Open Mind, Open Heart
Being a Channel for Creative Energy
Unfinished Poem
I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.
― John O’Donohue
I remember the warmth of the lights as they hit my skin. They illuminated the tiny world held within the three walls of our stage, their brilliance creating a fourth wall that blinded me to anything beyond it. But I could feel the energy of the audience as it flowed towards me, through me, and into the ground. As my body moved freely and the scripted words poured out of my mouth, the energy moved in the other direction, from deep within me and back out into the space of that tiny theater, reaching towards whomever was willing to receive it.
Five years old, and I was simply a channel- free from fears, Ego, self-imposed limitations. That was the first of many nights of performances for me over the years, but as life happened my mind began creating and believing its own stories around why I couldn’t, why I shouldn’t, and why I would never be worthy or good enough.
My thoughts became a runaway train. Years of increasingly anxious, repetitive, obsessive thinking laid tracks up the side of a steep, unconquerable mountain, bolstered by habits of sabotage and erratic decisions. It wasn’t until I derailed that I was able to see the truth: I was the source of my own misery by closing my heart and mind out of fear- fear of failure, of criticism, of rejection, of never being chosen or accepted or wanted.
We often talk about self-improvement, but I have come to understand it more as self-uncovering and self-discovering. Childhood was when I begin to develop armor around myself- maladjusted survival tools to cope with trauma at home, the pressures of a demanding fine arts school, and bullying in both places. Life was overwhelming by age seven, and I desperately needed both a reset button and a way to protect my heart and mind. For some time, acting, reading, nature, and my pets had offered me sacred places where I could be a vulnerable and open channel for connection and creative energy. But the fear and self-loathing slowly started running the show.
I kept the sharp, impenetrable armor on as I moved through adolescence and early adulthood. It was painful yet comfortable, as it was something known; the future was unknown and thus unfriendly. A closed heart and a closed mind felt like the only ways to protect myself in a world full of hurt, trauma, and rejection. I was a dry pile of kindling just waiting for a match by the time I had my first drink.
Over the years of addiction, my channel became broken, clogged, sealed- becoming ever more so as I grasped for some quick fix in the third-dimensional world. I once had a therapist who told me that creative people have a special inherent energy that is longing to get out, an energy that will become a corrosive poison if kept inside. I understand what he meant, even today. Perhaps especially today.
It has been many years since I hit my rock bottom (emotional, mental, physical) and was awakened to the truth- that everything I have ever needed has been inside of me, that I can be a channel for connection and creative energy so long as I keep an open mind and an open heart. I don’t need to improve, I need to uncover and discover.
In my experience, this has meant the necessity of establishing new routines, rituals, and practices. We are creatures of habit, and we get to build new tracks for our trains of thinking. For me, meditation is my foundation. It has brought me the great gifts of pause, non-attachment, surrender, and willingness to be in this moment as it is. I learned how return to the now. It is when I sit in stillness that I open that channel within me to something that flows in both directions. I remember in that space to simply be a vessel, to put whatever idea or story or audition I do out there in the universe and let it go.
The other practice that is equally necessary is to direct that energy that flows through me by the discipline of action- writing, submitting, time in nature, being of service in some way, acting, dancing, reading. Often this means acting better than I feel, but it works. Truly.
Being an open channel keeps me in the present. It allows me to give and receive. It keeps me in the now, which is free from fear. The river of my life flows exactly as it should. And it is then that I become curious about the unfolding.
