Teresa R. Funke's Blog: Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life, page 15

When “I Don’t Care Anymore” is a Good Thing

Let me see if I can articulate this correctly: Feel into this phrase, “I don’t care anymore.” Did you experience tension or relief? Most of us associate this declaration with something “bad.” When someone says it, we immediately jump into nurturing mode. “Oh, you don’t mean that,” we say. We search for ways to cheer them up or offer support. We worry about their mental health. We gently suggest that not caring is the same as giving up.

And sometimes it is a cry for help. But other times, it’s a chance to move on in healthy way. It’s a first step toward making changes we’ve needed to make for a long time. For example, you’ve had it with your unreasonable boss. You take an action at work, and your coworker cautions you to reverse what you’ve done. He/she reminds you the boss won’t like it. You respond, “I don’t care anymore,” because you hope the boss will finally just fire you and set you free. Or maybe you do it yourself. You march into his/her office and quit. Reaching your limit has caused you to make a change for the better.

Lately, I’ve been hearing many of my artist friends confess they’ve pulled back or stopped certain practices. For example, after realizing how much time they’ve spent on social media posts that don’t really bring them much attention, they shut down their accounts. “I know they say social media is important,” they tell me, “but I don’t care anymore.”  Maybe instead, they take the many hours a week they’d spent on social media and use it to create more and better art.

In the early days of my career, I was desperate for credibility. I wanted to get published in reputable magazines and land an agent and get a big publisher. I wanted to sit on the bestseller list for weeks and rack up awards. At a certain point, that desperate longing only weighed me down. I decided I no longer cared about those things (well, not as much anyway) and that led me to create a unique writing business of which I’m very proud. It’s like that line in the Jason Mraz song, I’m Yours,  that says, “Open up your plans and, damn, you’re free.”

Part of the reason I undertook this sabbatical in the past few months is that I was disillusioned with how little had changed in the publishing industry in 30 years. How undervalued and underpaid and underappreciated we authors still are. How devoted the general public remains to the fantasy of the starving artist. How many millions of books are published each year and how hard it is to get your own books noticed. After 30 years of caring desperately, I just kinda didn’t care anymore. And that left me feeling lost and depressed and lonely, until it didn’t.

Until I started to ask what else I was besides a writer/speaker/teacher/coach. What else made me happy. What else allowed me to serve. What else made me feel connected in the wider world. And what, if anything, about writing/publishing I did still care about.

Perhaps the declaration, “I don’t care anymore,” really means “I relinquish control,” and that’s a liberating feeling. No matter how much you try to please that unreasonable boss, you won’t be able to. It’s not in your control. For years, I believed with hard work, ingenuity, courage, and more hard work, I could force certain things to change in my industry and in myself. Letting go of control has allowed me to finally “go with the flow.”

And the flow, as any artist knows, is a creative collaboration between our ego selves and our Higher Selves, our human selves and our guides/muses. The flow is where real magic happens, within our art and within ourselves. The flow is a place of peace and harmony and creativity that feels so good.

So, go ahead and admit it . . . what is that thing you no longer care about? It’s not a failure to stop caring, it doesn’t make you weak or lazy, it doesn’t even mean you won’t ever care again. It’s just a chance to loosen the reins and relax into the ride.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post When “I Don’t Care Anymore” is a Good Thing appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

The Wisdom of Our Younger Selves

I recently came across an exercise where you write a letter to your younger self. I chose to write to myself at age 15 when I was full of teenage angst and bursting with ambition and struggling to contain other emotions that felt like they could tear me apart. As soon as I started the letter, the words came pouring out. Pages and pages. The first line was this: “Dear Young Teresa, guess what? You never did find that one big, world-changing, hyper-important thing you were put on this earth to do. But in the process of trying to figure out, you’ve done some really cool things.”

I continued by writing, “And you know that burning desire you have to write a book someday? You did it! In fact, you wrote eight. Isn’t that cool? And relax, for God’s sake, you are a good mother and you did find your soul-mate.”

After catching her up on all the important things she would experience in the next forty years of her life, I couldn’t help but tease her a bit: “By the way, you still love John Denver and musical theater, but you’re mostly over Barry Manilow. And you know how you can’t get enough of pizza and hot fudge sundaes? You can’t eat either anymore, but that’s okay . . .  you’ve learned to love really healthy foods. No, really, you have!”

After I wrote to my fifteen-year-old self, I felt so much lighter. I had reassured my inner child that everything was going to be okay, that she could stop worrying so very much. A few days later, I wrote to her again. This time, I thanked her: “Thank you, Young Teresa, for being the desperate dreamer you were. For wanting things so bad it hurt. Because you put those desires out there, because you wanted them more than anything else, you got them. You’ve achieved your dreams, although not always in the ways you thought you would. Thank you for leading the way and for being my guide and teacher. Thank you for making me brave.”

After I wrote those letters, I realized it might seem to Young Teresa like I’d reached the end of my life. After all, 54 would have sounded downright elderly to my young self. So, I reassured her that I’m healthy and still have plenty of life and longing left in me.

I know it sounds like so much self-help nonsense to engage in an exercise like this, but I highly recommend it. A friend did it, but she wrote to her five-year-old self, and in doing so got back in touch with her sense of playfulness. For me, I could finally let go of all those worries I hadn’t realized I was still carrying with me after all these years. And I could feel deep respect and admiration for my inner child who felt so misunderstood and out of place but was far wiser and far more powerful than she ever realized.

We are our own best teachers, and I still have so much to learn. But now I can trust the guidance from my inner five-year old who believed the moon followed her and was her friend, and the teenager who knew to her core that a career in the arts was valuable no matter what anyone else said, and the twenty-something who took her first daring step onto the path of being a writer, and the young mother who knew she needed to model to her children that being true to yourself was the most important thing.

If we gave ourselves permission to flip our sense of time around, I think we could see how in our senior years, we are often moving back toward the truths we knew in our childhood. Moving forward in the opposite direction, so to speak. Fascinating.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post The Wisdom of Our Younger Selves appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

Giving Where The Sidewalk Ends

When I was very young, my brother and I were watching the Jerry Lewis telethon on Labor Day weekend. The local news station had a big fish tank set up outside a hotel and was asking people to come drop off change to help the telethon. My brother and I begged my mom to drive us down there so we could dump the contents of our piggy bank – filled mostly with pennies – into the tank. She did. And I still remember how long it took to shake out all those pennies. What a great feeling that was.

My mom was a giver, and she raised me to be that way, too. Whenever any holiday came around, she reminded us to think about the people who were less fortunate than us. Even at Thanksgiving, it’s possible to donate a turkey to the local foodbank or help decorate your church for the meal they serve to the homeless.

As I write this, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I’ve been going through my house lately getting rid of stuff. I could take it all down to the ARC, but I know when they get too much stuff, they haul much of it to the local dump. So, I prefer to think a little harder to get things that are in good condition to those who really need them. One of the ways I like to do that is by putting up small displays of free items at the end of my driveway. Since it’s near Thanksgiving, I thought some people might want good-smelling candles, and I have a surplus of those! So, I put three nice ones out on an overturned cardboard box with a sign that said free. Then I waited. Within five minutes, the “winter scent” candle was gone. 15 minutes later the “mango” candle was gone, too. The green flowery candle was the last to go.

I like to imagine the lift people get when they take their afternoon stroll and find something fun and useful for free on the sidewalk. My favorite story is the time we put out a few small silk flower arrangements. My husband happened to walk outside as a twenty-something male on his bike (the last person I’d have expected to be interested) was stuffing one of the arrangements into his backpack. “Hey, thanks for the pretty flowers,” he said with a wave and a smile, as he cycled off.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for so many things, but I’m most grateful for the spirit of giving, the one thing that makes you happy whether you’re the one giving or the one receiving. After the hard and divisive year that was 2021, I hope the spirit of giving brings us all a little closer as we head into this holiday season. And it doesn’t have to be a big year-end cash donation or piles and piles of presents. Sometimes, it’s the little things, like a candle or a flower arrangement, that bring the most joy.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative life blog

The post Giving Where The Sidewalk Ends appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

Follow What You Love, Not What You Want

I was chatting with an artist friend the other day whose career is taking off. I complimented her by saying she’d done everything right over the years in terms of following all the steps to achieving her desired career and being patient with the process. She said something to the effect that it wasn’t hard to be patient when she knew she would someday be where she wanted to be. She believed that. She never questioned whether she was worthy of the dream, she just leaned into doing the work that would get her there, the work that she loved.

That’s the difference between those who stick it out in the arts (or any field) and those who don’t. We often trivialize success by saying, “the ones who make it are the ones who don’t give up.”  But we never ask why they didn’t give up. What keeps them believing, as my friend did, in themselves and their dreams even when there are setbacks, even when it seems to be taking forever?

In the early days of my career, there were so many times I could have given up. Times I thought about it even, but never did. I’d fantasized about writing a book since the fifth grade and had been lucky enough to stumble across a great idea for a novel while still in college. I did many things right in the beginning – I read books on writing, subscribed to writing magazines, joined a writer’s group – but my first five or six attempts at the book failed. My writer’s group kindly confirmed that.

In that early stage, I could have taken the internal and external criticism and decided I wasn’t good enough to write. That even though I’d tried my best, I lacked the proper talent. Instead, I decided I still wasn’t ready. That something was still missing. So, I stepped back and spent a few years writing short stories and personal essays to find my voice. Once I’d done that, I was able to return to the novel, and it finally came together.

Part of the secret to hanging in there is that successful dreamers are not usually pursuing a singular goal. If we narrow our vision in that manner, as soon as we don’t reach that particular objective, we give up. For example, I had an ambition to acquire an agent. I did that, but it didn’t work out, however I still did not give up. I once set a particular award as a target. But when I didn’t win, I still did not give up. That’s because those “markers of success” were things I wanted (or thought I wanted) but they weren’t what was really driving me. My love for writing was driving me, and my desire to get better. My dream had never really been to write one book, it had been to be a good writer and hopefully write lots of books. And I knew that could only come with years of practice, patience, persistence, and, yes, setbacks and failure.

So, the key to success, the key to dreaming, is to follow what you love, not what you want. Our wants distract and mislead us. Notice I said “follow” not “pursue.” Let the dream lead you, don’t chase it down. Be willing to wander with it patiently and trust it knows where it’s going. Allow the dream to change even as you change along the journey. Some of my writer friends did “quit” writing in favor of doing something they loved even more, like painting or acting or teaching, and their careers took off. It wasn’t the writing they had loved; it was creating. And they needed to figure out what type of creator they wanted to be.

Follow what you love, not what you want. Don’t aspire toward the dream, just live it.

by Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post Follow What You Love, Not What You Want appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

Does Music Lift Your Spirits?

Once when my daughter was in college, we were driving down the freeway to some event. She was justifiably upset about something that had happened to her. We allowed her to rant, we validated her right to be angry, we agreed that an injustice had occurred, we offered solutions, but she was locked in a loop of frustration and despair. So, I snuck her favorite CD (the Kinky Boots soundtrack) out of the storage box, slid it into the player, and selected one of her happy songs. As soon as it started to play, she got quiet. Within ten seconds, she was humming. Within 30 seconds she was full-on singing and dancing in the backseat. The power of music.

The other night at my women’s group, one of the members asked about our associations with music, and I confessed I haven’t been tuning in much lately. Since I started all this mindfulness and meditation study, I’ve stuck mostly with quiet. I’ve never been one to play background music anyway (I’m too auditory and find it distracting) unless I’m doing housework. But after our conversation that night, I remembered hearing on a Hay House interview you have to “turn on” happiness, and songs are a way to do that.

I’ve taught myself how to start the day with grounding and gratitude exercises, but that hasn’t seemed to be enough to lift my mood lately. So, this past week, I found a playlist on Spotify called “Happy Songs” and another called “Guilty Pleasures.” Now, after I ground myself, I listen to three upbeat songs as I’m making coffee and doing stretches and starting my day. I don’t choose the songs. I let them surprise me. And you know what . . . it helps!

It sure beats turning on my news app, which used to be my habit while making coffee. Nothing like trying to anticipate a wonderful cup of joe while you’re listening to how the world is burning down. It even beats listening to my self-help or inspirational podcasts right off. Because even though they’re helpful and reassuring, they still remind me I have problems that need to be fixed.

I used to listen to my podcasts while doing my exercises, too. You know, multitasking. Then my physical therapist mentioned that might not be a good idea. She thinks we need to concentrate and relax when we, say, lift weights. Not just so we do it right, but so we’re not tensing at the news or even a suspenseful story rather than focusing on something that is good for our bodies.

I talk often in this blog about the power of art and how happy it makes me to listen to live music at a venue. In that case, I’m all in. I’m there to hear the music. I’m sitting in my seat and maybe enjoying a cocktail and leaning in to the experience. Somehow music had become something to “look forward to” rather than something that is always there, always accessible to lift my mood. I’ve always said I know when something is bothering me because I don’t sing in the shower, so it’s not like I haven’t been aware in a very personal way that my spirit needs music. I had just sort of forgotten that. Music is a tonic, not just something to be appreciated now and then.

But you already knew that, didn’t you?

I’m making some new playlists to start my day. Anyone have any suggestions for songs?

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post Does Music Lift Your Spirits? appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

I’ve Been Failing at My Sabbatical

I’ve been failing at my sabbatical. That’s the word I’ve been choosing to describe this period of stepping back from the work for which I once felt such devotion. It sounded like a more romantic word than “break” and a less confusing term than “gap year” and a less dramatic designation than “mid-life crisis.” It could be a bit of a misnomer in that sabbaticals are often a time of paid leave and often associated with college professors, but it’s not strictly speaking defined by either of those conditions. Meriam-Webster defines it as “a period of time during which someone does not work at his or her regular job and is able to rest, travel, do research, etc.”

The word sabbatical also comes from the word “sabbath” and is meant to evoke a period of rest and restoration. And certainly, many of us could use that after the last year and a half we’ve all experienced. So how have I failed at my sabbatical? Well, it’s pretty hard to “rest” when you’re busy beating yourself up. Since I declared my time off, I’ve spent most of my days feeling guilty, ashamed, lost, and embarrassed. Those emotions are hardly relaxing.

I grew up the daughter of two baby boomers whose work ethics were relentless and inspiring. The example they set implied that consistent, hard work was expected and valued. I was a Gen X woman myself, the first generation of what they called “superwomen” who were supposed to run companies, take care of a household, and volunteer all while looking good and keeping our spouses satisfied. And we were supposed to do it alone. Superwomen don’t need help. I was also a child of the 80s, the first generation to insist we didn’t need to take any old job, we could follow our dreams and find success there. The boomers called us the “Me Generation” and said we were lazy and spoiled (the same things we then said about the generation that followed us). And, of course, I was also the good, little Catholic girl who was often reminded that idleness was a sin.

So along comes this time in my life when I felt called to set work aside and figure out where this transformation was leading me. I listened to my wise friends who advised me to let it all go for a while and see who I was underneath the identity of writer/speaker/teacher/activist. And I did that, on paper anyway. But in my heart, I felt guilty that I wasn’t working more, ashamed that I couldn’t name my new direction, lost without my old identity, and embarrassed to admit the privilege that allows me to take this time off.

I don’t give myself enough credit, of course. I never have. After all, I found a way to take this break without hurting the bottom line of my business. That’s amazing. And I gave myself permission to do something really hard. That’s admirable. And I’ve sat with the emotions and leaned into my learning and that’s work of a different kind, believe me.

The one thing I haven’t done is relax into this process of self-discovery and reinvention and restoration. I haven’t given myself permission to rest. Not really. I thought I was resting because I wasn’t as busy as before. But that’s not resting, that’s just crossing fewer tasks off a list. I thought I was resting because I felt bored, and boredom must mean you’re not in action, right? Which is the same as rest? I thought I was resting because I was reading more, never mind that the books I was reading were all homework to help guide me through this transformation.

What’s been missing during this sabbatical is joy. It’s hard to feel joy if you’re busy feeling guilty, ashamed, lost, and embarrassed. When you think of rest, do you imagine yourself on a blanket by the beach, or tucked under your warm covers on a cold winter night, or lying on a massage table with soft music playing? In each of those instances, you feel peace, comfort, love, and joy.

Rest doesn’t mean hitting pause on your busy life. It means finding your joy.

So, I’m recommitting to my sabbatical, only this time I’m taking a break from the negative thoughts and old associations too. This time, I’m actually going to rest. I’m going to try, anyway.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post I’ve Been Failing at My Sabbatical appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

Is Your Art Turning You On?

The other night at a local concert, singer-songwriter Maia Sharp talked about a conversation that took place when her long-term relationship was coming to an end. Her partner said, “You’re gonna make a nice girl miserable someday.” Maia must have gotten a certain look on her face, because her girlfriend then added, “Oh my God. You’re going to write a song about this, aren’t you?” And of course, Maia did. In fact, that line is the title of the song, I believe (which is okay with her ex, by the way).

When artists are on, we’re always on. Even in the hardest, saddest, scariest, or most joyous moments, we’re on. Often, I’ll point out something I see or hear, or I’ll stop in the middle of a discussion I’m having with my husband, and that look must cross my face because he says, “You’re going to write a blog post about this, aren’t you?”  It’s how I’ve managed to pen a new post almost every week for the past seven and a half years.

Pre-pandemic, I was loaded with ideas for all kinds of projects. They came at me from every direction. I had so much energy and passion and enthusiasm. Mid-pandemic, I’m low on energy, lacking in enthusiasm, and missing my passion. But I know it’s still in me because every week something switches on and I know exactly what I want to write about.

I heard the other day that even if you’re down, it doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten how to be happy. It doesn’t mean happiness isn’t still in you. And it doesn’t mean happiness no longer exists. After all, the speaker said, you can’t miss something that isn’t real, that isn’t in you. You have to have known it to miss it.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had several conversations with artist friends and I’ve noticed many of them expressing in various ways that they’re not as “on” as they used to be. The pandemic has made everyone a lot more insulated and, due to necessity or concern, many of us artists have not been out there in the world the way we once were. We’ve learned to stretch and to notice more things to write about or to paint or sculpt in our now smaller environments, which has taught us to see in whole new ways, and that’s good. Many artists, though, are now reluctant to leave the comfort and familiarity of our tighter circles.

When we do venture out, after so much time alone at home, we experience a bit of sensory overload. A writer friend and I just returned from a trip to New York City. We both noticed that noises seemed amplified, bad smells were distracting, and we were more likely to fixate on the ugly litter than the pretty bush it had blown up against. Our writerly skills of observation were still “on” but needed an adjustment. Kind of like how when you get a hearing aid, common noises like the click of a light switch or the whir of a bathroom fan suddenly seem abnormally loud. You have to retrain your brain to dim those noises and to hone in on the voices of people speaking to you instead.

The past 18 months have worn many of us down, so it was reassuring to listen to that podcast and talk to my friends and realize while my passion for my art has waned a bit, it is not gone. This blog is proof of that. I just need to find my way back to that passion, and I will, when I retrain my brain to stop amplifying the fear, worry, frustration, sadness, and anger and hone in on thoughts of gratitude, joy, and purpose.

So much has changed in the past 18 months. I certainly have, and so has this blog. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is how much I still enjoy writing it and still enjoy imagining you reading it. I used to think we needed passion to turn us on. Now I believe we are always on, and when we choose to focus on and enjoy that, the passion follows.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post Is Your Art Turning You On? appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

Like Halloween? Thank a Writer – Revisited

This post originally ran on Oct. 31, 2015, but it’s worth a revisit:

Today is Halloween, which means you are no doubt getting ready for a party or filling your bowl with candy for the trick-or-treaters or, if you are the parent of a teenager, like me, cleaning your house before his/her friends arrive to mess it up again.

Though I don’t know your plans, there is one thing I am sure of. Tonight, you will see numerous costumes inspired by the works of writers and artists. As you know, in this blog I love to celebrate the various ways that artists and creatives make our lives better, and truly, what would Halloween be without their influence?

Without writers and artists, many of our most popular and long-lasting costumes would not exist.

Thanks to comic book writers, we have Spiderman and Supergirl, Batman and Captain America.

Television creators gave us Mr. Spock and Doctor Who, Big Bird and The Cone Heads.

Children’s book authors provided Waldo and The Cat in the Hat, Hermione Granger and Peter Pan.

Thanks to movie creators, we have Princess Leia and Indiana Jones, Minnie Mouse and Beetlejuice.

But it’s the literary writers who have delivered our most enduring costumes, Frankenstein and Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and The Phantom of the Opera, and so many more.

Sometimes artists themselves are even celebrated in costume. Think Vincent Van Gogh and William Shakespeare, Lady Gaga and the band members from Kiss.

And costumes alone are not the only way artists have added to our enjoyment. What about all those horror movies we watch over and over, the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin cartoon we still adore, the scary stories like “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” that we read to our children, the songs like “The Monster Mash” or “Thriller” that we play over and over, not to mention dancing to “The Time Warp.”

Just try to imagine a Halloween without any of these beloved traditions. Now apply that thinking to your other favorite holidays and you’ll quickly see, we artists just make life more fun!

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post Like Halloween? Thank a Writer – Revisited appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

Channeling Your Peace, Hope, and Creativity

Since rewatching the broadcast of Come From Away—the Broadway musical now streaming on Apple TV— I’ve had the song “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” stuck in my head. We sang it often at mass when I was growing up, and I found it to be not only a beautiful melody, but wonderfully aspirational in its lyrics. That’s the person I most wanted to be: someone who sowed light and love and hope in the world. Someone who understood that in giving we receive. Someone who was an instrument of peace. I took those goals very much to heart and I’ve tried to weave them into my life and work.

But something struck me this time hearing that song. There’s a section in which the lyrics direct us to “seek less to be consoled than to console, less to be understood than to understand, and less to be loved than to love.” As a child, I understood that to mean in order to be a truly good and worthy person, I must always, always put others before myself, and that it was “ungodly” to ever seek to be understood or consoled, and even a bit selfish to long for love. After all, the song uses the word “never.” One should never seek to be consoled rather than consoling someone else, even in the worst of times. At least that’s how I took it.

I’m not sure why the writers chose to include that song in Come From Away, which is the story of the passengers on 38 planes who were rerouted to Newfoundland during the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks and the townspeople who took them in. On the one hand, the townspeople seem to embody the messages in the song, doing everything they can to bring comfort to the passengers. But the passengers are the receivers of all that care. They are asking to be understood, consoled, and loved, and they are receiving just that.

Watching the performance, I realized that in taking those words so much to heart as a kid, I failed to recognize you can’t offer consolation unless there is someone who needs it. And maybe sometimes that person will be you.

The early days of the pandemic seemed to make it easier in some ways to be there for each other. We’d get on Zoom calls and share our ups and downs. And as each person talked, the rest of us offered comfort and support. Then it was our turn to talk about our struggles, and their turn to love us in return.

But social and political unrest took us in the other direction. There, our own beliefs and hurts seemed to overshadow everything else. We often didn’t even try to understand, much less console or love. And all that negativity has worn us down.

The song asks us to bring hope to the world, and that’s really important, now especially. But that’s pretty hard to do if we don’t feel it first. Maybe the words “make me a channel of your peace” mean simply to create an opening in our hearts for peace and hope to fill us first, so we can use that energy to serve others, to create art, to uncover new solutions and bright ideas, and to advocate positively for the changes we want to see in the world.

If it’s your turn to seek consolation, pardon, understanding, or love, please ask for it. Do whatever you need to do to fill back up on hope. History is strewn with times when our challenges seemed insurmountable, yet with hope, we have always found a way. Take care of yourself so you can care for others. Be that kind of channel.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post Channeling Your Peace, Hope, and Creativity appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.

When Regrets Are a Good Thing

The other day I was listening to a podcast (I neglected to note which one) and one of the guests said something I’ve always believed but never had the guts to declare out loud. He said whenever he meets someone who insists they have no regrets, he assumes they’re either lying, or kidding themselves, or have led a very uninteresting, unexamined life.

Living as we do in the Land of Positivity, the correct answer to the question, “Do you have any regrets?” is supposed to be, “I don’t believe in regrets. Life is good. I’m blessed.”  But why can’t life be good and also contain regrets? The guest on the podcast suggested regrets could be productive if they cause you to make changes in your current life.

When I was 19, I was fortunate to spend two months doing the shoestring tour around Europe. I traveled with two girls who were of the same mind, and that mind was often not in sync with mine. When we reached Germany, I said the thing I most wanted to see was the Neuschwanstein Castle. The girls, though, decided it was too out of the way and they were not interested. Rather than advocating for myself, I chose to not rock the boat. We did not visit the palace. I never forgave myself for that. A couple of years later, I bought a pen and ink drawing of the castle and hung it on my wall to remind me to never, ever miss out on something I longed for just to appease other people. The drawing still serves as a reminder for me.

During the pandemic, many of us were forced to face regrets whether we wanted to or not. Maybe we regretted not visiting parents when we had the chance before the lockdown kept us all apart for months. Maybe we regretted not putting more money in savings to get us past bouts of unemployment. Maybe we regretted choosing or not choosing an online schooling option for our kids. The pandemic – this collective heartache –made it okay to finally admit our regrets, and in doing so, people could offer support, encouragement, and suggestions. We could truly be there for each other because our regrets were on the table, not buried deep.

During the pandemic, I looked one of my oldest regrets in the face. I’ve long regretted not becoming fluent in Spanish when I was young and had more time and a much nimbler mind. When some space opened up to me in the past year, thanks to the pandemic, I signed up for a Spanish class. Learning and relearning the language is harder now than it would have been if I’d stayed the course in my studies following high school. It’s slow going, for sure, but I am making progress and that feels good.

If admitting a regret helps you move forward on a goal, or adjust detrimental behavior, or find the guts to do something you’ve longed to do all your life, that’s a good thing, right? And if it really is too late to address that regret, ask yourself what you’ve learned from missing that opportunity or causing that harm and how to make sure it never happens again.

Give yourself permission today to admit to a regret (or several). It’s possible to have a “good life,” a “blessed life,” and still have regrets. That is, after all, a human life.

By Teresa R. Funke

If you like this post, please share and credit Teresa and Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life blog

The post When Regrets Are a Good Thing appeared first on Bursts of Brilliance.