Yesterday I wrote about Creativity and about enlivening our world through doing things a little different from how we normally do things and how that inspires life.

Today I’ll take this topic a little closer to the heart. I believe that what this topic is about is something that all souls who have ever dreamed of discovering what we are all fully capable of must resolve at some point in time. I have a premonition that every saint and master that has ever lived, lives and will live, has to deal with this issue.

What I am talking about is inner conflict. The doubting of self. We struggle between what we feel we are or should be and what we feel we are not or should not be. I believe that ending this conflict is the gateway to lasting peace.

Here I will elaborate. I decided to draw a sketch of something that caught my eye. I have an image of an Angel that I found on a journey to Hawaii. I had attended an art retreat there and on that trip I found this Angel on a card. I heard that the image I found was of a real woman who dresses up as an Angel. I was surprised and curious at the same time. I never met the woman.

I was laying down watching a movie that wasn’t entirely engaging me. I glanced at the image of the Angel and suddenly I decided to do a sketch. Inspiration struck and I acted. I let the movie run its course as I began to sketch. Throughout the process I became more and more driven by the joy of the process and less dictated by thoughts of limitation or tension that ensue when attachment to outcomes weigh heavily. This is what can cause limitation in any activity, where doubt, ideas of lack in self worth and the sort can impede success.

As I drew the image it dawned on me that of all my dreams, of all my possibilities for awakening my infinite human potential it has never been up to someone else to give me the permission to realise them nor need I deny myself or anyone else of the opportunity to fulfil them.

I imagined the Buddha just prior to fully realising enlightenment and how his ego would have rose up against him to do the same thing, threatening him, attempting to discourage him from fully embodying his potential.

Somehow creating the sketch was shifting my old negative thought patterns, beliefs I had held for years about my possibilities as a human being and what I could and couldn’t achieve. I began to wonder how perhaps I was the one limiting myself and how it isn’t really all the people that have not liked me that has stopped me from doing what I would really like to do or share but it has only been my doubts and fears.

Something began to shift physically. The act of letting the fears be there but engaging a force that trusted the process and allowed the creation of the sketch empowered me to be more effective and create something that surpassed my ordinary capacity.

From that space of trust, not doubt we are enabled to act on our visions and dreams. The possibility of believing in ourselves and our unlimited human potential is real.

It’s the little things, those points of departure where we begin with a small step that make a difference. Each little bit goes a long way. Like when we’re in the kitchen and the dishes pile up progressively and without acting on them as they happen you eventually have a huge pile to celebrate, unless of course you don’t like doing dishes! Funnily enough the act of appreciating each step and resting in those steps empowers us to acknowledge without a doubt that even the dishes are a part of the journey to actualising our infinite human potential and are not actually  an obstacle at all. It’s precisely this that links the elements of creativity with our Creator, that same force that creates all of Creation.

Once we are in that space, there is truly no such things as things going wrong. We choose the journey on the subtlest of levels. We are creating by way of virtue with our own beliefs. Wether we are conscious of them or not.

We are simply far more powerful than we may yet be conscious of. For if we were aware of that, than we would never doubt it in the first place.

Jhana is a published author and illustrator. He draws on ancient wisdom and dreaming that reveal the bridge between consciousness and creativity. Discoveries of the healing capacities carried in painting, yoga, massage, meditation and art therapy inform his practise. He has taught, mentored and exhibited in India, America, Germany and Australia over the past 20 years. https://www.facebook.com/JhanaBowensArt/ https://www.instagram.com/?hl=en