We are what we are in life, and we are what we have not dealt with in our lives. While that may sound complicated, it is really a simple statement. All of your sum experiences up until this moment in life have made you the person you currently are. All the good, bad, ugly, beautiful and even the forgotten moments come together and have created you as a person, a soul, and an entity.
Wow, I saw this video by Yanni, and I was like blown away. Sorry, for using cliche' phrases, but I'm just in awe.
He explained in such detail how the creative process works for him.
Yanni was totally in his vulnerable state sharing which makes it even more special to me.
I love Yanni's music. It has always been an inspiration to me because he just allows himself to create from his heart and from that deep space.
I love seeing these videos where he shows a side of himself that we don't normally get to see.
In the video he talked about when you're in the creative process, you can't observe it and if you are trying to observe it, you aren't in it. (watch the video below)
I've found that the music just flowed from me when I was in the creative process. Like a conversation is how I normally describe it. We don't think about the conversation with a friend that we are having, we just talk to them. For me, how I create is much the same way.
It is something that comes up from deep within me where it just spills out. It just happens. It just comes together. If I try to force it (or in Yanni's words, observe it), it stops. If I just surrender to it and let it happen, it shows up.
One of the things that I've never mastered and it may be in how my ability comes through, is whatever I create on the piano, I am never able to play again. I wish I could, but if I try, it feels like one big blank space in me and I just stare at the piano. So, all of my music has to be recorded at the time it is created or generally it is lost.
This is why I compare my creative pursuits on the piano to a conversation. While you might try and paraphrase the conversation after it is over, you cannot repeat it. I can't repeat it. So, unless I'm recording, the music is lost.
I still remember the song,Meditation Music: Healing Angels, that I recorded some time ago. I sat down at my keyboard just to mess around on it. Sure, I felt this stuff that was bubbling up in me, almost like energy that needed to come out. Yet, I didn't expect to be writing a song.
I sat down with my recording equipment running and put my fingers on the keyboard. What came out of my hands at that minute surprised me. Of course, in the moment I did not hear what I was playing. I never do when I'm creating. It isn't until after I'm done and listen to it, that I actually get to hear it.
Through that song, I felt so much warmth and energy and feeling and emotion. I was crying hard. I was swaying to what was going on. I felt this empowerment come over me almost making it difficult to keep my hands on the keyboard. When I got done, I had created the song, Meditation Music: Healing Angels.
Most of the time, the songs I create are named for whatever thoughts are going through my mind at the time. I jot them down and then find a title that brings them out so others can understand. The songs are feelings and emotions and a conversation from a place I can't even describe.
Hearing Yanni talk about the Creative Process just helped me understand where I create from especially on my keyboard. I have not recorded anything new for some time and I'm beginning to feel the urge to sit at my keyboard and do this again.
Often when I go through difficult periods of life, I'm not in a mood to sit at the keyboard. Generally though, it is after I'm coming out of the difficult moment where I sit down and record. I think until I've found my way through it, even if it is hard for me to see in that moment, that's when I can share it through the notes that I play.
Thank you Yanni for sharing this video. You helped me understand myself a little more.
And so we ask ourselves, Can I use my mind to create my reality? If so, is that a skill that we can learn and use to become who we want to be, and create the life we want to experience? - Pg 3, Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza
MD Anderson Cancer Center of Orlando held a class on learning to draw a face. The class was taught by Angilyn Watson and was part of their mind body medicine program. They have many classes throughout the year at MD Anderson and many are free. The classes are for patients, family, friends and the public.
When I saw this class become available, I thought it might be fun. Of course, the skeptical side in me said, "silly - you know you can't draw!" Yes, I know that drawing stick figures was a challenge for me, but I'm creative and I thought, heck, why not give it a try. After all, what's the worst that could happen. Maybe I would just spend two hours in a class proving I can't draw or that my stick figures might look more realistic. The person teaching the class did guarantee we would learn to draw a face. I wondered before I went if she knew what she was getting herself into with someone like me.
Putting all skepticism and negativity aside, I'm glad I went that day. My drawing doesn't look perfect to me but in a two hour class that was fast paced, I'm very surprised at what I accomplished. I learned things about drawing that I never knew. High school art class never really taught me much other than the fact that I didn't understand how to draw a still life picture represented by a bowl of fruit.
Here is one of my favorite thoughts that comes to my mind in many ways. Many of us are afraid that we aren't creative or that we aren't good enough or smart enough to create. Yet, we all create our moments in our days and we create the world which we come to know. Creating is something we all do every day of our life, but sometimes we get so hung up on creating like everyone else does, that we lose site of our own creations. Enjoy the following quote and realize just how much you create in a day of your own life.
The act of creating comes not from knowing what you will create, but from stepping back and allowing yourself to just be in the moment, apart from all the restrictions you have placed upon your mind. - Don Shetterly
Book Quote: Hope And Possibility Through Trauma
Author: Don Shetterly
Page 181
Every day we wake up into a world that has not been created at that moment. It is each waking moment, each step we take, and each thought we derive, that creates our day. What we choose to do with it and how we choose to live it, is our choice and our choice alone.
