Abstraction and "authenticity muscle"

Did you ever stop to think about how much of life comes to us via abstraction? I was thinking about this today as my artist's bio passed in front of my eyes and I caught sight of the words "figurative abstract." So I started thinking about abstraction and how our worldview is partly drawn from emotional, spiritual, mental abstraction. The personal smoke and mirrors we use, often unconsciously. When I consider what it means to create meaningful work as a painter (I spend a lot of time working and thinking around this topic in my creative work and as a creativity coach with my clients) it seems to me that much of our worldview is (an) abstraction. Today I just want to suggest that perhaps if we aren't alert to this, if we don't accept this awareness of abstractions which are alive and well in daily life, we're condemned to think in linear terms about almost everything. We will think everything is flat, black and white, linear and know-able.

I'm not an intellectual so please feel free to poke holes in my theory but it seems to me that acknowledging the abstraction in life, in our sacred personal day-by-day life, frees us from believing that everything is visible with our physical eyes. If we are alert to being romanced by abstractions, alert to being enticed away from authentic living by distractions, we will exercise our "authenticity muscle" and be free to embrace and see with the eyes of the heart while living in a mostly linear world (cell phones, television, computer, bills). If we choose carefully which abstractions we apply and accept as part of our worldview then we are free to embrace and enrich our lives by deliberately tuning into mystical, sacred, creative action. I hope you will be deliberate about selecting abstractions today and celebrate your mystical, sacred, creative Self.

I wish you all a good week and challenge you to embrace and exercise your "authenticity muscle!"

Blessings,
Pamela