Open Unimaginable Doors by Doing What You Please

Can you sometimes be your own EVIL STEPMOTHER??

"Clean that up!"

"Get back to work!"

"No, you can't go to the ball!"

Somewhere along the way we started to believe that if we want to be "successful" or of any worth, we need to force ourselves to do things we don't want to do. 'Cause if we don't, how will the bills get paid, the groceries get put away or the floors get cleaned? 

The revolutionary truth is, the opposite is true:

When we go ahead and open the door to that which excites us most we are handing the reins over to a deeper and wiser knowing within us.

Here's a story about how this works:

One of my chores of drudgery is keeping up with email. It's right up there with cleaning out the fridge. But...on a seemingly regular basis, I get this strange excited urge to scroll down into the undiscovered depths of my inbox. It's only because of this unexpected wave of inspiration that I ever find anything in there.

So one day one of these surges comes and I encounter a newsletter by Maria Papova that is usually just another victim of my haphazard and zealous clicking and deleting. But this time, I open it.

We're going to call this Door Number One.

In the email was a breathtaking image by artist Beatrice Alemagna. Curiosity overtook me and before I knew it I had sidestepped Operation Email Cleanup (OEC) and had stepped through door number two: scrolling through her art on the internet, lost in the world of her complex and childlike imagination.

This is when I discovered she is a children's book author and illustrator. So before I knew it, I was opening door number three, ordering a copy of every book she has written through my local library. 

When the books arrived I felt like I had been living under a rock. How did I not know about these books? They became instant classics in my children's library at home and I felt redeemed.

And that would have been enough: being guided by my Inner Knowing to clean up my inbox ending in some new sweet friends in our book collection to inspire and shape my family's journey.

But that's not where this series of doors ends!

Door number four was in that stack of library books. It was the 200+ page book my kids tossed aside assuming it wasn't for them. But let me tell you - this book, The Velocity of Being, is for everyone. And I don't just mean literally every human being, big or small, old or young, literate or illiterate. I mean also for every part of you. A book for your Inner Child, your Inner Artist, your Inner Activist - heck, even your Inner Critic will take its glasses off and close its tired eyes to sit back for this one.

Can you tell I'm a little wacky about it?

Only five pages in I did something so unlike me: I ordered 4 copies for some unsolicited gift-giving, hoping to inspire some door-opening in others. (Post-script: one friend ordered copies for when she has grandchildren someday! See? I'm not the only wacky one.)

This book is a massive collection of art and letters by many of my favorite human beings on the planet: artists and writers; environmentalists and rockstars. All the cool people are in this book. 

What's more amazing is that I keep discovering new cool people who continue to stoke more curiosity and lead me to new online discoveries and new books from my local library. Door after door after door.

I don't know where the story goes from here (do we ever??). Who knows, maybe it inspires you in some way to act on your excitement. 

But if all this book does for my life is what it has done thus far - then it'll still have been worth it not to force myself, but to await that moment when I was feeling and following the subtle excitement to clean up my email inbox. I encourage you to follow the trail of your excitement, no matter how unusual, and watch where it leads you! Need a little help finding that passion? Check out our self-paced course, Bridge to Your Soul: Flower Essences and the Arts

Adrienne Cress is an Expressive Arts Therapist, Mother of Two and a Creative. She is co-founder of The Loveliness.

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