How Creativity is Shaping my Life!

Whenever I get out a few LEGO bricks to experiment with, I never know what the end result will be.  That’s actually the beauty of it, and the creativity I’m experiencing in my life at the moment because of my favorite childhood toy is something I never anticipated, though I’ve always dreamed big.

Prior to a couple of months ago, the only way anyone knew I was a trained LEGO facilitator was if they knew me fairly well. I wasn’t keeping it a secret actually, it just wasn’t my go-to topic of conversation because I didn’t want people to think I was crazy because I want to help adults become more productive through play. But now, so many people ask me about the “rumor” that I offer a course with LEGO bricks that now I share my truth easily.

I had no idea that sharing that truth would result in my LEGO brick collection growing by several thousand pieces over the past month, including yesterday when I relieved church friend Susan Sedgewick’s son Wally of his entire childhood collection. 

As I sort through or build from my now huge collection of LEGO pieces, I review all the current happenings in my life- my current work projects, my goals, my fears and successes and I work on building more of the ME that I’m supposed to be. In other words I’m learning that I’m actually “facilitating myself”! 

In my professional life in the security industry there’s little opportunity for creativity. There are laws, rules, and regulations to follow and procedures that must be performed step by step. That’s not always fun. So building play time for myself into my evenings and weekends has been a true saving grace for me and I’ve made many new discoveries!! 

I realize that I’m not going to find a cure for Alzheimer’s while building sculptures that appear to defy gravity, but I may stave off the disease in my own life. Building LEGO projects with my Mom has brought me more joy than I can express given that she remembers the connection with LEGOs in our life even though she doesn’t remember me. I’ve even made a batch of LEGO toys that my Mom loves that I hope will help other Alzheimer’s patients. 

  
My newfound freedom to be more creative in most every phase of my life has resulted in me being much more calm and cool in stressful situations and allows me to jump out of my comfort zone with ease.

If someone had told me even last year for example, that I’d be teaching a LEGO art class to five to twelve year olds I’d have said they were crazy, yet I began such a class this past weekend. It was organized chaos, but ninety minutes of sheer joy!! I had envisioned a specific group project to be the end result of the class, but the hodgepodge of builds that resulted from the more than fifty kids and parents who participated was simply amazing and I was thrilled!! 

 
Life teaches us so many things, and right now I’m so grateful that my creativity has given me the opportunity to take my love of LEGO to places I’d never imagined. The funny thing about LEGO bricks is that if you don’t like what you’ve built, you can take them apart and build something else! So right now, I’m going to continue to build my LEGO vision as high as I can, and even if it falls over, I’m ready to pick up the pieces and make them into something even better! The very fragile piece of art (below) that I created this weekend is the tallest I’ve made so far and it’s still standing! So what role does creativity play in your life? What are you ready to build in your life?

 

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