I want to tell you about a gift I once received and the impact it had on me – which had nothing to do with the gift itself and everything to do with the way it was given.

But first – Harp Players –  let me tell you that I’m doing a webinar this Sun. Dec. 17th at 2:30PM EST, called The ARTISTRY of Giving.

It uses the 7 principles from my upcoming “Strings of Passion” program to help you express yourself as you give whatever you’re giving during this Holiday season. Registering gets you a replay link if you can’t make it to the webinar.

>> Register for “The Artistry of Giving” FREE Webinar <<

So here’s the story:

Years ago, as I sat on the bed the morning of my birthday, watching my boyfriend get ready to head out to work, he reached into his backpack, pulled out a pair of brown gloves, tossed them across the bed saying, “Oh I bought you a present” and they landed in a lump in front of me.

I burst into tears.

I’m sure his intentions were great – but the way the gift was given devastated me.  All I saw was a brown pair of gloves tossed at me as a seeming after-thought, which resonated with my own secret fear that I was just an afterthought in his life, a non-descript brown pair of gloves tossing away my own future as an artist.  Was I projecting?  Yes.  Based on my own inner landscape.

Could he have guided me to another landscape of experience?

Imagine if he’d sat me down, looked into my eyes and said, “I bought these for you because I love your hands, I love your warmth, I love the sense of rich brown earth in your heart and I want you to feel me touching your hands any time you feel cold.”

This same physical gift would have had a meaning so deep, reaffirming and filled with love, that I likely would have cried from joy.

a tiny journey is a way to practice a larger journey. Share on X

It’s possible he meant all that.  It’s possible he hoped I’d experience it – but it’s not how he expressed it, and it’s not how I received it.

Was he a total jerk?  No. He was a loving, thoughtful person who had difficulty expressing his feelings directly.  His impulse was loving, but the expression of that love didn’t get through to me.

Am I dense? Maybe.  But the result was that I didn’t experience the meaning of his original impulse and instead I took away a very different message.

This happens to all of us – that the initial creative impulse we have can lose its emotional impact through fear of expressing ourselves — and if we express it at all, the message can be so unclear that others take away a completely different message.

The result is that our impulse may completely lose the impact we intend depending on how we express it.

I think about impulses and their expression a lot.  In fact, “Impulse” is the first string in my “7 Strings of Passion” program – and it’s the spark that begins any creative journey of expression.

impulse may completely lose the impact we intend depending on how we express it. Share on X

My online program “Strings of Passion” that starts in January is all about how to support a creative impulse from that moment of impulse through to lift-off – the moment when it connects. That creative journey can sometimes take years … or it can be a tiny journey.

And a tiny journey is a way to practice a larger journey.

So … I wondered what would happen if I took the principles from the program and applied them to the art of gift-giving, and gift receiving – and everything we deal with in the holidays.  And that’s what I’ll be sharing this Sunday in my free webinar “The ARTISTRY of Giving.”

The impulse of giving is in all of us, but the ARTISTRY – the chance to practice the artistic process in this tiny way many times over this holiday season – can have a huge effect on how our impulse actually connects with others.

Join me. I’ll be guiding you through the process – using the 7 Strings of Passion – and my harp,  since music is part of MY artistry.

Use the core principles of creative expression to transform the holidays Share on X

>> Register for “The Artistry of Giving” FREE Webinar <<


 

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