Finding Your Creative Flow

How honoring your creative rhythm becomes a sacred act of revolution.

Dear Creator Spirit,

I have been working on a few things over here. Lots of creativity is flowing in the lodge, clients coming and leaving with a renewed sense of spirit and creative flow and the added bonus of less pain and more awareness in their body while opening to the knowing of who they are and why they are here.

Knowing who you are isn’t a final act or a one time deal. Maybe for some it is, but I know for me and those who I am connected with seem to experience life, purpose and sense of self to be a process of becoming, unfolding or an emergence.

We are multidimensional in nature. We are as butterflies–on a mission to transform. We enter the cocoon, go through the transformation process, break down into an ooey gooey mess and then reform into a beautiful butterfly. We are now ready to take flight with wings made strong from the process of breaking through the cocoon.

It is a spiraling process that occurs throughout our lives–to be constantly moving in and out of states of transformation and growth. Once I accepted this as my way and let go of comparing it against anyone else and how they create their life, I was able to fully embrace my creativity, my dreaming and my unique expression and live into it fully. With awareness and with presence and with grace.

Deborah Epstein Light Fall 2014

I didn’t know if I would write this!

As I was sitting down to write today, I became very aware that I did not post my usual Substack post on the New Moon this month. My pattern, of which you may not be aware, has been to post on or near each Moon phase as they occur each week.

Sometimes though the process goes sideways, but not really. Here’s what I mean:

All last week, I knew I was moving through something, it wasn’t really until today that I realized it is an initiation I am moving through! Oh, this again! Is what I say to myself, but not in a resigned sort of way, I say it with more excitement for sure, but what is different is my engagement with the process. It seems I am flowing more with the process of creating vs. pushing to make something happen!

There is always a subtle forgetting in the process. When I am in stasis and gently flowing with it all, I often forget the pain of transformation. While in the flow, I am also opening up and discovering as I paint and write, sit at the altar, on the land and do my healing work. It is the practice that creates the momentum for growth.

Am I just softening with age? Is it the growth of this process being revealed through a deepening of awareness? Or is it the energy of the time we are living in that allows us all to become more energy than matter that has me experiencing this process as ease. Or is it yes, and all of it- does it matter? It simply is.

Deborah Epstein Blue Tree Full 2014

Speaking of Matter and making it real

“Making it real,” has been an integral part of my purpose probably my whole life, but with intention since one particular day in 2014 when I heard a voice gently remind me to “make it real,” when walking a labyrinth. This simply landed with me as a wiser part of me telling me it’s time– to get the ideas out of my head and bring them into form. It is not about doing it perfectly, it is about landing it in the 3D and experiencing it as feedback to work with.

There is a magic that occurs when you bring anything into form. You never know how it will feel or what will occur until your creation becomes a lived experience. It can elicit deep insights, change your perspective, and even the trajectory of your path. Forming even the littlest of dreams can create a huge shift. You will never know if you leave the idea unformed, floating in space or in your head.

This is the whole point of creating–witnessing your inner vision in the outer world. It has the power to move you to create more; or less; or anything else that is beyond your perceived safety zone. And it can trigger healing, transformation, as well as synchronicities that deepen the adventure of life. But, it is a process you must be engaged with.

Ceremony as art and healing

I love creating, leading and participating ceremonies. Ceremonies are creative, ritual processes that help land our healing in a 3D world in a sacred and reverent way. You can create a ceremony for anything- to move stuck energies, to support any healing process–individual, global, universal, to activate and initiate any endeavor and to give thanks and gratitude for all that we receive while cultivating love, community and harmony.

I recently created an altar for abundance. As my husband and I have been creating new businesses, we have been getting lots of lessons in resource management, lack and abundance. I created an altar to hold our gratitude for all that we receive and performed a ceremony to heal the ancestral beliefs each of us holds around lack. Just like any healing process what gets revealed are the places we get to let go. Releases and reveals are abundant and the ability to use our creativity to see that abundance comes in many forms, not just a flow of cash into the bank account.

Idea Abundance

Sometimes I have an abundance of ideas and at times that can feel overwhelming. My mind is like being in an orchard filled with an amazing variety of fruit trees. Each tree has fruit, deliciously sweet, juicy and fragrant. Each one is begging to be picked while at the same time, some are unripe or still in the bud. Some fruit is for now, some later, some to give back to the earth to go back to seed. Everything is in its own timing. As the creator and dreamer of dreams, the more you tend to the orchard, the more you will be able to discern a ripe idea to flow with and one that needs more time on the branch.

If you are a dreamer with an abundance of creative ideas bubbling up, it often feels wonderful to be in the aliveness of all that energy. Feeling the charge and rush as all of these ideas emerge from the dreaming field or orchard in this case. And at the same time overwhelm can take hold and all the familiar fears arise. You are wanting to bring one of those ideas into form–which can trigger your nervous system. It is reacting to your past wounds and negative beliefs or stories. Then for safety we shut it down–only reinforcing the familiar old feelings. We can become afraid to give ourselves the space to dream or create.

Deborah Epstein Out of the Blue 2014

Breaking the cycle

What if I can’t honor what is coming through? What if I drop the ball and don’t complete it? What if once again, I get distracted?

All of these things are valid and they come up. We live in a world that values productivity over the flow of creativity. Creativity has its own rhythm. I experience this as surges and flows and I am learning to be in them gracefully, while letting go of all of the lack and not enough stories. Stories that serve a purpose from the past, a past that is not present unless I keep them alive.

Practicing being in the surge and the flow—the time to push and do, and the time to rest and dream—takes time and practice. But it is well worth it, if you are wanting to break the cycle and reframe the pattern. The key is feeling your way through- all of the feels, the good, as well as the painful triggers. The more you get to know the territory, the more you can gently work with the parts of you that are afraid and be able to make the shift you are desiring. There is a divine timing to everything.

I follow my intuition, when it says, “it’s time to rest in the flow” and when it says, “it’s time to surge or push”. Our bodies are designed to flow within a rhythm just as all of nature. Tuning into this rhythm is tuning into your inner wisdom–trust that there is a deep and knowing part of you that holds this wisdom.

The times are changing, chaos abounds and it’s all too easy to return to the painful comfort of old patterns and hope that all of this will pass. Since we are in this place, let’s embrace it and learn to walk a new walk and create from the truth of who you are!

With Love and Cosmic Dreaming,

Deborah

P.S.

You are ready.
You are ready to release the weight of old wounds…
You are hearing the whisper of your creativity calling you home…
You are standing at the edge of your becoming… to claim the truth of who you are.

Come to the Cosmic Dreaming Lodge in Sedona, where you’ll experience a deep and personally guided healing retreat that weaves together Myofascial Release, shamanic ceremony, and creative expression, along with sacred ceremony in the vortexes among the red rocks.

If you feel the call, explore the offerings or book a discovery call.
Your voice is sacred. Your time is now.