For the New Year, Live Your Own Life

This is one in a series for a column I am writing for our local newspaper, the Hendersonville Times-News.

“Every human being is unique and special unlike any who has ever existed before or will ever exist again. But when we become captives of culturally defined roles and behaviors – stereotypes – we interfere with becoming all that we can be. We must learn to draw on our inner resources, to define ourselves in terms of our own internal valuing system, rather than trying to fit into some stereotyped role.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Death: The Final Stage of Growth

Kubler-Ross was a pioneer in death and dying, yet here she is advocating living our lives: an authentic life, one in tune with “our own internal valuing system”.

That’s a large part of our individuality, our discovering how to create and live a hand-crafted life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about core values recently. The first time I was aware of focusing on defining my core values was in my mid-20s when a business acquaintance told me I’d need to clarify my personal values before I could determine my professional goals. At the time I thought he was nuts. How could I know what I wanted until I knew what I could afford? Today, I am amazed at that naiveté. How consumer driven I was! Our culture encourages that mentality: earn and spend, borrow and spend, desire and spend. While chasing the money trail, we really forget to walk our own path.

Since then, I’ve passed that advice along to others. And I’ve noticed that when I am happy with my life, I seem to choose to buy less. It is as though when I’m unhappy or frustrated with life, I buy more things, as if I am trying to fill some kind of hole inside. When I’m content with my life, I am filling my inner well on my own through my choices and actions.

One of my favorite books (and movies) is Out of Africa. Karen Blixen (author Isak Dinesen) was a courageous woman who, when asked on which side of World War I Denmark would stand, she responded, “On our own, I think. We have a history of that.” Blixen was Danish through and through and stood on her own for her lifetime. While she dearly longed for a happy marriage, someone she could “call my own”, she never attained that. This was in direct contrast to the independence that her lover, Englishman Denys Finch-Hatton, desired just as fervently. Their insecurities clashed against each other, and were cause for many conflicts. Finch-Hatton once said to Blixen, “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize I’ve lived someone else’s.”

Isn’t that true of all of us? When we get to the end of our lives, no one regrets that they didn’t work more weekends. They regret not following their heart, spending more time with loved ones, listening to their Muse, or slowing down to smell the flowers along the way.

It is a new year, a new decade. How about celebrating it by taking the time to think about what part of yourself you would like to express, explore, or create. That’s what a hand-crafted life is: something we make of ourselves, for ourselves.

What might your hand-crafted life look like?

I hope you have a day filled with a vision of living your own life.

Peace,

Kate

All rights reserved, 2010 Hendersonville Times-News

Living a Hand Crafted Life

This is the first of a monthly series of a column entitled "Living a Hand Crafted Life" published in our local newspaper, the Hendersonville Times-News.

“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Harold Thurman Whitman

This is a powerful passage, one you may have read before. I’ve seen it often and I believe it’s because the desire to do what we truly love resonates with each of us.

This is a new column to explore and encourage what it might mean to create a life of one’s dreams. I think a lot about how important it is for each of us to express who we are. The act of self-expression occurs in myriad ways: in our work, our families, our art, our volunteer efforts, our community. Our strongest form of expression is related to our passions.

Take a moment to consider the question, “What are you passionate about?”

Studies have shown that the amount of control we have over our lives directly corresponds with our mental health: the more control, the better our mental health; the less control, the poorer our mental health.

These times are difficult and many find their lives out of control. Their passion then focuses on survival. This is completely appropriate. So how can we enrich our lives even though we are not in control of our surroundings?

Unemployment is high. I know: I was laid off from my full-time job less than a year ago. And while my logical side repeated, “Get a job! Make a paycheck!”, there was a constant small voice saying, “It will be ok. Do what you love.” And while I loved the work I had been doing, it was time for a change. I wanted to create a “crazy quilt” livelihood of all the things I love most. And unemployment was a blessing in disguise that gave me the opportunity to explore my passions.

The thought kept drifting through my head, “When a door closes, a window opens.”

I found that with time for myself, I reconnected with one of my greatest passions: creating art. We are all creative. Our main hindrance is that we don’t give ourselves the time and space to explore our creativity, our unique form of self-expression. With my new schedule, I was able to dive into the art that had been pushed to the back burner, and it was a wondrous and prolific time.

In the spring, I was invited to submit entries in a Recycled Art exhibit at Hand in Hand Gallery. Within days of receiving the invitation, I found a box of old brass window escutcheons (you know, where you put your fingers to open old, wooden, weighted windows) my dad had purchased in the 1960s from an old hardware store going out of business. (Being a child of a Depression-era parent, I could not get rid of these.) Intuitively, the recycled art idea came together, and I joyfully created a mixed media necklace using the escutcheon as a pendant holding words I’d cut from a vintage book “When a door closes a window opens” and adding brass chain, charms of pictures of closed doors and open windows encased in mica, glass lampwork beads, and a small key.

Oh, I don’t deny it: times are tough. But today’s challenges demand that we live our lives differently – more creatively – than we have in the past. A hand crafted life is when one follows one’s inner voice – that inner compass – in order to create a more self-satisfying and fulfilling life.

What hopes and dreams do you hold dear? What are you passionate about?