one barrier at a time which seems to make perfect sense and is a small price to pay for protection. Yet, over time, we become puzzled why we don’t have the energy to create what we desire or we are unable to manifest what we desire. It is simply the fact that these barriers are both impeding the flow of our creative life energy into what we desire to create and their maintenance is robbing our creative energy from other activities.

When we shatter ourselves, the process is very similar and the results are ultimately the same. In shattering ourselves we suffer some type of traumatic situation in our life. We are so overwhelmed we become disoriented and erect barriers in a variety of directions because we are not comprehending from which direction our pain and discomfort is coming. Some barriers we do not even realize we erect. Again, without adequate healing these barriers remain to divert our creative life energy and we expend energy maintaining those barriers subsequently limiting our growth and expansion both because we have insufficient energy and the barrier now blocks our expansion.

Some particular ways we fragment ourselves

The barriers themselves are beliefs and are reflected in the way that we learn to respond to life because of what we have experienced. All work the same way to divert our creative life energy and restrict our movement in life. However, we perceive what gives rise to them quite differently in life. Pain, fear, anxiety, insecurity, lack of confidence, loss of unity and separation, illusions about life, anger and the like are all the occasions that give rise to these barriers.

Pain: Pain is the most obvious experience we face that fragments our energy. Whenever we encounter pain there is the possibility of erecting a barrier within our being to prevent the repeat of that painful experience. Every time we act in life to prevent that pain from returning whether we act consciously or nonconsciously it takes some of creative life energy away for other creative activities and literally rob ourselves of our creative ability. In some ways we can look at is as driving down a road full of obstacles such that we are constantly maneuvering around the obstacle or having to backtrack such that we make very little progress in a forward direction. The work to avoid pain and mitigate the effect of pain is a natural response and we will all lose some creative energy in avoiding it. The question is, "How much energy do we lose attempting to avoid it?" or in other words, "How much of our life is spent avoiding pain as opposed to implement appropriate compensatory measures and getting on with our life?"

Fear: Pain and the avoidance of pain in turn gives rise to fear. Again, it is natural to fear that which can harm us and/or give us pain. However, if we spend our life avoiding what we fear or worrying about what we fear rather than dealing with the hazard on which the fear is based, we waste valuable creative life energy. The energy is not available to be used to create what we desire. Rather we create a response to the fear. Fear has been an exceptionally good tool used throughout the history of humanity to control individuals and how they use and channel their energy. In many ways fear has been and continues to be encouraged in people. Many advertisements use the individual’s fear of not being acceptable to encourage the purchases of products. In addition to outright fear, two related fear conditions are performance anxiety and stress.

Performance anxiety: Performance anxiety is about being or acting in a way that meets some particular performance criteria that is not natural to our being. As such there is a tension between what our mind ask us to do and what our heart asks us to do. Performance anxiety fragments our creative life energy in that we send an enormous about of energy into needing to meet the criteria and often expends additional energy worrying about how effectively we met the criteria and how we will be judged. Addition discussion on performance anxiety is found in the topic, "Creativity perspective on performance anxiety."

Stress, goals and getting some where: Stress centers on getting somewhere or achieving something, or being someone. It doesn’t matter much where the goal comes from as much as it is getting to the goal. Here one is so focused on the goal one does not address what needs to be done in the moment to get to the goal. It is much like walking down a path so focused in the distance that you fail to see the stones and/or holes such that we trip and fall hurting ourselves and delaying our journey. Additionally we can become so goal orientated that reaching the goal justifies the means that we use to accomplish it even when the means are not in alignment with who and what we are and/or the truth of our being. There is a natural unfolding to any intention and that unfoldment follows the path of least resistance if we allow it. The fact things are not going in the way we think they should or the way we want them to do does not mean it is not following the path of least resistance. Additional discussion is found in the topic, "Creativity perspective on stress, goals and getting somewhere."

Insecurity, lack of confidence and trust: Insecurity and lack of confidence are two sides of the same issue. An individual is insecure because they lack the confidence to act and the lack of confidence to act makes one insecure. When one is insecure and/or lack confidence, they divert their energy from acting. If one looks deeply at any insecurity or lack of confidence, somewhere there is an issue of trust. One does not trust themselves and their judgment, their ability to learn and/or trust their external world to be supportive. Whenever one cannot trust, they erect a barrier to protect themselves. Again, it takes energy to maintain the barrier to avoid what one does not trust and/or hold them in separation from it. Some additional discussion is found in the topic, "Creativity perspective on insecurity, lack of confidence and trust."

Loss of Unity: Lack of trust, whether in ourselves, in others, or the world causes us to move out of oneness and interconnectedness into separation. In doing so, we cut ourselves off from the Source of our Being and Creation Itself. We divide ourselves into compartments trying to shield ourselves from that we don’t trust. In time, we create an ego very compartmented,  fragmented and scattered. In this regard our ego is much like a ship that cannot sink for all these individual compartments are made so airtight we do not lose buoyancy when several compartments fail. Rather than being one with Creation living and trusting the interconnectedness of all things, we remain compartmented never allowing ourselves to dissolve and sink into the oneness and wholeness. Rather we become like a submarine submerging into wholeness in selected experiences yet retaining our own identity only to surface again fully in tack in our separated ego self. In this compartmented ego state, one feels alienation and loneliness. We tend to be focused on the "self" and becoming selfish rather than give to the self what it needs so it is fully functional to perform its role within the interconnectedness and oneness of all things. We are not separate. It is only an illusion that helps us to scatter and fragment our energy.

Illusion of separation and objectivity: The prevalent world view is that we can be objective and we are separate from others and the world around us. We tend to believe we can be objective and we can remove ourselves from the whole. When we believe we are separate and can be objective we tend to believe we can manipulate and control ourselves and we make everything else objects that can be observed, manipulated and controlled. We believe we can control other people, the animals, and nature around us and even God Himself/Herself/Itself by how we bargain and think we can manipulate Him/Her/It to meet our desires. However, separation is an illusion. As discussed in the Creation Story for the Creativity Perspective all arises from illusion of Creation created by the consciousness within, or behind, Creation. In living the truth of our being and the truth all lies within we can move pass the illusion of separation and objectivity. Additional discussion is found in the topic, "Illusion of separation."

Giving our power away: Since we do not learn to live our own internal guidance that emanates from the Source of our Being, we look to others to tell us what to do and how to live. Yet for them to survive in the world they also separate themselves from the Source of their own being. It is an inevitable problem for humanity and the nature of the human physical experience. In attempting to follow someone one else, in addition to separating ourselves from our own Source as part of the human experience, we give what creative power we have remaining over to the direction or lead of another who is also separated.

If we do this often enough we create a habit that keeps us bound only to repeat the same pattern again and again. We even begin to rationalize that this is the way things are. That is, we do not have the creative power to create the reality and experiences we choose. We rationalize that humanity, which arises out of the essence of the Source of all Being, is some how less than that essence. We rationalize pain is necessary and serves to teach us compassion. Yet it is only the separation of our own being that causes our pain and it is the separation within ourselves and from our world that does not allow us to feel compassion for all that exists. Rather than learn to heal the separation within our being to reconstitute our fragmented and scattered energy to create an inner world without pain to be reflected in an outer experience, we lie with the pain of our separation and think we need to learn how to become compassionate.

Anger: At some level of our being we know we are not separate and we are creating an illusion. We know there is a truth within our being and we need to live that truth. When we are denied the opportunity to express the truth that is within our own being we are hurt and one feels pain The normal response is to pull away form that which causes us pain because we deny ourselves. If we continue to be thwarted or stopped in our attempts to express ourselves, there is a likelihood we become angry. Whether we become angry because we cannot express our true nature or we become angry because we cannot express ourselves in the way we have learned to adapt ourselves to the world doesn’t matter. If we do not have the outlet to express ourselves we become angry. The question then become, "What do we do with this anger?" Addressing anger is discussed in the topic, Creativity Perspective on Anger."

Related topics
Stories of fragmentation
Calling back our creative power
Incomplete release of our creative life energy

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