Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC

FEATURE:
Using Creativity to Heal the Self

Personal expression is extremely important to our overall wellbeing. When I work with clients, they often come to me frustrated that they feel unable to express themselves fully in their life, work or relationships. That is my primary focus with them as their coach. But beyond the coaching session, I know that tapping into creativity, whether that means inventing a new recipe, crocheting a scarf or composing a new song, can often be the vital element in a person's overall balance in life. Because creativity is such a key factor in our fulfilment as human beings, I always listen carefully to the desire of my clients to find out what is longing to be expressed. Then, together we design ways to bring out that expression, so as to allow the inner healing to unfold on its own.

In my book, I take the reader through a very simple way to understand what might be missing in our lives whenever we feel a bit 'out'. In my book, I discuss four principles that bring balance and wholeness to the human spirit: give, receive, become and be. All four of these principles play a vital part in the creative process:

• The Principle of Giving: the principle of all that emanates outwards from within you. In relation to creativity, 'giving' as a principle includes self-expression, passion, emotiveness, boldness, etc. 'Giving' is the energy that drives us to call forth the creative process within ourselves; it is the urge to express.
• The Principle of Receiving: the principle of all that comes from the world into you. In relation to creativity, 'receiving' as a principle includes acute awareness via the senses and the ability to relish the smallest of the small and the greatest of the great. 'Receiving' is the fertile ground upon which creativity can take root; through 'receiving', the entire universe can sit upon our consciousness like a canvas.
• The Principle of Becoming: the principle of all that is continually changing. In relation to creativity, 'becoming' as a principle includes inspiration, imagination, spontaneity, and innovation. 'Becoming' is the act of creativity itself; without it, we have no impulse to invent something new.
• The Principle of Being: the principle of all that is non-changing. In relation to creativity, 'being' as a principle includes inner wisdom, stillness, serenity within all circumstances and the ability to be the observer without judgements. 'Being' is the perspective where we accept the role and responsibility of the sacred role of creator; it provides us with the ability to express fully without judging either self or other.

What I have found is that when we are feeling a bit 'off' in life, it is often because one of these principles is not flowing properly within us, or perhaps all of them are blocked in some way. When we find we are not expressing ourselves fully and authentically, it can manifest in so many harmful ways in life, such as depression, anger or even (and frequently) physical illness. I know because I have experienced all of these things over the years, and am extremely grateful now that I know how to recover from these imbalances either on my own, or with the help of one of my many wonderful friends. When I coach my clients, I help them to learn how to return to that balance, and sometimes I help them to engage on a creative enterprise, whether it is something artist like writing, music or art, or something life-changing like creating a new business or a creating an entirely new perspective of themselves that they bring into all aspects of their lives.

No matter what method we use to express the innate creator within each one of us, creativity is as essential to our health and happiness as eating a balanced diet. So if you are feeling a little 'off' today, take a moment to create something with consciousness-from a great new sandwich to a heartfelt diary entry. Take a look out the window and see what is there. Take a look inside your heart and see what is there. Then listen for what needs to be expressed and find a way to let it be heard. You will find that you not only heal yourself, but you will heal the world around you as well.

I'll be telling you more about the four principles give, receive, become and be in the coming weeks, and you can also read all about them when my book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self when it comes out on Tues 7 April.

Want to hear more about how some
extraordinary people use creativity to heal the self?
Check out my next two radio broadcasts!

Wednesday 4 February
Using Creativity to Heal the Self Part 2
6.30 PM UK time, 1.30 PM Eastern, 10.30 AM Pacific, 7.30 PM CET
Author and Personal Transformation Coach Lynn Serafinn hosts Kristina Berglund, Swedish painter, Co-Active Coach and a teacher of the Vedic Art tradition. Kristina, whose artistic specialty is creating very large mandalas, is also the commissioned artist for the cover of Lynn's book The Garden of the Soul. On tonight's show, Kristina will be sharing her story of how she uses a deeper connection to art as a means of overcoming personal battles with eating disorders, distorted body image and other emotional blocks both within herself and others through her teaching. Kristina will be offering a live demo of Vedic art instruction on the air, so have some paper and come coloured pens ready!
Listen LIVE at: www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn
Listener questions: call at 646-727-3449 during broadcast (US number)

Wednesday 11 February
Using Creativity to Heal the Self Part 3
6.30 PM UK time, 1.30 PM Eastern, 10.30 AM Pacific, 7.30 PM CET
Author and Personal Transformation Coach Lynn Serafinn hosts British musician John Levine of Alphamusic. John will be sharing his story of how being the witness to his father's lifetime of stress-related illnesses compelled him to find answers to the mind-body-spirit connection, which ultimately led him to use his musical talents to create music that can alter the alpha waves in the brain to restore health and wellbeing to listeners. John will be playing some samples of his compositions on the air, so get ready to an auditory massage.
Listen LIVE at: www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn
Listener questions: call at 646-727-3449 during broadcast (US number)

Did you miss 'Using Creativity to Heal the Self Part 1 with UK author Tom McGreevy?
Catch the show 'on demand' anytime www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn

FR*EE TELECLASS: Heads up! The MONSTERS are Back!

gremlins...saboteurs...
inner critic...chatterbox...hangups...

Oh, there are just so MANY names we have for the self-limiting messages we hear in our heads that hold us back from living our lives as fully as they are meant to be. I like to call them "monsters". These monsters just LOVE to whisper things in our ears like...

"You're not good enough, confident enough, smart enough, creative enough..."

"You're too old, young, tall, short, fat, thin, ugly, weak, nerdy, dumb, shy..."

And all KINDS of other "monster-osities"!!

Well...the GOOD news is that ALL OF US HAVE MONSTERS! The trick to stopping their noisy chatter is knowing how to make friends with your "monsters"... AND to make friends with the monsters of other people, too!

the not quite finished cover!

My 20-Step Journey to Become Self-Published: Step 16
The ongoing diary of the birthing of my book:
The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self
Amazon launch date 7 April 2009.

Ok, so last time I told you how I was finishing splicing in my copy editor's edits, compiling endorsements, assembling my new BOOK BLOG at http://give-receive-become-be.com, and how my dear friend, Kristina Berglund of Stockholm, who is a fantastic fine artist, was making an original painting for the mandala design for the cover. Incidentally, I will be interviewing Kristina tomorrow night for my radio programme Lynn Serafinn's Garden of the Soul at 6.30 UK time. She will be talking about using the principles of Vedic Art to heal emotional wounds. Tune in on www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn

I decided to 'adjust' my original 20 steps and bring you up to date on what is REALLY going on behind the scenes. So here is my adjusted 'Step 16':

Step 16: You write your acknowledgements. You print out the formatted book and check it one last time with a red pen. Your artist sends you a high res photo of the cover. You get a professional photographer to take a promo shot of you. You hire a Promotion Manager who gets your Joint Venture Partners assembled. You send your complete manuscript off to be printed.

You write your acknowledgements. This was an amazingly beautiful process for me. It really got me in the state of mind where I was able to see just how many people helped me in the process of gathering ideas, inspiration and valuable feedback for the book, what to speak of the people, places, animals (and flowers!) who inspired the stories contained within it. Writing acknowledgements is a wonderful act of completion for an author because it reconnects you to the greater world, after having spent many months working in 'isolation'.

You print out the formatted book and check it one last time with a red pen. Again, you might be surprised, but this is a delightful process, especially when I can read for 10 or more pages without the need to correct a thing. It is a true testament to the hard work both my copy editor (Jessica Keet) and I have put into the manuscript. Occasionally I find a teeny thing missing, like a quotation mark and with great delight I make the correction and admire a nearly perfect copy. It is such a wonderful feeling! I aim to have this complete by the weekend.

Your artist sends you a high resolution photo of the cover. Believe it or not, taking a good photograph of a painting is a real art. Kristina finished the painting about a week ago and so far all I have seen of it are tiny little photos of it that she has sent me from her home in Stockholm via SMS to my mobile phone! What is so interesting about that is that the lighting of her living room casts all kinds of interesting shadows on the painting, as it has a lot of texture to it. So Kristina hired a professional photographer to come and photograph the painting using different angles of light, so we can choose what we want to put on the cover. Then Kristina will take the image into Photoshop and enhance the colours so they print with just the right amount of boldness. I find the whole process fascinating.

You get a professional photographer to take a promo shot of you. Last week, one of my former clients, Andy Adams (www.andyadamsphotography.com) took my fabulous new headshot. My daughter would tell you that to get me to say I like a photo of myself is a miracle! Andy spent at least 3 hours trying different settings, lighting and angles to get just the right shot. He must have taken 100 photos on his VERY expensive digital camera. We would view a batch, assess them, make a plan for what else we want to try and then go do another sitting. It was the most co-creative photography session I ever had! At the end, we selected four that were very nice, but the one at the top of this page is the one I absolutely LOVE. Hey, did you know my eyes were green?

You hire a Promotion Manager who gets your Joint Venture Partners assembled. Oh wow, let me tell you about this amazing woman who is doing my book promotion. Her name is Teresa Morrow of Key Business Partners. Teresa has been researching and gathering together Joint Venture Partners (JVP) for my book launch. What's a Joint Venture Partner you may ask? Well, this is basically how it works: other coaches, authors, artists or other professionals help you promote your book by telling their contacts about it. They I direct everyone who has bought my book to receive a special 'bonus' gift (like an eBook, audio class, etc) from that Partner. That's pretty much it. Basically it means that we are helping each other simply by telling people about each other. People who buy the book are happy because they get all this cool stuff to download, even before the book arrives in the post! Cool, huh? If you know anyone who'd like to be a JVP, tell them to email Teresa before this Friday 6 February.

You send your complete manuscript off to be printed. Well, that's my goal for next week. I found a great looking company called Arima Publishing, and by next Monday I will FINALLY be sending them all the finished elements: triple-proofed and formatted manuscript, endorsements, acknowledgements, cover art, author photo. They have already assigned an ISBN, and by next time you hear from me, you should be able to see the book listed on Amazon! Woohoo!

CLICK HERE to visit my BOOK BLOG

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The Garden of the Soul:
lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self

The Garden of the Soul is a book about becoming whole…

Called “as spiritual as Deepak Chopra and as magical as Paulo Coehlo,” The Garden of the Soul is a book about becoming whole that dances boldly and freely on both sides of the bridge between fiction and non-fiction, to illustrate the unearthing of the human spirit, using autobiography, dream work, poetry and metaphor. It is a journey on the ‘path of least resistance to the Self’ using the metaphor of four flowers that represent four spiritual principles that bring wholeness to the Self: ‘Give’ (the Rose), ‘Receive’ (the Iris), ‘Become’ (the Daffodil) and ‘Be’ (the Lily).

Taking the reader on a daring and magical journey through the author’s life and imagination… from stage fright and burnout in a classical music conservatory, to life inside an Indian temple, to the hidden life of domestic violence, to finding inner peace atop an old English footbridge… this book explores birth, death, love, art, spirituality and transformation in an eloquent, poetic and ultimately unforgettable way. It is an open invitation to readers to explore how they are already the heroes of their own lives.

Subscribe to my Garden of the Soul book blog
and get inspirational articles, news and special offers delivered to your inbox:

FR*EE OFFER FOR YOU!
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An alternative approach to the “law of attraction”, “The Path of Least Resistance to the Self” outlines 10 simple principles that demonstrate that true fulfilment is as easy as stepping into the authentic Self, and allowing oneselfe to blossom. It is the ultimate challenge to those who believe that happiness comes as a result of struggle, and it shows the easy way to manifest joy and to live your life purpose.

Fulfilment is any easy process of simply allowing your true self to blossom…

That is the primary message of this upcoming release, The Path of Least Resistance to the Self. The complete eBook is not due for release until February 2009, but until then you can enjoy the first SIX chapters of it right now for free in both AUDIO AND PRINTABLE format. Altogether, that’s a £14.95 value, absolutely free by clicking HERE.

Why be satisfied with a daily dose of world news, marketing programmes and business reports? Treat yourself and feed your soul once a week. Enter your name and email to receive your first chapter “What is the ‘Law of Attraction’ REALLY About?” right away.

Chapter 1: “What is the Law of Attraction REALLY About?
Chapter 2: “The Wonderful Uniqueness that is YOU”
Chapter 3: “The Voice within the Golden Silence”
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Enjoy this collection of inspirational readings and audio carefully created to bring some positive energy to your day! Every 7 days, you will receive a new chapter in both pdf AND mp3 format taking you through the path. The audio is a great way to spend your tea break or lunch hour over the next few weeks. To receive your 6 fr*ee chapters (in audio and text), go to:

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Warm wishes,

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC
'Turning up the volume of the music in your heart!'
Personal Transformation Coaching from Create-a-Life
lynn@create-a-life.co.uk

© 2008 Lynn Serafinn at Create-a-Life. All rights reserved.