Breaking the chains of the past, in which you feel like you are repeating the same patterns over and over, is difficult without a certain amount of imagination. That imagination, harnessed into creativity, can help you break these patterns and help you unchain yourself from negative and self-destructive behaviors.
How do we use creativity to break the chains of the past?
You have to see the world in a different way in order behave in a different way.
1.You have to have vision.
How can we use creativity to help break the chains of the past and create a new vision and behaviors that are positive and freeing?
2. Be open to RE-VISION
Being a writer, I have had the opportunity to develop the craft of revising. My experience as a teacher and student of writing gave me concrete revision skills.
However, many people don’t think of revision as something you do outside of writing. And many people don’t revise even in writing.
The important thing about revising is that you have to be committed to RE-VISIONING. By that, I mean seeing the world and yourself in a different way. The question is, how do you get outside of yourself long enough to have a new vision?
That is how art, music, literature, or anything beautiful that recreates or presents the world in a new light, is important in RE-VISIONING.
When you are challenged by a new way of looking at the world, in particular a way which emphasizes the beauty and goodness in the world, you are able to use your imagination to open new ways of dreaming, and thus being.
3. Challenge Your Vision
In order to be open to RE-VISION you have to take stock of what you are putting into your awareness and be willing to change what you take in. We all know the maxim GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT. We maintain patterns or programming by what we take in.
For example, think about the television shows you watch. Are they uplifting? If not, do they challenge your assumptions? Do you watch shows just as an escape or as a way to numb the pain of your daily life? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, television might be contributing to you being chained to the past.
Television can cause more damage in chaining you to your past than any other medium. The act of watching television is one of the most hypnotic states you can be in. Commercials work because you are very susceptible to suggestion when you are in that state.
So, if you watch television mindlessly AND what you are watching reinforces negative belief systems about yourself and the world, you have very little chance of RE-VISIONING the world.
Artists are most successful when they are open to RE-VISIONING. They can be authentic and original because they are willing to buck the patterns and programming of our general culture. Children are natural artists before they are indoctrinated into certain patterns of thinking. Pure art is anathema to getting stuck in a rut.
You can become the artist of your life by being open to RE-VISIONING the way you interact with the world.
_______
Melissa Miles Mccarter shares more ways to unchain yourself from the past in A Small Book of Wisdom: 6 Ways to Enjoy the Ride of the Eternal Now.