What if…whatever happens to you by the end of your life isn’t actually what your Destiny was?

What if…your Destiny is only a potential for where you could end up, but Free Will determines whether or not you get there?

What if…your Destiny is the fullest expression of your Spirit and whatever it came here to do in this life?

How would you know if you’ve reached that point?

And what has this got to do with the topic of creativity?

I’m always surprised when I hear people say they’re not creative. 

Two truths: 1) creativity shows itself in all kinds of ways you might not consider; 2) we are all creative beings.

We can only be in one of two modes: stagnant or creating. And because our default setting is “survival,” stagnation would kill us. It’s impossible for us to be anything other than creative. 

Everything in existence is made of creative energy and that includes us. It allows us to not just survive, but to thrive as a species.

Therefore, we’re always creating. The only question to ask ourselves is: are we creating in a way that nourishes? — or destroys?

When people think they’re not creative, the problem lies in what they think that word means. There is the assumption that it means you have to be a writer, artist, dancer, musician and so on. But at its very most basic essence, it just means “to bring something into existence.”

To those of you who think you’re not creative…have you ever: 

• had an idea

• planned a holiday

• initiated a project

• launched a product or a service

• planned a party

• organised an event

• developed something your boss asked you to do

• built a fence or a deck

• led a team

• found a solution to a storage problem in your home or office

• planted a lawn or a garden

• produced a report

• designed a strategy

• had a goal or a dream

• done any decorating

• threw together a meal with whatever was in the fridge

• decorated a cake or cookies

• set an intention

• seen your behaviour or choices cause a response or reaction

• figured out a solution to a problem

• helped others brainstorm with pros and cons about choices they had to make?

All of these are examples of using your creative mind. It is the thing that drives us and helps us navigate through life. It’s the thing that makes us who we are. We see it in the things we love to do or to experience, or in the things we’re good at doing. We see it in how we respond to the situations and circumstances of our lives. 

These are some of the elements that make you “you.” Therefore, they are unique expressions of your spirit.

When we aren’t expressing ourselves in these ways, we can feel restless or unhappy, like something’s missing or not quite right.

It can lead to depression or anxiety because we are stifling ourselves in a profoundly deep way. And we can’t even begin to reach our potential.

We tend to think of creativity as a positive term but we can just as easily create negatively. Our Spirits are driving us to create in positive ways that are for our benefit or for the benefit of others. But we are also human, and Ego can drive us to create in ways that are destructive to ourselves or others.

We might focus on fear and lack and old wounds. We let resentments, anger and guilt fester inside us. We believe we’re not good enough, we aren’t lovable, or we will never be successful.

Coming from that frame of mind, and with that kind of focus, how can we expect to create anything good?

We can create toxic relationships. Some people plot revenge, or get creative on their tax returns, or with the truth in general. Others plan insurance fraud or bank robberies or how to break into homes and steal whatever they can find.

Although the majority of criminals are reported to be less intelligent than the average population, there are plenty of them with IQs in the gifted or even the genius range. Think “corporate espionage” for example.

In fact, in his book, Criminal Genius: A Portrait of High-IQ Offenders, author James Oleson says there may be a threshold after which a high IQ actually becomes a risk factor. There aren’t a lot of statistics about these people, however, because they’re brilliant at escaping detection and capture.

We’re always creating our environments and our circumstances, and the degree to which these are positive or negative aspects of our lives will be profoundly impacted by how spiritually connected we are — or aren’t.

As a kid, I was always drawing on any bit of scrap paper I could find, or on my chalkboard. I was constantly designing floor plans for houses when I was about eight years old. I drew cartoons and made up jokes. I wrote little stories.

But I lived in an environment where all of this was stifled, and I stopped doing all of it. Well, apart from one thing. I taught myself how to play the piano and organ at about four years old so this obvious natural ability was quietly encouraged. I suspect it was because my father was a musician and entertainer so it was an acceptable part of who I was.

For decades, life was all about coping. I was always having to adapt and adjust to keep up with one crisis after another (which I suppose required a whole other kind of creativity).

There wasn’t much room for cartoons or stories and not a lot of space for jokes or laughter either. It was as though my life had become a black and white film, just a long series of grey days.

There were little snippets of creativity trying to make themselves known. I adored decorating, painting walls and hanging wallpaper. I was constantly rearranging furniture. I made up dopey songs with my children. I loved cooking and baking, and was always experimenting with foods, learning about new ingredients and trying new recipes. 

And I still enjoyed playing the piano or organ.

Then one day, an image popped into my head. I had a vision of living in a big old Victorian house by the ocean, and writing all day, every day. I had no idea where this idea came from. 

I longed to write books but I didn’t think I’d be good enough. I just knew that since I was a kid, every time I saw stacks of notebooks or paper in shops, I wanted to take every one of them home and put words all over them. I’m still like that, even today.

(Is it weird that I actually salivate when I look at those shelves filled with brand new notebooks??!)

And although I had a peculiar feeling that I had something to say, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what that might be. I didn’t think I had anything to say that anyone would want to know.

Besides, I was too busy putting out fires to think about writing, and eventually the image faded for several years.

As things spun more and more out of control in my life, and my health deteriorated substantially, I felt like I was drowning. I knew something significant was missing but I didn’t know what it was. I’d hit rock bottom. My life was a train wreck and one day I found myself sobbing in a church.

I ended up spending several years as their organist and choir director. I crammed Christianity down my own throat but it never fit.

I began trying on various other religions, some quite seriously and others not so much.

As I slogged my way through trying to clean up the messes in my life and create something better, I began to understand that it wasn’t religion I’d been seeking, but a spiritual connection and the peace, comfort, and self-awareness that it would bring.

As that was unfolding, the long-buried image of writing all day in that old Victorian house returned. I’d only written a few short pieces by then, or some English essays while studying social work at Mount Royal. I loved writing but it was sound asleep in the backseat while I was busy raising a family and navigating the potholes and washed-out bridges of my soap-opera life.

During the years that I was making progress in sorting out all of that and beginning to find spiritual fulfilment, another image had been popping into my head. It was a picture of a mural on my bedroom wall. I really wanted that mural but I couldn’t paint. Still, that image kept lurking in my brain.

One day, I thought, “Hmm. It’s my house. I could try to paint it, and if it’s terrible, I’ll paint over it!”

Having zero idea about how to do a mural, I bought a bunch of little bottles of craft paints and some brushes and tiny sponges (did I forget I was doing an entire wall??). I stood there in my bedroom with blobs of colour on yogurt lids and after a few days, this was my first painting:

Typical of me, I never start small. I hurl myself head first into the deep end of the pool before I check to see if there’s water in it. More often than not, there isn’t. But hey, I’m still standing!

Well, that painting turned out all right, so I did my entire office in the same theme. 

Eventually, I ran out of walls in my own homes in both Canada and England, and I started doing murals for other people, too. 

I remember one day a friend was watching me paint a mural and as we chatted, she said, “You look at least ten years younger. I’ve never seen you so happy or relaxed. You’re really in your element!”

I thought it was because I was having fun doing something I loved. I didn’t realise that it was because my Spirit was speaking with every stroke of my brush.

I decided to give canvas a shot and without having a clue what I was doing, tried some abstract art. And what fell out were some emotionally intense pieces, such as “Oppression,” “Soul Murder,” “Sacrifice,” and “Coming to Forgiveness.”

I met a woman who was a former gallery owner and she loved my paintings. We got to talking and I mentioned loving to write. She asked to see some of my work but all I had were those few short pieces or my English essays.

I sent them off to her and next thing I knew, she said she was a literary agent who helped new authors get published. Almost immediately, my first book was in the works.

Once that writing floodgate was opened, it never stopped. I wrote three books in eight months, and won an Outstanding Achievement Award.

And at the same time that this was going on, my art started to take off. I sold my first painting two weeks after doing my first abstract piece — and for a hefty sum to an artist in Australia who said he “had to have it and couldn’t live without it.” Huh??! 

A few weeks later, a gallery wanted to display my work. Soon I was invited to have the first of my exhibitions.

The more I painted, wrote, and did various other things that made my heart sing, the more I felt a peacefulness and emerging freedom in my soul that I’d never felt before.

I was beginning to understand that all of these activities were expressions of my Spirit. That’s why those random images of painting and writing had been popping into my head for years when I didn’t think I could do either of them.

The more I allowed my Spirit to express itself, the more I began to heal on a deeper level than any therapist had ever been able to help me do. My paintings began to change. Suddenly, the topics changed. No more dark, horrible titles. I was using brighter, more vibrant colours with movement and a lighter energy.

Because of my penchant for cracking jokes and being a bit of a dope, somewhere along the way, I admitted to a dear friend that my secret dream job was doing stand-up comedy. He dared me to try it.

Next thing I knew, I was taking my sense of humour to the stage and loving it every single time.

It seemed that the more I followed my heart and did the things I loved, the more the world was opening up to me, and the more my spiritual connection deepened.

Over the years, my abilities as a psychic and medium had been quietly evolving by themselves on the back burner since I was young. But as I became more spiritually connected — or shall I say, the more I connected with my inner world, my “higher self” and the essence of my soul, the more noticeable, powerful, and accurate those abilities became.

I began doing professional readings. Almost immediately I was invited onto the BBC to do regular psychic phone-ins. And from there, I was asked to do stage appearances as a medium, connecting audience members with loved ones in spirit. I was also hired to go to various parts of England and remove nasty spirits from people’s homes. That was the coolest job ever!

When I look back, I can see that during the most challenging and toxic parts of my life, there was little awareness of those abilities. I used to think it was just that with so much of my life being about coping and survival, I simply didn’t notice any paranormal experiences. I suppose this could have been true, or at least in part, but I think it’s even more than that.

It was because I’d spent so much of my early life being stifled and suppressed, I was largely disconnected from my Spirit.

Once I began exploding in positive creative endeavours, all of a sudden my abilities as a psychic and a medium dramatically increased. Eventually, I understood the connection between my Spirit and my creativity. As long as one was stifled, the other could not express itself. It is a symbiotic relationship because in essence, they are two parts of the same thing.

It’s abundantly clear to me now that every time I follow my heart and do what I love, good things happen, life opens up to me, opportunities hunt me down and I am happy. And when my creativity is stifled, things don’t go very well for me at all. There is a direct relationship between my success, my happiness and my ability to make a difference in the world, and how much I am or am not allowing my Spirit to express itself.

Your Spirit doesn’t have a lot of ways to communicate with you and the ones it does have are subtle. But they are also powerful. It’s up to you to choose to listen to them.

If you want to wake up loving your life and feeling excited every day, it starts by making the connection that whatever you love and feel compelled to do has something to do with expressing your spirituality.

You don’t have to write or paint or play an instrument. You can access your spirituality by following your heart, and doing what you love. By doing what you’re good at. By offering your ideas and plans and feedback. By participating in putting together events. By sharing your goals and pursuing your dreams. And by helping others pursue theirs, too.

You do it by planting flowers and setting intentions. By finding new ways to solve old problems. By helping a neighbour paint a room or finish a basement.

Do the things you love. Do what lights you up, ignites your soul, and inspires you. Those will be creative expressions of your soul, and the very essence of your spirit, which is the truth of who you are. The more you do this, the better your chances of coming to the end of your life having reached your potential and fulfilled your Destiny.

Your imagination is the language of your spirit. Let it run free and see where it takes you.

Spiritual Arts Mentor and Master Teacher, Liberty Forrest, guides you in discovering who you are, why you’re here, and how to follow that path.

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