how ella got her muse back
I had a very active little muse when I was young. Together, my muse and I built houses in Gramma’s backyard out of sticks, fashioned balance beams out of old fence posts and sat in the tops of trees while talking back and forth to one another. I sang, I wrote, I dreamt big dreams and I had big plans. My muse had a million things in line for me to accomplish, and at times I was hugely intimidated by the endless sea of suggestions.
As is common, the older I got, the quieter my muse became. In college, I had to flat out ask my muse to put a sock in it so I could focus solely on graduating. Obligingly, my muse sat patiently in the corner of my heart.
After graduation, I had nearly forgotten about my muse. I took it upon myself to play the muse for many others in my life, desperately trying to inspire friends, family and boyfriends to follow their heart. I helped them apply for colleges and jobs, planned their fantasy vacations and cross-country moves, and tried to place their dreams in their hands even though their fists were shoved obstinately into their pockets. It was the blind leading the blind; no one was listening to their own actual authentic muse.
i think this is where my muse lives.
I remember the first time I heard my muse speak again. It began speaking at the same time I was cultivating a new relationship with someone I very much cared for. The kind of person who tells you you’re beautiful, you’re talented, you’re amazing and you genuinely believe every word of it. This new friendship was maintained over hundreds of miles of distance and in the beginning, through handwritten, heart-felt old-school snail-mail letters. As this was the only means of our communication (and because I was living alone at the time), I began to have long talks in my head with the person I was writing on paper to. The response back came in the voice of that friend, offering empowering words of support and encouragement straight to my soul, echoing the language of real-life letters that were written back to me.
He inspired me, he let me grow, he made suggestions and he had big dreams with me. I began to write again. Sing again. I began teaching yoga. Hoping to make him proud, I had obligingly took his inspiration to heart and became overwhelmingly proud of the woman we had created, him and I. But as he became less accessible in real-life, I continued to have these conversations with him in my heart. It was like having an imaginary friend – the comfort of memories of a real person, fashioned from real-life conversations, and still telling me all the things I needed to hear.
When it came down to it, I fell in love with my heart, which I mistook for someone else. The person I had always thought I was having these conversations with through my heart was living a life separate of mine. I got everything on the inside confused with the real-life person on the outside – and when that real-life person was not in love with me, I felt misled.
And then, because I had listened to that guidance from in my heart that I thought had come directly from him, I felt betrayed.
On top of all that, I had been having internal conversations that I was taking seriously for over two years – I felt like a nutjob. A complete lunatic. Basketcase. Crazy.
Let me be clear about these voices; I’m not talking about the kind of voices that say, “Light the bedskirt on fire, Lizzy.” Or, “Redrum. Redrum…”
I’m talking about the kind of voices that say;
“You know, you’re the most incredibly beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
“You should make a change in your life if it’s what your heart really wants.”
“Have I ever told you how much you mean to me? How much you inspire me?”
Those ones. The good ones.
I started telling those voices to go eff themselves. Any of those thoughts that came through my head were the enemy. They were being said with the voice of someone I didn’t trust, I didn’t respect and I was extremely, incredibly hurt by. And so I shut them out.
My self-love diminished. My love of others diminished. I didn’t trust any thoughts, whether shared by someone else or thought of myself. My creativity diminished. My self-worth diminished. I crawled into a shell and wondered what was even occupying it.
If I was having so many of these freaking love-filled heart-to-hearts without HIS heart, then who was I talking to? Who was responding?
Enter: Breakthrough, Stage Right. The kind of self-realization and –actualization that hit me so hard that my face went numb out of shock and my eyes welled up with tears.
I had been talking to Love.
It was Love that had inspired me to become the woman I am even still becoming. Love reached out from the inside of my heart and embraced me when I was sad. I had found support, strength and empowerment because Love had guided me to it.
All this time, I thought love had left me because he had – but he was never really there to begin with. Love was. All along.
Love had led me to accomplish so much because Love is my muse.
My muse isn’t him. My muse isn’t anyone. My muse isn’t even necessarily me – it’s much more than that. My muse is the relationship I cultivate with anyone around me. My muse is the passion that burns me into a flame of creativity. My muse is Grace herself, Creation herself and Destruction herself.
When you cut through all the muck, all the muddle, all the bells and whistles and smoke and mirrors – what is truly speaking to you? What is truly driving you? And will you take the time to really listen to what it’s saying, not how it’s saying it? Even when you are dreaming, your muse is begging you to listen.
Acknowledge the person who inspired your strength. The person who made you first feel beautiful. The person who showed you the greatest love. The echoes of their words become the language of your muse. Carry those memories in your heart – but know that that strength, that beauty, that inspiration and that LOVE is already a part of you. They cannot take it back and do not ever try to convince yourself it’s not yours.