Expression: Devotion

Philadelphia's Magic Gardens

Musing…

 Speaking of magic…picking up where I left off in “Starting Point” post;

“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Charise’s Turn:

On a recent trip to visit a friend in Philadelphia I toured “Magic Gardens”, built by artist Isaiah Zagar. How he saw what he could do with a vacant lot in the South Street neighborhood of Philly is genius. Like a dancer in an empty room, or a writer with an empty page, he filled what was “vacant” with his imagination. He made rooms of mosaics; tiling walls, floors, stairways, and ceilings. He spent fourteen years making this environment, and nearly lost it eight years into the project when the owner of the lot opted to sell. At that point, the community stepped in to support Zagar’s vision so he could continue. The gardens are open every day.

You might say that the magic of these gardens is the experience of a mosaic wonderland unlike anything anywhere else. But what I feel I'm seeing there is an outpouring of devotion. Devotion to sustaining a creative vision at all costs.

As Stendhal says, “The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.”

Get Fired Up:

Bring out the ideas, sketches, notes, that you have set aside for some reason or another and imagine what it would be like to see one through to completion. Maybe you abandoned an idea you had for a story or article, or forgot about an image you had in mind to craft or build or paint or photograph or choreograph. Imagine going further with your inspiration, and keep going.. keep going.

www.coachingmoves.com

Expression: Give Yourself Permission

Musing…

“My paint is an expression of myself, an extension of what I am feeling at the time. We are never separate from the process. In all of my work, there is a part of myself. No matter if it’s a landscape, a portrait, or an abstract, I am lurking in the background.” ~ Lori Agostino

By definition the word expression means the process of making known one's thoughts or feelings.

Colleen’s Turn:

As an intuitive artist I feel that all of my work is a form of self-expression. I paint, create, collage, and dance to express who I am. All art forms help me to see and experience my true self more clearly. Art making, is in fact, a most beautiful way to get to know the deeper aspects of one’s self.

But to express one’s thoughts and feelings in a way that makes them tangible can also bring up vulnerability. Fear (in some form or another) is one of the main reasons most of us back away from our creative processes. Just stepping in front of a blank canvas can make many of us tremble and bring tears to our eyes.

Letting go of what we think we’re supposed to create is critical to opening the channels of self-expression. More often than not it is our inner perfectionist that kills our creative dreams before we can even get a brush stroke down on paper or a note out of our mouths.

That’s the beauty of looking at art-making as simply a form of self-expression. By pouring your thoughts and feelings onto a canvas or into music, color, poetry, or some other medium, you’ve done what you’ve needed to do. That is where the passion is. There really is no right or wrong way to do it, just your way!

Get Fired Up:

Give yourself permission today and every other day to paint or color outside of the lines, to fully express who you are, and to make mistakes. Make mistakes on purpose even! Explore something you’ve never tried before, just for the sake of exploring.

Tune into what you are feeling. Does it want to be expressed through sound, movement, paint, collage, or some other medium? Trust yourself. Your heart and soul really do know the way. Give yourself permission to express yourself in all of your many beautiful colors. You don’t need anyone else’s permission or approval. Express what is in you.

www.quest4wholeness.com  Colleen Russell, guest blogger

Experiment: Starting Point

Sculpture by Richard Recchia  

Musing…

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”

― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

And there are countless ways to fly.

You can fly with your inspiration, fly with your courage to overcome adversity, fly with your idea...of flying.

Charise’s Turn:

All it takes is a word or concept or theme to begin building a movement phrase. I’ve participated in several improvisational movement classes with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and what is fascinating is how movement impulse takes over from any starting point. You are given a prompt, such as: imagine your legs are so heavy, how would you move through space with such heavy legs? At first this may sound like an exercise for a child, so you suspend that thought from your reasonable adult mind and go with it. You begin with a sense of weightedness and some stuckness until you start to experiment with mobilizing in different ways – maybe rolling, pushing, pulling, falling, struggling, lifting, sinking – and you’re in a dance of your own design, basically an experience that grew from a concept but is now in the larger territory of making. This “making” is what happens when you put all your conviction into your idea; you make it believable, you make it real. And then it is real! Like a plant that develops from a seed, the dance is no longer the prompt, or the theme, it’s what it is becoming. To me, this is alchemy, or magic. After all, what does magic require? Complete belief and trust.   

Get Fired Up:
What do you believe? What can you put your trust in?  Whatever that is, it contains a seed of making, of creating, of becoming.

www.coachingmoves.com

Experiment: Living the Experiment of the Self

"Goddess Rabbit"

Musing...

"To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God’s hand, his brain as God’s brain, his purpose as God’s purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ." – George Bernard Shaw

Colleen’s Turn:

When I was a student in the Marion Woodman BodySoul Leadership program we studied Jung’s interpretation of Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s philosophy was that there was an experiment that wants to be lived through the Self. His belief was that we are only instrumental in the creative process; that God/life/the Sacred creates in us and through us. Jung believed that as well, and is reflected when he says that only people with inflation can assume that they create. You don’t create, you are created; in creation you are created.  Something makes you do it, something is working through you.

The Native American people share a similar belief. They use the expression of “becoming a hollow bone.”  The elders say that you become the hollow bone so that you can be filled up with the breath of Spirit so that your purpose may be sung in harmony with the Great Song of life. Writer Ralph P. Brown says, “If you are feeling out of harmony with your purpose it may be that you are filled with your own ideas, thoughts and beliefs to the point that there is no room for the things of Spirit.” M. C. Richards, a poet, potter, teacher, and mystical philosopher refers to this as well when she talks about living at the cross roads where the visible and invisible worlds meet.

I am committed to living the experiment that wants to be lived through me. I do my best to stay connected to the source so that I can hear what wants to come through. I do this by listening to my intuition, taking time for meditation, and by living a life that includes prayer and gratitude. David Whyte says the soul doesn’t care if you succeed or fail, it only wants to know if you have lived the life that wants to live through you. Perhaps these ideas are worth pondering.

Get Fired Up:  

As an intuitive painter I have experienced firsthand how God can work through me when I get out of the way and learn to follow my intuition. I don’t have a lot of art skills, so I depend on something larger coming through. Perhaps this week you can try your own experiment. Take out a piece of paper or a blank canvas and simply begin by choosing the color and the brush you are drawn to. Ask yourself - is there an image that wants to be known? Where should I go next? What color am I attracted to? Keep the brushes moving letting intuition be your guide. See what happens.

www.quest4wholeness.com Colleen Russell, guest blogger

Engagement: Begin and Beyond

Musing...

"Now, please, go. Write your asses off." 

~ Natalie Goldberg, in the Preface to the 2005 Edition of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (1986, 2005)

This week, as part of our emerging theme of welcoming new voices into our blog, let us introduce our guest blogger, Alay'nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.), who is author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey as well as being an energizing and entertaining speaker, visionary entrepreneur, mystic-travelling dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher. www.theunveilingjourney.com 

Alay'nya's Turn:

I was thrilled to receive Charise's invitation to write for you in this blog, on the theme of "engagement" -- how we can each engage our creative process. 

My primary suggestion for those of us who desire more creative process and output?

Treat your creative expression as your "day job." Everything else (including your day job) is life maintenance.

Writing - or any form of creative expression - requires diligence, discipline, focus, and a willingness to go for long periods of time without certain comforts. These comforts may be the financial cushion of a more lucrative career (if you are using short-term jobs and gigs to support your creativity). These may be downtime when we leave our day jobs and have our evenings, weekends, and holidays for ourselves. This is because nurturing our creative output also entails marketing our creative output, and that takes an even greater commitment of energy and time.

Not to mention, as we all know, that most creative endeavors require long periods of focused, relatively solitary work.

Collaboration is important. We know that. Inspiration from other sources is also important.

But the absolute commitment to putting out a final product? That's yours, and yours alone.

It may feel as though you are trundling a wheelbarrow full of bricks (your ideas) up the mountain. And it may also feel as though you are doing this again and again, without seeing much return.

Thus, three tips that - while not reducing the workload that much - will help you to have greater chances of bringing your work to fruition.

Get Fired Up:

1) Build, nurture, and feed your creative stash pile. Natalie Goldman, in Writing Down the Bones, suggests journaling - and notes that when she receives a writing assignment, she can usually turn to her journal-stash (going back about twenty years) and find something that will help kick-start her work. If you work in wood or stained glass, you need a storage shed filled with wood or pieces of glass. If you're a choreographer, you need lots of little "micro-choreographic units" - elements of 16 to 32 beats that you can use as building blocks. Recognize that creating your artistic, creative stash takes time. Honor the process, invest for the long term, and keep your stuff!

2) Keep up consistent output. It took me over sixteen years to produce my most recent book; Unveiling: The Inner Journey. Sixteen years is a long time to go from start to finish. Now, I write blogs. Weekly blogging for each of three different blogs is a big challenge, but it keeps my productivity up. It contributes to stash. (See Tip #1.) It also helps with ... Tip #3.

3) Just get it out the door. A short video - thrown together with the software, video, and stills that you have - and then posted on YouTube, is a damn sight better than reels of unprocessed footage. For me, just now, responding to Charise's request for a guest blog by sitting down and immediately writing this post is much better than putting it into my task list. Whatever it is, just get that first iteration done, and get it out in public, somehow. The next one can be better. The one after, better yet. The real secret is in pushing through to completion and getting it out there. Yes, put whatever skill, insight, and ability you have into creating that output. However, don't let dreams of perfection - or fear of adverse reaction - slow you down. Deliver the result as fast as you realistically can.

And then - it's okay to toot your horn a little. In fact, rouse up the neighborhood and get a full marching band! 

www.theunveilingjourney.com

Engagement: Show Up

Musing…

“The Way of the Teacher: Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome. The Way of the Warrior: Show up, and choose to be present. The Way of the Healer: Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. The Way of the Visionary:  Tell the truth without blame or judgment.”  –Angeles Arrien, The Four Fold Way

To become more creative, the first thing one has to do is learn how to show up. The paradox is that the more we make time for creativity, the more it grows. Indeed all of our relationships respond well to consistent, loving attention.

Creativity requires engagement and engagement becomes easier when we engage in those things that have heart and meaning for us. When it comes to our creativity, I’m sure we’ve all got a hundred and one excuses about why we don’t show up to it. It’s important to ask: “Are you ready to let go of the excuses and to quit blaming others or life circumstances for why you are not creating?” 

I find creativity takes on a life of its own as I learn to let go of the outcomes and learn to create just for the sheer joy of creating. It seems too, that the more I let go of my ideas about how it should be and let myself become engaged in the process, the more magical it becomes. I’ve found creative projects have a voice and can tell us how they’d like to unfold if we are willing to listen. That’s when the real fun begins!

Colleen’s Turn:

I’m engaged in lots of creative activities right now including the writing of this article. It’s important to acknowledge the many forms that creativity takes so that we can see that we truly are creative beings. I feel the most enlivened when I get to take time to play with charcoals or acrylics, but I recognize that most everything I do in life is creative as an entrepreneur.

Since playing with charcoals brings me so much joy, I’ve set up a board in my office so that I can play and create on my breaks. I find it breaks up the monotony of other projects and gets me back into a more creative flow. Plus I can step back and visibly watch the creation unfold. One way to get more creativity in your life is to set up a space that makes it easy to do so.

Get Fired Up:

Sometimes we think that creativity requires big blocks of time. But in a recent art class I discovered from some of the ladies who have kids that creativity can happen in small blocks of time too. 

Today, start by giving yourself fifteen minutes for your creative endeavors. Do this for a week and see what unfolds as you engage in those things that give you heart and meaning consistently for short amounts of time.

 www.quest4wholeness.com Colleen Russell, guest blogger

Essence: Possibility

Lost River, West Virginia

Musing…

“As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. ”  ― Pema Chödrön

Charise’s Turn:

Six weeks ago I suddenly lost hearing in my left ear; or rather, I suddenly lost the ability to discern external sound in that ear and instead have noise that is insistent and unrelenting. Not a ringing, more like a roaring waterfall or a chorus of cicadas. Idiopathic sensorineural sudden hearing loss, or as I am wont to call it, idiotic pathetic senseless neurotic hearing loss. I expected it to resolve in a short time – this is called denial. I stopped teaching yoga and stopped dancing because there was too much distortion affecting my hearing and disorientation from feeling walled off on my left side. I became a patient, undergoing all kind of testing and recommended treatment. Ultimately, only time will be the predictor of recovery, as is so often the case with any ailment or condition, because there is nothing much to do that will make a difference in the meantime. This could take months, maybe a year, to improve and how long do I let this rule my life – in the meantime?

After a month hiatus I gambled on teaching and found that despite a certain level of discomfort as well as nervousness about how it would go, it went more or less as usual. No one else was experiencing the noise distortion I was experiencing, but it didn’t matter, we had yoga to unite us. I had thought I was done, that teaching would not be possible again, but that was only my fear believing itself. I had also lost all desire to dance...until my friend Charmaine of SynergyDance gifted me one of her most precious costume skirts. She said “this is to inspire you to dance again; you can’t stop, you’re too good.” Her gift gave me the strength to return to class, pick up choreography I had stopped working on, and surrender my doubts.

Get Fired Up:

Are you believing in some limitation that is just fear or doubt speaking? Test your limitation, maybe it isn’t the truth.

“Feel the fear…and do it anyway!” – Susan Jeffers

www.coachingmoves.com

Essence: Believe

Musing...

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our sacred trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

– e.e. cummings

In our mission to welcome new voices into our blog, let us introduce our guest blogger, Colleen Russell, who draws on creativity to transform her own life as well as the lives of others in her work.    www.quest4wholeness.com

Colleen’s Turn:

It has taken me years to believe that I am a creative/artistic person because this part of me was never supported. By the time I was in my teens, this loss of my authentic self began to express itself in self-destructive behavior. I became pregnant at seventeen, and was a single mom for twelve years. Making a living took every ounce of creative energy I had.

Interestingly enough, after getting a degree in Journalism, my work took me into advertising sales where at times I designed ads. I suppose that was my body/soul’s way of staying creative.

At age 35 my husband that I’d been married to for five years had a heart attack and died. A counselor encouraged me to take time to “find myself.” As a result of that journey, I found myself pursuing a degree in Transpersonal Psychology which is a form of Depth Psychology that believes we are all creative.

Most of the classes included writing, art, and creative expression so it allowed me to discover who I was at my core: a creative being. Later I worked with Marion Woodman, a Jungian Analyst who used the arts to put us back into our body/souls so that we could discover our true essence. It was there that I discovered my inner artist. I can’t tell you how delighted I was when I discovered her. I also received validation from my mentors that perhaps artistic expression was one of my innate gifts. Still I didn’t quite get it.

It wasn’t until my husband had me take a Thinking-Styles Assessment test from Dr. Katherine Benzieger a few years ago at age 55, that I finally got it. The assessment revealed that my strength was right brained thinking and that all of these years I had been suffering from depression because I was adapting to a world that was not my natural way of being in the world. From that time on I have given myself permission to create. I realize if I don’t take time to do art, that my life will be out-of-balance.  Playing with art feeds my soul and brings me joy. I feel most happy when I am creating.

Get Fired Up: 

There is an inner artist that lives within you too. Buy a box of charcoals and some paper. Let yourself play. Choose colors you like and make marks. Rub your hands in them. See what happens when you let go and express yourself with lines and color. Believe in yourself. Let yourself play!  

Expression: Unfolding

Musing...

"When clutches of the "self" break away, they clap their hands and break into dance as their imperfections fade away. The musicians within strike the tambourine, and the seas burst into foam at their ecstasy." ~ Rumi

Charise’s Turn:

There are so many ways to release the "clutches of "self" " for expression. My friend and colleague Nina Sichel, author and editor of two books on third culture kids (Writing Out of Limbo and Unrooted Childhoods), teaches writing classes with a non-competitive, supportive approach. She is witnessing first hand the power of memoir writing. Memoir opens people up to self-discovery, she says. And Barbara Turner-Vesselago, author of Freefall: Writing Without a Parachute, advocates going "fearward" to write exactly what you fear to write because that has energy. These are ways of unfolding what we hold tight to ourselves -- sometimes a burden from the past, a weight or charge of emotion attached to events of our lives.

If you take SynergyYoga with me, or SynergyDance from Charmaine Lee, you will engage in an unfolding arm movement which isn't a stretch or a reach. It's moving through the joints, letting movement rise wave-like through shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers. It allows for sequencing, receptivity, softness. It's the antithesis of grasping and lends a quality of release, trust, openness at a very intimate level with your own body based being-ness. You feel connected to a pulsation of life all the way through to the tips of your fingers.

“Do not live in the shadow of the masters for ever. Learn to live in the light of your soul. Life deserves full expression.” ~ Amit Ray

Get Fired Up:
Unfolding is a process but the beginning is a purposeful impulse or action. Lift your arm from your shoulder first; pick up the pen and paper or open the computer to write; sign up for a class that appeals to you and draws you into more full expression...hit the tambourine!

www.coachingmoves.com

Expression: Angels Unawares

Musing… 

"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred… unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way." 
~ W.H. Murray

Expression implies action….taking your creative idea into form. And the moment you commit to move forward, the powers that be rally on your behalf, supporting your energy in ways greater than you ever imagined. You might find yourself saying “I never thought it would have turned out this way if it hadn’t been for…..” Releasing an attachment to a specific outcome creates space for these energies to expotentially expand your expression.

Kate’s Turn:   

These energies showing up in my creative process always seem like miracles to me, proof that I am being led by grace. My most recent occurrence was an invitation to do some work in an agency that works with immigrants from Somalia; this happened right after I had been saying “How can I have more culture in my life?” Another was when I was writing a speech on brain health, wanting to learn how to juggle in order to use this as an audio visual in the speech, and the home I visited shortly thereafter had a set of juggling balls for me to practice with. In watercolor painting, these moments are called “happy accidents” for the plan never included the actual way the piece evolved. Staying open as we honor the process allows for the larger energies to influence the final work. 

My friend, Carol Ann, who created the glass angel pictured here, began her glass fusion work creating earrings. Then she made glass dishes and plates, and she continues to get requests to create them for others. And in her expanding energies, she made a large glass mermaid for her garden, as well as this angel. It offers a lovely metaphor for the subtle, seemingly silent energies that are available to us, as we honor both our inner passion and the outer influences of our creative expression. These energies are like angels, in that they are always available to help us carry out our creative expression, if only we are open enough to entertain them in our process.

Get Fired Up:

When have you experienced being led by grace (angels)? How can you both follow your passion and remain open to Providence offering “more than you had ever imagined”? Be sure to take the steps of commitment… and then marvel at how Providence offers you Its gifts.

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:  for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." 

 –  Hebrews 13:2

www.kroskalifecoaching.com

Experiment: Gratitude

Musing...

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Charise’s Turn:

One of the first assignments in my fundamentals coaching course was to keep a gratitude journal. We were learning about the relationship of gratitude to happiness and how gratitude is one of the most malleable character strengths because you can increase your capacity for it. You can put it into practice; you can exercise it. What we did was this: write down three to five things we were grateful for each day for a week. For me this was like piecing the day together, and it made an impression.

I haven’t continued to keep a gratitude journal, but somewhere along the way, I’ve learned to experience gratitude as more of a qualitative state, something like reverence. It’s not really about picking out what I’m grateful for, it’s a wholistic gratitude (holistic may be more correct, but I like the whole in wholistic). What do I mean by this? Think of the stitches that together make a tapestry, and each separate stitch contributes to the overall look and feel of it. The tapestry is too large to see in its entirety and it’s continually in the making. Stay with this image…you may find that you are in awe of the magnitude and uniqueness of the tapestry that is, metaphorically, your life. Then...make no  requirements but to be with the immensity of what you are experiencing. Be wowed. “Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos.” -- Sarah Ban Breathnach  

Get Fired Up:

Practice gratitude. 

www.coachingmoves.com 

Experiment: Stepping Stones

Musing… 

"A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. "~ Frank Capra   

A hunch is like a little nudge – infuse it with curiosity, and it leads you to the next step to explore. Of course, with every new step, fear is on the sidelines, warning you of impending mistakes or failures. When you allow yourself to be pulled forward by the energy of the hunch, you learn to incorporate those “mistakes” (or what I prefer to call them, “fortunate accidents”) into your creative path. James Joyce said “A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” Follow your hunches and use the “mistakes” as stepping stones to lead you forward.

Kate’s Turn:    

I have been following my hunches regarding creating work I love. I have planted seeds in my conversations as I speak about my passion for creativity. And some take root; for example, a person wants to explore their own creative process, and so enters into coaching with me. I have an idea (hunch) about how my work can take form, and so investigate many options, based on my hunches; some sprout, but quickly expire; others seem to grow for a longer time but fade; and still others bear fruit. Following these hunches could be called trial and error. Statistics tell us that only about one third of experiments work out. So follow many, many hunches to an eventual creative form.

Simultaneously, I am aware of fear on the sidelines, as I consider following a hunch. I see how easily I am willing to try something I already have familiarity with, such as the one-to-one coaching format. But I see how I become a “shrinking violet” to fear as I shy away from a format that promises a learning curve, such as public speaking or leading webinars. I am facing my fear of public speaking by getting support in Toastmasters and learning from my mistakes. I’ve gotten feedback that I have a radio voice presence and should consider doing a podcast. My next stepping stone will be to find a mentor who can support me as I’m on the learning curve of internet technology. I know I need to frame this risk as a learning experience – “let’s just try this and see what happens” – rather than a perfected performance, where fear has the upper hand in paralyzing me into non-action. When I have support and when the steps are feasible, I can ease the tension between a hunch and my fear, and better listen to the something creativity is trying to tell me.

Get Fired Up:

Our entire life is one big experiment to see how the world works – we need to be open to try new things even when results are uncertain…we get many opportunities to respond to unexpected results and learn from them. 
What do you need in order to follow your hunches so you take the next step? What learning can you attain from “mistakes” or experiments that didn’t result the way you had imagined? 

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.” ~ Meister Eckhart, 14^th century theologian

www.kroskalifecoaching.com

Engagement: Faith

Musing…

“…The universe is not a static thing. It is in the process of being created all the time. All of us are involved in that creation, and thus all of us are magicians…To experience fully the magician’s power… requires us to give our lives fearlessly to the universe, trusting that our gifts are the right ones, that we are what is needed by others, by the universe, and by ourselves. “ 

~ Carol S. Pearson, The Hero Within

Charise’s Turn:

Recently I decided not to play it small anymore. We all have some misgivings about ourselves, ways we trip ourselves up, get in our own way. I’ve come to understand that success isn’t for sissies. You have to slay some dragons along the way, or as Carol Pearson says, “name” your dragons. Well, I’m going to name my dragon a “shrinking violet” – she may think she’s cute but she’s a pitiful disguise. If I listen to her, I get stymied. She’s the naysayer: no, it’s not going to work out; no, they don’t want to participate in your class; no, they’re not interested in your services or your skills, so don’t put yourself forward. And she has a way of appearing when there's really no evidence to back up what she's saying. Sound familiar? 

I’m going to audition for more dance opportunities despite any hesitation or doubts I have. Going on faith, with the feeling that this is important -- regardless the result. If it’s only an exercise in faith, I’ll take it. So far, the act of making the decision has allowed me to see right through my “shrinking violet”.

Get Fired Up:

Name your dragon: what obstacle to success are you harboring?

Flex your faith muscles and see what happens.  

“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...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." ~ Martha Graham

www.coachingmoves.com