I don’t know about you, but I love both giving and receiving gifts! But I have to admit, there is something even more rewarding than both of these, and that is discovering my own personal gifts.
One gift that I discovered early on as a child, was my creativity. I was turning ‘trash into treasure’ decades before it was popular; not because I was a trendsetter, but simply because those were the 'supplies' that I had access to.
I remember exactly how it started it, I was four years old and I was sitting on the floor in front of our black and white counsel T.V. watching a show on PBS, while waiting for my older sister to get home from Kindergarten. During the show, they had a craft segment, and on that day the woman announced, ‘today we will be making palm trees.’
Because I lived in Denver, (and I was only 4 years old 😉) I had no idea what a palm tree was, but I watched with excitement as the woman took a newspaper, rolled it up and in fact, turned it into a palm tree! 🌴 😲
I immediately got my hands on every single newspaper I could find and proceeded to create what I believe is - to this day, The Worlds Largest Newspaper Palm Tree Forest! (although Guinness was never officially contacted 🤭)
From that moment on I was hooked! I would look for anything that I could to create ‘art’ with. Some of my favorites were bottle caps and the six-pack rings from 'pop'. Fortunately, my dad drank a lot of pop, and always had cans of paint around. So I would use paint and any interesting trash I found to make some pretty awesome things!
These pictures are me at age 4
On the left, I am mixing paint in a paper cup. On the right, I am heading to church with paint on my shoes! Where do I look the happiest??? 😉
As I continued to grow and experience the world around me, I discovered more and more ways of expressing my creativity. Unfortunately, believe it or not, there was a period in my life when that was no longer a pleasant experience.
I would be passionate about expressing my creativity in one way, and then I would be exposed to something new and become passionate about that! While this was a LOT of FUN for me, there were people near me who observed this and for whatever reason, they saw it as a 'bad thing' and said, "You will never be any good if you can't stick with one thing."
For a while, far too long actually, I allowed their opinion - their judgment - to affect me. But not anymore, I AM a Creator, and I MUST Create! I realized that when it comes to expressing my creativity and my passions there are no rules! And I now allow myself the freedom to express my creativity anyway that I like!
One of those ways is painting. This is a mural that I painted for My Sweetie in his office several years ago.
Yes, he is a Warriors fan 🏀 and he has been for many, many years. I actually believe that when I painted this mural it put forces into motion that actually caused the Warriors to finally become a great team! 🏆🏆🏆 LOL well that might not be true but it's my story and I'm sticking to it! LOL
So, my passions are many, and I express my creativity in a multitude of ways. Whether it is through the creation of a piece of art, jewelry, clothing, cooking, writing, remodeling a house or doing landscaping, if I feel the desire to do it, I will! I used to see these as totally different things but when I realized they were simply different ways of me expressing My Gift of Creativity I embraced it fully and the rewards have been endless!
So my question to you again is, Have You Unwrapped All of Your Gifts? Or were you like me and had someone in your life make a negative comment that caused you to suppress your gifts?
If you have gifts left to unwrap or explore, I do hope that this has inspired you to take them out dust them off and allow them to bring you and your life the joy that they had always intended to.
Finding ways to embrace my gifts and share them with those around me on a daily basis is just one of the reasons why I now believe that - Life is so easy!
Thank you for taking the time to read my post! If you enjoyed this ‘Enlightenment Shot’ I invite you to follow me on this thought-provoking journey as I share the things that have led me to believe that Life is So Easy!
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