Decide 2 Matter

New Focus & New Blog

For those of you interested, I have a new blog that I just created. There are only a few posts, but I hope to do most of my posting on that site. It's called Spirit's Way and can be found at www.spiritsway.com .

I've decided that my spirituality and creativity matters most, so eventually I may stop posting on Decide2Matter. Instead I might have a creativity feature on Spirit's Way. We are all creative beings and most of the planet believes in a creator. So having a creativity post on a spirit directed blog makes sense to me.

I've always been interested in intuition, the divine, nature, crystals, stones, imagination, fun, joy, psychic development, art, music, writing, and tuning in to my higher self and the universe. If you are interested, please check out my new blog.

And don't worry, this isn't a stuffy spirituality blog. I love dreaming about worlds in the clouds, little birdies stopping by to say hello, spirits on the wind, and great strength flowing from majestic trees. Embracing spirit and living a spirited fun life means bringing your imagination back to life. I feel the most connected to my writing ideas when I'm dreaming up some fantastic dragon story or high priestess character. Actually I feel a lot of my good writing ideas were more channeled or intuitively guided. Are you ever creating something to much bigger than yourself you wonder "where exactly did this idea come from?" At the same time, if you tell someone you are talking to guides or angels and he or she says, "Oh, it's just your imagination" who is to say she is wrong? Do you know where your imagination comes from?

Spirit's Way is about discovering again what moves your spirit. Because art, writing, and music move my spirit, I feel it's a natural transition. Trusting your spirit will help you create more. You will find more meaning. You will blast through your critic's demeaning voice. You will have faith in your work. So please join me for spirited living, awakening your imagination, embracing the beauty of the universe, and enjoying your creative spirit.

Creativity and Free Time

Sorry it's taken me so long to finally post again. With my free time taken up with homework and school, my schedule needs some serious adjustment. That brings me to my current topic of discussion: creativity and free time. Before I started school, I had lots of free time to do what I enjoy. I could practice piano any time I wanted. My Netflix DVDs were watched and sent back steadily. Better yet, I responded to emails on a regular basis.

But something was missing through it all. With my free time, I often didn't know what to do with myself. I missed the structure of commitment (i.e. an art class I was paying and getting credit for). Sure, I wanted to create more, blog more, and coach more, but there wasn't much drive behind it. When I got around to it, I would ..well.. get around to it.

With my wasted Saturday mornings of sleeping in, watching TV, and doing household chores, I felt I was ready to take on the accelerated program at Baypath College in MA. So I signed up.

Do I enjoy school? Absolutely! But now my creativity is suffering. It's the old cliche saying that you don't appreciate something until it's gone. That would be me right now. My piano practice time has diminished down to nothing and my Netflix DVDs collect dust even though I'm still charged each month. And all the spirituality books I recently bought just sit staring out at me: reminding me of the money I spent on something I'm not using.

Why is it that we don't appreciate creative time until we don't have it? Many of you are probably thinking "gee, she has free time? I have three kids!" But I'm sure you have activities in your life that aren't fulfilling or soul inspiring that are pushing your creativity to the back burner. Do you really need to keep up with Lost, Desperate Housewives, or American Idol? See, I have to do my homework if I want to get a high enough grade to warrant corporate reimbursement. But I really don't need to keep up with American Idol, a video game, or my Netflix DVDs. Or rather I could keep up with all of that if I want my piano lessons to be wasted.

Last night I had a lesson and my teacher said I should be practicing my songs for 2 hours a night. I'm not sure if he meant each song since I'm practicing (let me count on my fingers here) 3 or 4 or songs. Oh and throw in my daily finger exercises which take about 15 minutes and we are talking about a lot of time just for piano. Granted if I was a professional pianist, I would be practicing at least 5 hours a day. My teacher was practicing that much and still managing to teach students. Perhaps that's why he's retired now.

For you piano lovers out there, I'm practicing the following: Rachmaninov's Prelude in C-sharp minor Bach's Invention No. 8 Debussy's Claire De Lune

And I can't remember the name of the fourth song. Perhaps it's because I don't like it very much. It's one of those "easy" songs that you have to play at 70 mph. So when you are practicing it slowly, your ego is strutting around saying "Ah, this is SO easy. We can totally do this." But when it comes time to play it at the correct speed, your fingers crash and burn on the keys, leaving your ego sitting on the sidelines with a bump on the head and a bad attitude. "Stupid song."

Now that my piano time has been affected, I didn't realize how much I wanted to practice. When I was bored and had lots of extra time, I practiced maybe 15 minutes a day. Yes, I should practice more, but I would stop when I felt I was "done". But as the songs get harder, I find myself more motivated to get them perfect. I want to impress someone. I want the wow factor. "You can play that?!?!?" Why I get motivated right when I have less time to practice is beyond me.

Take time today to review your priorities. What one thing could you give up? What one thing would you miss if you were told you couldn't do it anymore? Is creativity important enough to ignore TV over? Is it important enough to schedule time for? If someone said you could never paint, sing, draw, dance, sculpt, or play again, what would you do?