(or: ‘The Power To Light Up’ – Part 1)

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

These words are from Martha Graham, an American modern dancer and choreographer who lived between 1894 and 1991. Her influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky on music, and Frank Lloyd Wright on architecture.

She quietly mentioned them to fellow dancer Agnes de Mille, after Agnes had confessed to her that she had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that she actually could be.

Martha’s words beautifully capture the nature of the creative power we all possess, in the form of the ‘life force’ that’s trying to come out in a unique expression that only you can facilitate.

It’s this ‘vitality’ that we can define as the inner flame of our true passion.

TheFlameofPassion

Passion in this context is the fuel that drives us forward in life: the passion to experience, to create value, to invent, to build something that has a life of its own, to connect (with) other people, to do something remarkable with our lives – whatever it is that’s important to us.

And whenever we speak of wanting to “create the life of our dreams” (<– or in contemporary popularized jargon “attract and manifest our desires”), we’re really looking for the experience of being aligned with this fundamental ‘ecstasy’ that’s constantly seeking expression and expansion through us.

Once we manage to establish that kind of congruence, this ‘energy’ gets focused in a kind of creative power that can never be equaled by any endeavor that lacks that kind of alignment, and incites an unmatched drive and ability to create the kind of life experience we dream about making reality.

When we do align like that, we have no need for fancy motivational tricks to ignite our inspiration and/or retain a ‘positive outlook.’ While such methods can contribute to increasing its intensity, this inner fire is a humungous and inexhaustible resource of energy, unequaled by anything.

It can fuel the realization of any genuine intent we have, and allows us to do anything we really want to do with unparalleled vigor.

It electrifies our ability to easily move through all of the inevitable external obstacles we’ll find on the journey of making our dreams reality (<– which each come with their own set of internal obstacles to overcome).

Or otherwise it’ll dissolve any of our supposed ‘inner blocks’ and/or self-inhibiting patterns by simply making them fade to the background of its captivating and overwhelming liveliness.

It’s this power that we unleash when we truly ‘Crack Our Eggs’ and that – in the words of the Queen song – “makes a supersonic (wo)man of you.” (<– See the video at the end of this article.)

SoWhereIsIt?

We all have this flame burning within us, without exception.

While for some of us it might have become so dim that we don’t even recognize it anymore, we’ve all experienced its dashing intensity at some point in our lives, only usually just for very short, fleeting moments.

Nevertheless, we all remember those moments, because they bring such awesome clarity, insatiable desire, lightness of heart, and inexhaustible vitality.

Precisely because of a total lack of alignment with this ‘exuberance,’ for most people their process of ‘creating the life of their dreams’ and ‘actualizing their desires’ comes to a halt before it even really gets the chance to take off and build momentum.

Such inner ‘miscalibration’ can have various causes:

• We may seek to manifest externally imposed symbols that are collectively decreed to be the essentials of ‘success,’ although on a core level we ourselvesdon’t agree with and/or genuinely care about them (<– as explained in this article).
• We find ourselves unable to decide on anything and scatter our focus all over the place.
• We really have no idea about what we really want, usually due to a collection of subconscious patterns and automatic mechanisms that blind, keep and/or distract us from focusing on our genuine aspirations.

In any case, we’re unable to align ourselves to our ‘inner fire,’ much less to fully investourselves in its creative expression, whichever form that may take for us.

But if we ever want to experience the true nature of the creative power and fulfillment we’re really seeking, we must (re)discover and fuel this flame.

SoHowDoWe(Re-)DiscoverIt?

When we’ve been implicitly suppressing and/or out of touch with our flame for so long, finding it (back) can seem a little tricky.

As a little analogy, consider this:

Years ago when I was still in high school, I remember that some friends of mine used to bring books with them that contained collections of autostereograms.

An autostereogram is a type of illustration that’s designed to create the visual illusion of a three-dimensional scene from a two-dimensional image, where the suggestion of depth is created from the different perspective that each eye has of a three-dimensional scene.

At first sight, the image usually appears as a flat, abstract collage of colors. However, it has another, three-dimensional picture ‘underneath’ it that we’re unable to readily see through our normal ways of looking.

To perceive that ‘deeper’ image, we’re supposed to hold the book at a certain distance from our face, and then pull it slowly away without adjusting the focus of our eyes – kind of like looking through the picture. Then at one point in that trajectory, the three-dimensional image will suddenly show up.

Below is an example of an autostereogram, where the above part of the image is the abstract collage displayed in the book, and the part underneath it is the three-dimensional image that’s supposed to appear upon the right way of looking at (or perhaps rather through) it:

Now I have to admit:

Personally, I could never do it, except for some occasional instances of success. I’d keep putting a lot of effort into finding the image behind the colored mishmash. But no matter how hard I tried, it never worked. It could drive me nuts!

But then at one point, for no reason whatsoever that I can remember, I picked up one of those books, opened it to one of the pictures, and without trying it all, there it was! The three-dimensional picture behind it just popped up in front of my eyes.

And yet, I still didn’t know how exactly I did it. So even after that experience of ‘success,’ I couldn’t reproduce the ability on a consistent basis.

At first I thought the trick was to sneak up on the book as if I wasn’t interested. But that didn’t turn out to work dependably…

Putting my eyes out of focus didn’t work either…

Very occasionally it just came to me. But usually it didn’t.

Now to be really honest with you:

I can’t say I consistently and diligently practiced it… With other stuff on my mind, it was just never that important to me.

And that’s the issue right there!

You see, in that particular sense, the inner flame of our passion is kind of similar to the deeper three-dimensional image in those autostereograms:

• You can’t always see it.
• But nevertheless, every now and then it makes itself apparent.

Sometimes it’ll come to you, and when it does, it’s usually at the most unexpected or inconvenient moment and in the strangest, most unpredictable ways:

• You could be standing on the corner about to walk across the street…
• You could be exercising…
• You could be turning in your sleep, dreaming…
• You could be polishing your paperclip collection…
• You could be in the shower, packing a suitcase, visiting a concert or theater show, engaging in ‘number two,’ cleaning out your closet…
• Etc.

It’ll always be fleeting and unpredictable, unless you make it truly important to you!

If you really want to tap into its powers and experience its invigorating infusion of energy, inspiration, motivation and elation… then you must make it really, reallyimportant to you!

In fact, you must make it so important that you’ll do anything to see it for what it is.

It’s being deeply and genuinely interested in discovering it that’ll ultimately give you the power to see it.

That’s the main thing.

And to further point you in the right direction, here’s a practical way to start looking…

YourNextCourseofAction

The flame of your passion is and has always been there. It doesn’t need to be ignited, only to be found and recognized.

Next, for a flame to keep burning brightly, it needs fuel. The more fuel you feed it, the brighter and more intensely it blazes.

This gives us two angles as a starting point for firing her up:

1. Feed your flame more fuel.

The fuel for our inner flame to burn is the genuine attention we give to it. When we ignore it, it fades and may even appear to die out. But when we give it a channelthrough which it can be expressed (even just slightly), it begins to light up and intensify. And this channel can take any form you feel drawn towards.

Contrary to what we’re sometimes led to believe, we’re not actually born to be a doctor, lawyer, road sweeper, charity worker, mother/father, garbage man, school teacher, or whatever.

So it’s not always a specific job or activity that we need to find (although it can be). All we need is a conduit that works for us and gives us the opportunity to ‘siphon’ the energy into the material world.

To elicit some initial indications and directions for suitable options, ask yourself:

• What are your strengths?
• What do you excel in?
• What are your unique talents?
• What can you do better than most others?
• What are your passions?
• What are your hobbies?
• What makes your heart sing?
• What can you do for hours, that makes you lose track of time and fills you with energy and joy?

Pay particular attention to the first hunches that come to mind. Don’t censor the process with thoughts like “I can’t make any money with that” or “people will think I’m crazy.” That’s just your ‘egg’ imposing its constricting influence on you.

As a result of this exercise, either or both of two things might happen:
 

• Clear answers may come to mind immediately:

  Answers can pop up in all kinds of ways, including as images, visions, memories, lyrics to a poem or a song, etc.

  In case they come to you with sufficient clarity, write them down so you both implicitly and explicitly express your investment in this process (<– it attests to your being serious and genuine about it), entertain them, and find a way to follow through on them.

  Whatever your answers are, deliberately make time in your life for what they indicate, even if it’s not your main everyday focus (at first). Ask yourself:

  “What can I begin to do to make this more important in my life?”

  And then follow through on what comes to mind. Just begin to give it someattention. When you do, simply enjoy the flow of the experience and see what new inspirations kick in for it to expand (<– and then see how you can follow through on those).

  The more you do, the more you’ll lighten up as it lifts your spirit and light up as the flame becomes ever brighter and energizes you with more electrifying ecstasy.

• Nothing comes to mind (at first):

  If nothing unambiguous comes up at the outset of this exercise, keep the questions in the back of your mind for a while, and just focus your attention elsewhere. Nevertheless, remain mindful for hunches, as they might pop in at the most unexpected moments (as I mentioned earlier).

  Focusing on something else will reset your mind, and the best ideas and inspirations usually come up when we’re not forcing our minds to do something. When they do reveal themselves, write them down and follow through on them as described above.

For some people, answers, insight and inspiration strike in like a lightning bolt and with immediate, unmistakable clarity.

For others, finding back their flame may be more like a journey of (re-) discovery, where they might have to start with one thing, after which the next part of it will reveal itself… and then when they follow through on that, its next aspect will come into focus… and so on.

If so, just stay at it, because your flame will become apparent if you remain seriously and genuinely interested in its nature. In that regard, the second angle for our starting course of action will greatly contribute to the effect of this exercise as well:

2. Stop cutting off your flame’s fuel supply.

As mentioned before, the flame of our passion may have grown very dim over time upon its subjection to the immensely inhibiting forces of our ‘egg,’ with all its subconscious patterns and mechanisms that are pulled over our eyes to blind and distract us from the nature and rapture of our inner fire.

Taking such inhibiting factors out of the equation can go a long way in helping a dimmed- down flame reveal itself and burn brighter again, as if we suddenly eliminate a sizable fuel drain that had been substantially cutting off its supply of energy.

This part of the process, however, is a whole topic in and of itself, and something we go into in other articles.

So begin by implementing the suggestions provided so far.

Then in the next article, you’ll learn a technique that’ll allow you to see the self-inhibiting patterns of your ‘egg’ for what they really are, instantly step out of them, and put yourself in a position of power and understanding from where you can dissolve them and increase your ability to discover, reveal and unleash the flame of your passion. (<– Or if you can’t wait, learn to ‘Crack Your Egg’ now!)

And when you really do and allow it to burn in its inherent blazing glory – both lightened and lighted up, nothing will be able to stop you on your path of making your dreams reality.

It’s your light. Let it shine.