People have often told me that I tend to see things through rose-colored glasses, and I take it as a compliment.  I know that the idiom tends to have a negative connotation, but I tend to think of my own rose-colored glasses as being one of my most helpful tools for creativity, productivity, and happiness.  Seeing the bright hues in any situation allows us to focus on what we want, rather than what we don’t want.  And having a clear vision of what we want is, I believe, the first step in actually taking action to get there.

(c) Can Stock Photo

I recently was reminded, however, that taking off the rose-colored glasses can be pretty amazing, too.  I experienced this quite literally, when looking at rainbows through my polarized sunglasses.  Typically, these sunglasses tend to make everything more vibrant, including the beautiful rainbows that are so frequent where I live.  The sunglasses make rainbows really pop into an even more spectacular sight.

But the other day, my husband commented on the vivid rainbow, and oddly enough, when I had the sunglasses on, I couldn’t see the rainbow at all.  Once I took them off, then I was able to see it in all its breathtaking splendor.  Now, I’m sure there is a scientific reason that explains this phenomenon – why the color frequency in this particular rainbow was so dramatically different from most rainbows I had seen.  But, science aside, the experience reminded me of how important it can be to take off the rainbow-colored glasses from time to time, and see exactly what really is. What really is can be even more breathtaking than what might be.

So which is better – to see life for what it can be, or see it for what it is?    I think the answer lies in making a choice to fully experience the powerful elements that each perspective has to offer. Balance, of course, is necessary, since we can’t become so focused on what is that we forget the value of seeing what can be.  And perhaps even more bravely, we can’t become so attached to our rainbow-colored glasses that we forget what can happen when we really allow ourselves to actually be with what is, and feel the gravity, and resulting power, of our lives’ truth.

I believe that making brave choices, even the very act of choosing to become comfortable with this type of duality, is easier when we utilize creativity to support our choices.  “Choice” and “Intuition” are two of the ARTbundance™ Principles that trainees in the ARTbundance™ Certification Training Program have been studying, learning how to help their clients develop intuition, so that they can innovatively use it to make many kinds choices in their life.

I’ll close with some words from a poem that I wrote for an early issue of Artella magazine:

I gathered embraces and cuts
grace and guts
but one is not more lovely than the other
I gathered it all.

A load like this never gets lighter
but if you feel it for true
let the weight ruin you
dare to feel the pinch
if you feel it
and really feel it
you’ll sing so fast, you can run
dance so loud, you can rhyme
and close your eyes so light,
you can fly.

 

Marney K. Makridakis is the founder of ArtellaLand.com, the author of Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock to Reclaim Your Life (New World Library),  and the inventor of the ARTbundance Philosophy, which uses ARTsignments™ to change lives through the power of creativity.   If you are intrigued by the idea of exploring a new vision for yourself in which you apply the ARTbundance™ philosophy and ARTsignments™ to your own professional dreams and goals, you are invited to apply for the next ARTbundance™ Certification Training (ACT).