Day 162: Hide and Seek

Day 162.  How can I fully disengage from my projects and my work when I write a daily report about them?  It crosses my mind to just post some quote on rest or disengaging or alone time this morning.  But examining the urge to check out seems much more interesting.  I’m a big checker outer.  I need my space.  I’ve been known to “go under” or “go to the desert” as I call it and not resurface for weeks.  This daily public exercise has not made that possible this year.  I can’t go to the desert.  Well, I can, I just have to bring my laptop and make sure there’s access to Wi-Fi.  Bottom line, I can’t hide.  I chose a daily report and report daily I must.  What was I thinking?

I signed up for Mike Dooley’s Notes From The Universe at the end of last year.  Screenwriter Cindy told me about it.  It’s really fun and it’s free—you don’t have to buy anything.  You fill out this simple little form, say a few things about what you’re out to do or accomplish that you need the Universe’s help with and you receive a daily note, personalized to you, from the Universe.  It’s uplifting, motivating and fun.   You only receive the notes Monday through Friday, not Saturdays or Sundays.   Apparently, the Universe takes the weekends off.  Smart Universe.   Within the personalized and inspiring notes, the Universe always tries to sell me something, too.  It’s usually on sale, so there’s an incentive for a book or a series of recordings or tickets to a speaking engagement.  The Universe is also a capitalist.  I can respect that.

Can you tell the difference?

I tend to view my disengaging from the world as a necessary part of my personality—just the way I am—and a vital aspect to my creative process.  I have always been fine with being alone.  I can go to the movies alone.  I can go out to eat alone.  I can go to Vegas alone.  I mean, come on, I am a Scorpio.  Where do most scorpions live?  That’s right.  The desert.  But through this exercise, I’m realizing there’s a difference between having my own, healthy space and burying my head in the sand to hide.  What else I realize is, it’s not easy to differentiate between the two!  It’s not just a fine line it’s a hair’s breadth of a line.  But like the chicken sex checkers, with enough practice and training, by the end of this year I will be able to “see the difference” in an instant.  Male and female baby chicks look almost identical.  Chick sexers are trained to see the difference between the two so they can be separated because depending on which specialty the chicken farm is for—eggs or meat—one is useful and one is not.  I won’t go into what happens to the one who is not useful—it’s not a happy ending.  But that’s off point.  The point is that hiding is not useful.  Having healthy space and alone time for rejuvenation and my creative process is.  I need to be able to tell the difference.

Time to come out from under the covers!

I set a mantra for myself before I began this yearlong experiment in prolific creativity.  Obviously, it’s think outside the box inside the box.  Besides the main theme for the venture of creating from what you have, to me, the paradox also means thinking, seeing and doing things differently.  I said it over and over to myself while I was developing my plan for the year:  “I don’t want to do anything the same way I’ve done it before.  I want to do everything differently!”  Staying connected daily is very different for me—very different.  Well, it’s time for a refresher.  I’ll say it again right now.  I don’t want to do things the way I’ve always done them.  If I keep doing things the same way—thinking the same way, seeing the same way, being the same way, living the same way—I’ll get more of the same results.  I want to do things differently because I want different results.  I want to discover new and different things about myself, about you, about life, about the world, about the Universe.  This year is all about seeking—awareness, truth, answers, meaning, purpose, enlightenment and pure creative expression.  It’s not about pulling the covers over my head.  My daily report never lets me off the hook.  Nor does it take up all of my time.  So, it doesn’t allow me to use it as an excuse for not doing my creative work either.  It allows me to have my own space, to seek what I’m after but it doesn’t allow me to hide.  Oh, right, I remember now.  That’s what I was thinking.

Until tomorrow, create from what you have…and seek, not hide.

Kelli Joan Bennett is a filmmaker, actress, writer, entrepreneur, advocate for creative thinking and Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Think Outside The Box Inside The Box Media. Follow @FromWhatYouHave