Creativity and Health    |    Stress and Illness

Please picture the scene. Following life-saving surgery, we’re in “Recovery” waiting for stress’s Mind Freez© anaesthetic to leave our bloodstream. Here, there are four steps that are key:

In a word, stress, in all its complexity.

Here, we stay fearless and centred in our heart, and command the courage to take the plunge and call stress’s bluff. Our need for the heart is simply this: if we get cross or scared, or demoralised or desperate for our freedom (as a result of anger, fear, gloom or compulsive desire, respectively), then all we achieve is to compound the agony. Better, by far, is to take heart, for this gives us the wherewithal and confidence for finding our way past stress biology’s prison guards.

There’s no need to be alarmed or in a rush, for stress’s chokehold won’t last, just so long as we don’t lose ourselves in the process. Know that our greatest talent is creativeness, something that we all possess (even if it’s not always given the chance to express). What this means is trust, and letting go of going over the top with a need to control. Through those prison gates, our exit might go quick or it might go slow, but all we need to know is... endure, and the greatest harvest is sure to follow.

In this endeavour, direction is all, along with patience. Stress might run us off the road, or clutter up our approach with rocks and boulders. But if so, we’re only learning the ropes and going through a few training episodes, plus some personal growth. Again, as with any creative process, forcing the issue gives the wrong result. Our job, very simply, is to stay the course and keep on the horse while the creative medicine takes effect, climbing back on any time we’re thrown.

Through this approach, stress is turned from a scourge into part of the creative earth from which we emerge, all fresh with new birth.

“Hello you,” we’ll say to the self woken anew, as we sing and laugh the way we used to. On that fine day, we’ll give stress the slip, and wave at that jail keeper with a smile on our face... while making our getaway by coming into our true self. So get ready, because here it comes at last: our self emancipated.

See how this technique can be applied...