I can’t begin to tell you how much I love, love, LOVE this book! I’ve read it two and a half times (the “half” is a story of its own…) and each time I finish it, I want more.

I learned of the book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear from a dear friend who wrote me, “You have to go out and buy this book because it will mess with your head in a good way.” Then she said, “The chapters are short, and the book is laid out in a perfect format to read one chapter a day. If you read one chapter each morning, it will become a daily inspiration that can be applied to that day.”

When a dear friend gives you an assignment like that, you don’t take it lightly. I dutifully ordered the book, but I was impatient, so I also put myself on the waiting list for the library’s audiobook. Though I didn’t receive the hardback in time to take it with me on our family trip to tour colleges, the audiobook was available by the time we flew to the East Coast.

Driving to Upstate New York with my daughter Katy, I plugged “Clinton” into my phone’s map and started following the arrows as I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert narrate her own book. Big Magic was truly magical, and I became totally immersed in it as the miles zipped by. Exclaiming aloud and laughing uproariously, I caused some degree of concern in my daughter, who would look at me with that blend of what-in-the-world-are-you-doing and are-you-as-crazy-as-I-think-you-are that only a teenage girl can express.

We were somewhere along I87 when the library lending period of one week expired, right in the middle of Section IV, “Persistence” (I kid you not—I can’t make this stuff up), the recording stopped, and the library repossessed its audiobook. “Aaaaaagh!” I yelled out loud, waking my daughter from her nap. She blinked at the scenery before asking where we were.

“I don’t know. I’m just following the arrows.” Katy shrugged, but then she asked why we were turning onto a much smaller highway. “Maybe it’s some kind of shortcut,” I answered, distracted by the loss of my reading material. Continuing to question our path, Katy sat up and watched for signs that we were nearing a college town, but it became increasingly rural, and I became increasingly confused yet amused. What kind of college town was this, anyway?

When the GPS announced, “Arrived at destination,” I stopped the car right in the middle of the road. We looked around and all we could see was a red barn and two horses. “Uh, Mom, did you get us lost?” I knew that the single-lane gravel road should have tipped me off that this was, indeed, not a college town. It wasn’t even a town. We had arrived, I think, in Clinton Hollow, Connecticut. Connecticut!

So that was my “half” reading. I did get to borrow the audiobook again (and we did finally make it to the “real” Clinton). I listened to the entire audiobook, and when I returned home, I read the hardback cover to cover.

There is so much I love about this book, I can’t possibly do it justice. First of all, Gilbert addresses all the fears that we face when we want to express our creativity. In Section I, “Courage,” she gives a long list of reasons people are fearful, from fear of criticism to fear of being too old, too young, too fat, too whatever, to be worthy of making stuff. In the end, she says that she had finally understood that all her fears—and she had many—were just boring. There’s nothing original or interesting about being afraid. All fear sounds the same: it all says, “No.”

Then Gilbert says we never really “get over” our fears. They’re always going to be there. But we can learn to look at them, thank them, and then ask them to sit quietly in the back seat while we resume our rightful place at the steering wheel.    

I love how Gilbert addresses our “need” for approval in Section III, “Permission.” Many people grow up thinking they need permission to go about creating the things they want to create, but Gilbert says, “If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.” We are all descended from many generations of humans who made things. “Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers—these are our common ancestors.” So why this need to get approval to do the things we were born to do?

News flash: we DON’T need anyone’s approval or permission! But if you really feel that you want a permission slip to live a creative life, Gilbert says, “THERE, I just gave it to you. I just wrote it on the back of an old shopping list. Consider yourself fully accredited. Now go make something.”

It was that passage that inspired me to create a “Permission Slip” for each monthly theme on DoYouMind.life. Members and Subscribers have access to a free download, and Members get a copy on parchment paper in their membership boxes. You can fill it in and grant yourself the approval you desire. Go ahead—replace the old, judging voices in your head with songs—symphonies, even—of encouragement for your creative efforts.

And then, don’t wait for inspiration or passion to strike you. Begin with your curiosity, Gilbert advises. She writes, “Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living.” Many times, we think we need to have a grandiose project, or we have to become “suffering artists,” or we need to have a burning passion in order to create. But as Gilbert points out, it isn’t like that.

Everyone is born to create, and everyone is curious, even a tiny bit, about something. She asks one simple question: “Is there anything you’re interested in? Anything? Even a tiny bit? No matter how mundane or small?” Then look at it as a clue, and follow it. See where it leads you. Trust in the journey.

The idea is to overcome the inertia of motionlessness and begin to move, even a tiny bit, in the direction of curiosity. That one-degree shift can make all the difference, and can lead to amazing creative play!

I encourage you, Dear Reader, to rush out and buy a copy of Big Magic. No, buy three or four and give them away as gifts, because this world NEEDS us to show up as our splendid, remarkable, creative Selves.

Until next time,