A few months ago, I ran into the woman who gave me my first job. I had not seen her for many years and our chance meeting revealed not only how much I had grown as a person and a professional, but also uncovered something else I had not expected. In my quest to “let go” of some of the things that were holding me back, I had also let go of something the things that were instrumental in propelling me forward. I had somehow buried one of my greatest gifts: Creativity.
When I met this woman, those many years ago, I was a young mother on the precipice of nothingness and in serious need of a mentor as well as a job. I had taken a few wrong turns and instead of sitting idly by; she provided me with some much needed direction. The brief time she spent with me, helping to raise my consciousness and awareness about the authority I had over my life, in many ways hit the reset button on my life’s GPS system and changed its entire trajectory.
A Cup Filled with Potential Is Still an Empty Cup
Anyone who has ever mentored someone knows how it can nearly break your heart when the mentee squanders their potential or doesn’t realize all that they are capable of becoming. You see them make a series of bad choices despite your best lectures and efforts and you eventually realize that while you can accompany them on their journey, you cannot control if they will reach their own “promised-land”. The decision for them to cross over from potential capability into the kinetic manifestation of their giftedness; is truly theirs alone. We can also experience this with our children.
My mentor understood this balance. Shortly after she hired me for the job, she explained to me why she made the initial investment. Her explanation went like this:
“You are a cup and even a cup filled to the brim with potential will never be more than an empty cup if something kinetic doesn’t happen to start to fill that cup up. I have given you this opportunity as an effort to pour into that cup; it is solely up to you whether or not that cup will run over. The fact that you have potential is simply not enough.”
Needles to say, I got the message.
Burying Your Gifts
In an effort to reclaim my life and help that cup to “run over”, I became radical about changing myself and the influences I was around. I discarded generational behaviors and mindsets that were not working for me and replaced them with a strong work ethic and commitment to continual personal development. However, without realizing it, I also began to bury my gifts.
During our brief encounter, my former boss asked me what I was doing on the professional front. I started explaining the ins and outs of my corporate job. Her only response was that she was surprised I wasn’t doing something “Creative”.
“ Creativity is who you are. How do function without doing what you ARE?”
Her question, part literal, part rhetorical, perplexed me. I began thinking to myself,
“Creative? What would lead her to believe I was doing something creative? I am not a creative person…..”.
It is smack-dab-in the middle of this thought that I realize she has awakened something in me. Something dormant and asleep, that I forgotten about, something I had suppressed. I began to feel that sensation you feel when you see a familiar face and you are certain you don’t know the person until you realize that not only do you know that person very well, but that person knows your deepest secrets. You are mystified about how you could have even forgotten them. In that moment, I was mystified about why I had lost the connection to my creativity and I realized I needed to return this element to my life, sooner rather than later.
Unearthing Your Gifts
In an effort to bring my life back from the “precipice of nothingness” (a glorious effort that has been both arduous and painful), I had forgotten that I was a creative person, something at the very core essence of who I am.
Since I was very young, I found refuge in creating things. Whether it was writing, painting, photography, crafting, sewing, decorating or graphic design, the creative process saved my psyche and also made me very good at the job she had hired me to do. However, the more serious and analytical I became about being accountable for my life, the less I engaged in those things that set me free. I had abandoned those things that made me feel safe and alive.
For many years, I have felt like something was missing and it is truly inspiring to get reacquainted with my creative spirit. It is important for us to be diligent about doing what we ARE.
The Take Away
We cannot become so radical in our efforts to improve ourselves that we lose sight of what makes us unique. We are all works in progress, but we can never lose sight of the progress that comes from the work of operating in our gifts. Gifts that are buried alive will eventually die.
I am reawakening the gift of creativity within me and my cup has begun to run over.
Remember this: Where your gifts are, your purpose is also.
Do you have any “buried gifts”? Unearth them today.
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