“Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart. The rest of it will take care of itself.”

Elizabeth Gilbert

I have paid attention to Elizabeth Gilbert for many years. I have read her books, followed her on Facebook, and followed her media appearances and her TED talk.  I even traveled to Bali for a yoga retreat and saw a Balinese healer. She speaks to the parts of my soul that seek to understand myself and love all that I am. She has helped me view my complexity as a gift and a blessing.

I have been thinking about Big Magic recently. Mostly because finding Big Magic amidst Now takes creativity, imagination, grace, courage, flexibility, strength and magic. If we know Big Magic right now, we know Big Magic.

We All Have Big Magic

Gilbert passionately asserts that we all have Big Magic inside our souls. Big Magic is hidden treasure that each of us can share with the world. Our treasure can be unique ideas, creative skill, or even our individual calling or personal mission. Big Magic is within us. Big Magic is what we must do. You can discover your Big Magic by listening to the still small voice that whispers in your ear. You can discover your Big Magic by paying attention to what brings you joy. You can discover your Big Magic by heading toward meaning in your life. The world needs no less than Big Magic from each of us. Big Magic is the way we are love in the world.

Fear Is Boring

Gilbert asserts that fear is a part of creative living, of finding your Big Magic. It must be acknowledged, friended, and embraced. She even suggests writing a letter to fear, a peace offering of sorts. Let fear ride shot gun in life’s car. Once fear is welcomed, the work of manifesting Big Magic must commence. Full on. Heart open. Eyes focused. Fists unclenched. Fear can become a partner in the pursuit of Big Magic. The story becomes about forward motion, steel determination, open mind, and positive energy.

The Shit Sandwich

Drawing from blogger Mark Mason, Gilbert writes about the shit sandwich of the creative process. By that she explains, “If you want to be an artist of any sort, it seemed to me, then handling your frustration is a fundamental aspect of the work – perhaps the most single fundamental aspect of the work. Frustration is not an interruption of your process; frustration is the process.” The shit sandwich is what happens between moments of shear joy and absolute desperation. Acceptance and perseverance and grace live within and between and around the shit sandwich. Ultimately, creativity itself is the shit sandwich. Right now, life itself feels like a huge shit sandwich – frustration, anxiety, sadness, anger, fear, grief. Maybe that is why the creative energy I have been channeling through writing has flowed from my mind to my fingers and released the pressure valve of my heart.

Eating the Couch

Gilbert reflects, “Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.) … I firmly believe we all need to find something to do in our lives that keeps us from eating the couch.” Do something in your life that creates. Do something in your life that inspires. Do something in your life that shares your Big Magic with the world. If doing something right now is full on resting and finding your breath, that is Big Magic, too. Your mind’s job becomes caring for, tending, and nurturing the Big Magic within you – not eating a couch, digging a hole, or biting the mailman. Sharing your Big Magic can happen from a position of strength, in the exact perfect way, at the exact perfect time.

Creativity Is Sacred and Not Sacred

Gilbert ends Big Magic with a brief statement about the paradox of creativity. Creativity both turns the wheels of civilization and allows the wheels of civilization’s train to stop and see things along the track. Creativity is both reflective and expressive. Creativity is loud and quiet. Gilbert asserts, “Only when we are at our most playful can divinity get serious with us.” We always need divinity, but we especially need divinity right now. Big Magic of the most playful kind.