Dancing in the Dark

I just read Derek Hough's biography-inspirational book: TAKING THE LEAD (2014).

This is sort of an executive summary mingled with my reactions and reflections:

Derek found himself driven by physical energy and by fear...
--where can the fear attack me?
--He found his way to overwhelm the fear was by just DOING! Life is NOT what happens to us, it's what we make of it.

Passion is not difficult: passion is that sense of "flow," of being "in the zone,"
[Or, says David: as my daily devotional suggested this morning--passion moves easily on the wind of the Spirit! It is when we're fighting the Spirit that we suffer severe headwinds. That's my experience!]

Kids act--adults analyze. Oops, then they over-analyze.
--impulsiveness is okay [granted, we need SOME kind of boundaries!]

Free yourself to have ideas, lots of ideas...[work/write/do a lot of things that may end up destined for the trash can...but having 15 crazy crummy ideas or 10 poor poems might just gestate one or two good ones, but we won't have any ideas if perfectionism keeps us paralyzed and over-analyzed! We dance our way out of the darkness by going, doing, being and living, and daring to fail and daring failure to try to stop us! I used to tell the patients whom I was counseling/coaching for habit disorders--"How did you learn to ride a bike...did you get on the first time and cycle around the block? Of course not! You got on and fell off. You got back on and fell off on the other side...over and over, until one day it all clicked! That's how we change, that's how we grow, and that's how we create.]

SEE the successes, don't visualize the failures.

Don't ask "Why?" ask, "Why not???"

Be an eternal student, always pushing to learn and grow.

I am created to create (p167), Derek says. [David adds, OF COURSE. We are created in the image of our Creator-God*. We have the mind of Christ**--of course we are creative! It is hellish perfectionism, self-hate, pride, envy of others, and the pursuit of boring, repetitive, mind-numbing TV that all stymie creativity.]

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*Genesis 1: 26 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=esV
**1 Cor. 2: 16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+2:16&version=ESV