destroyer of worlds

For most of my life, I identified as a rebel and considered myself a lover of freedom. A freedom almost always defined by what I was running from, rejecting, or pushing against. I prided myself on being a creator of worlds, but in actuality, all I did was destroy them. What this gave me was not freedom at all – only a world of hardship and sadness.

When my daughter was little, we used to watch the animated Lilo & Stitch. In the movie, Lilo, the little girl protagonist with dreams beyond her small Hawaiian town, acquires a new “pet”, Stitch, a canine-like alien whose sole purpose is to be an unstoppable force of chaos and destruction across the galaxy. One day, standing in her room before a very elaborate miniature San Francisco she’d built with found objects, she presents it to her new companion, as if to say, “behold my ingenuity and heart.” Then watches with horror as Stitch gleefully stomps around, smashing the tiny city to smithereens.

As a rebel, I was a Stitch – destroyer of creativity and dreams.

This pattern of behavior eventually led me to the destruction of my own self. A smoldering pile of rubble: no money, no friends, no career, no purpose, no clear sense of who I was or what I believed. There was nothing I could do but bear the weight of my own failure, while I dug myself out brick by painful brick.

During this dark, multi-year era, I had to reach down to the murky bottoms of my soul to pull myself up and out. It was a series of painfully slow reckonings that I wished were faster. Many times, I unsuccessfully resorted to old strategies while struggling to escape the heaviness that bore down on me, and often, I didn’t know if I would make it out.

I was 44 years old. I wasn’t ready to die; I had too much life left in me, but I also could not live another 44 years as I had already lived. I made a decision - I was going to make it out, and things would be different.

When I did finally clamber out from under the rubble, I stood upright in the aftermath of my apocalypse. By this time, the smoldering had ceased, and green life was beginning to creep through the ruins. There was stillness, the sun was rising on the horizon, and a simple understanding was dawning: there is only one thing to do now. Create anew.

Life had grounded me, taken away my toys of mass destruction, and given me exactly what I needed and wanted the most – creativity. It was there all the time, obscured by my rebellion. With nothing left to run from, no self to find, and no lasting motivation to do so anyway... I’ve begun making marks on my fresh canvas. Not from a place of certainty; no, I do not have that. And, certainly not with clear vision; I've only vague, disconnected insights. But with each wobbly step I take forward, I find that more clarity is revealed.

For a while, I thought I’d lost my love of freedom because I’d only ever known it in its hyper-independent, destructive form. What I’ve come to realize, though, is that freedom is indeed still a guiding force of my life. It’s just been redefined by what I’m moving towards, not away from, what I’m choosing as opposed to what I'm rejecting, and what I’m fighting for instead of against. As a rebel, I was perpetually shaking free from the constraints I was shackled by. Now, I understand that sustainable freedom is not a state of being without constraints, but a state of being governed by the constraints of my choosing.

Freedom has evolved from a vague ideal - a platitude to hang my coaching hat on - into a highly structured, disciplined, and specific methodology for creative & intellectual liberation. In my post-apocalyptic era, I am building the interior architecture that makes my unique, messy, non-linear, and authentic creative life possible. That architecture is my new definition of freedom.

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