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Maggie Carter
Creativity, Patience and Doll Clothes
November, 2005
Like most everyone, I grew up believing what other people said to me or believing some assumption I had about what they said.
I grew up believing, among
other things, that I was impatient and not at all creative. I lived my
life as though both were true. And if you were to talk to the people
who have been closest to me over the years they would definitely
concur, especially with the impatient description. It wasn't something
I was proud of but it would surface at times when I least wanted it to.
I have had a chance to
explore those beliefs over the past few years and found new
realizations. I have become more patient and a bit more creative as
well. But I continued to believe these were new and had not been a part
of my past personality.
That story was blown apart
recently after a conversation with my daughter, Wendy. She had called
to tell me that my three-year old granddaughter, Callie, was now
playing with a doll that I had played with as a child as well as the
Barbie dolls that Wendy had played with as a child. I had made most of
the Barbie doll clothes. As we talked I laughed thinking about those
Barbie doll clothes and how tiny they are and how much patience it took
to make them. I laughed thinking of me, the impatient one, making those
clothes.
Then I realized that I had
made all the clothes for the other doll when I was 12. Not only had I
made the clothes I had designed them. Then it hit me! I have always
been creative and patient, just not 100% of the time. In that
realization I began to see many other times in my life from childhood
on when I had been patient and creative.
How was it that I couldn't
see that before? All I could see were the impatient and non-creative
moments of my life. I had missed half my life by believing only half of
what was actually true for me. I am all things, I realized and always
have been. This patience and creativity weren't new behaviors. They had
always been there. I am both patient and impatient. I am both creative
and not creative. But when I believe that only one aspect is true it is
all I see and becomes how I define myself. It has been great fun seeing
the new me with these new realizations.
Try it out for yourself. What
labels would you put on yourself? Especially the judgmental labels.
Then find every place you can think of where the opposite is true. Have
fun finding a new you.
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