Photo by Matthieu Comoy on Unsplash
"The creative genius begins in the idle moments, dreaming up the impossible, and later making it come true" - Virginia C. Andrews
On this week’s rerun of Insightful Conversation, you have a chance to listen to my conversation with the fabulous Michael Neill. Michael is an internationally acclaimed author, radio host, blogger, facilitator, trainer, and mentor.
Before coming across the Principles, Michael was already a hugely successful life coach, well known and respected as a master NLP facilitator and trainer. I asked Michael how coming across the 3 Principles impacted his life and career as a coach.
Michael candidly shared that the impact on his personal life was transformational. When he heard Syd Banks say, “every human being is sitting in the middle of mental health; they just don’t know it,” it hit him like a ton of bricks. He knew at a profound level that Syd was speaking the truth. That one insight helped Michael transition from being a high-functioning depressive, who was never more than two weeks away from a complete meltdown, to a highly functioning human being.
The impact the Principles had on his coaching career, however, was another matter entirely. Michael jokes that coming across the understanding messed up his professional life big time! “How so?” I asked. Michael explained that the Principles challenged the fundamental basis of the work he had spent his life creating. Prior to coming across the 3P understanding, he viewed his clients as broken and in need of fixing. He would reassure his clients that despite their brokenness, there was some hope that they could achieve a certain level of success by working with him.
The Principles, on the other hand, explain that “at our essence, there is nothing broken and nothing lacking.” Michael saw the truth of this statement, which left him no other option than to abandon the old way in which he had worked with his clients, and in essence, reinvent himself. The rest is history. Although Michael wasn’t one of the original students of Sydney Banks, his impact in sharing the understanding has been profound. Through his numerous books and coach training programs, Michael has been pivotal in aiding the spread of the 3 Principles understanding across the globe. I have had the pleasure of working with Michael myself, and I give him credit for helping me reconnect to my creativity.
Like many people, before coming across the Principles, I had a love/hate relationship with creativity. I had so many misunderstandings around this subject. I was a painter and a writer who innocently fell into the trap of believing the negative internal chatter that told me I wasn’t good enough or creative enough. I constantly compared and measured myself against other artists, who I felt were more talented than me. I let my self-consciousness get in the way, inhibiting any artistic endeavors before they’d had a chance to be expressed.
What I learned by looking in the direction of the Principles was that I had mistakenly believed that I was the source of my creativity. I now know that this is not true. The truth is I am merely a vessel through which creative genius flows through me. Thus, fears such as writer’s block or running out of fresh ideas don’t bother me as much anymore. Now that I know I am connected to an infinite supply of creativity, I can relax and let creative genius work through me.
I often joke that the only drawback is that creative genius and I am not on the same schedule. My creative genius is most active during the night when my mind is at its most relaxed and still. I quite often wake up at 3:00 am flooded with inspiration. I call them my downloads. It is as though creative genius is dictating to me. I am so inspired I can’t sleep, so I get up, open my computer, and let creative genius work its magic.
With love and appreciation, Del 💕