How do you start to do something you have never done before? It is impossible to jump from the starting line to the mid point, where you have hit your stride, feeling some comfort in knowing what the outcome will be. The fear of crossing over a boundary can leave you frozen completely unable to make the first move. To be that person you always wanted to be you must take those first steps, embodied in your integrity, knowing this is the path forward for you. But the blank canvas set before you triggers fear. My longing is stronger than my fear.
How can I approach an obstacle that I have never seen and never been taught about? How can I approach my fear as if it is as imagined and created in my own consciousness, as Martha Beck has recently enlightened me. If I have created the obstacle, I can create the solution. If I have dug my way into depression rabbit holes through my consciousness, life experiences, and cultural ideals then I can creatively dig my way out. But creativity by definition is to use original ideas and the ones I had been using for years have not served me so It was time to start from the beginning, healing, reparenting, researching new ideas and voices to help along the way.
I have always been a creative person but suffered from perfectionism and self doubt. At some point, I hid most of my talents, thinking I was not good enough but I still followed a creative course to art school deciding on a “safe” creative field in product design. My fear of making money drove this decision. I knew I was at least learning the most up to date programs and had a better job market after graduating. For 8 years until I had my second child, I was a toy designer. Yep, you read that correctly. I used to have the sheer pleasure of designing toys for kids. Looking back I could have enjoyed it a lot more but I no longer wish to go back to designing consumer products made solely out of plastic. It would be out of my integrity to work on anything that does not make my soul sing.
Instead, I have started a family, only to have my world turned upside down when the “top of the mountain” was nothing but a foundation built of sand. My understanding of self, home and family was mentally and physically uprooted by a move, 8 weeks after I had my second baby. New family, new home, new life with nothing to go back to but nothing yet to hold on to. This was the beginning. Removing the debris from the crumbling structure I thought I had, to create a blank canvas to work from. I suffered from postpartum and it was an explosion that I will write about in future posts but it is worth mentioning here. This was when I fell apart but it was the beginning of finding my creative path to healing, connecting and one day I hope to feel as though I am thriving. For now, I am in design:build for as far as the eye can see but I find comfort in knowing the design process, the process of creating, the process of living, is where the fulfillment and wholeness of life lies.
My life has become my design project. A series of projects leading to peace and joy designed by me for my own life. I do not wish to listen to the rules of the culture or world around me but to listen to my knowing and collaboratively design around it. I want to be actually on the team instead of the intern just catching all the grunt work. I will be design lead, researcher and model maker. I will be the creator of my own experience to create a whole life, not just the plastic shell. The inner gears and circuits will be working in integrity and the wiring fused correctly. I wish to have an understanding of the inner workings of my self. To do the research on myself, to explore in silence, in meditation, in writing and art in order to understand my very human experience. I become the expert on myself and I can design for myself, the consumer, me.
If you are a product, you would be an expensive one. Not from the impulse buy section at the front of the store and not even in “that” store. You would be on display as “one of a kind” in a specialty shop. If you were to buy a product of such a high cost you would do your research to make sure that is the right purchase for you. Imagine, you get to design you. You get to be what YOU believe to be the most precious and unique thing this world. Because you truly are and you are the only one who can create your story.
This is a process and this is a step.
With Kindness,
Rae Delisle
Goodness, these words are so resonant. This past year has been a massive "tearing down the tower and building a new solid foundation" and paving a path through this life that's mine.
I've thought a lot about it lately, how it is not necessarily easy, and following your vision for your life shouldn't be easy, but darn, is it worth it. :)