Most of us on the planet are living from a very wounded inner child aspect - to varying degrees; children pretending to be grown-ups. Wounded adult children thinking and believing that because their physical body is all grown up, they are too. Most are not. And I know for myself, that I am still growing up parts of me whose growth was stunted and has remained frozen, waiting for the love that it needed in order to mature in a healthy way.

First, let's look at what being 'grown up' really means and see if we can get a sense of what it looks and feels like. It's not just about living in a bigger body. There's more to it than that. Perhaps you have even met someone that you feel is acting like a child, they haven't grown up. Many of us have met these ones. So what is required to qualify as a true grown up?

The first thing that comes to me is to be taking full responsibility for ourselves and our lives; for the choices that we make in every moment, even the day to day mundane things. We make choices constantly throughout every day through our thoughts, emotions as well as the actions we take.

Responsibility is the ability to respond and some people feel unable to do that in certain situations. I know of some who suffer from anxiety disorders and feel unable to respond to the simplest of things. Things like making a phone call - even to a friend -things that most would have no difficulty with at all. I myself have experienced times such as this and know how debilitating it can be. Yet even that, we can take responsibility for. We can choose how we are going to respond to that. One of the most, if not THE most debilitating thing we can do at any time, is to judge - to make something right or wrong, good or bad. When we judge we are guaranteeing that we continue to experience the same thing in our lives. We will continue to suffer the judgement, until we learn acceptance and eventually to love - everything and everyone. That includes ourselves. We will talk more about how judgement locks us into suffering later. For now, let's talk more about our ability to respond versus react.

From observation of people I've seen and spoken with, there are many people who act and react automatically. They are acting from a pre-programmed response. Something they have practiced for a long time and it has become habitual. An obvious example of that is when someone greets you a 'how are you?' That in itself can be a automatic way that we say hello to another person. Then we will often reply with something like' I'm fine' or 'Good'. The thing is, we might have been having a terrible day up to that point and we are not feeling 'good' or 'fine' at all. That's not really being responsive, or responsible. If in that moment we are making a conscious choice to not disclose our true feelings for some reason -.then we would be responding. If we reply unconsciously, we will be speaking from that programmed response.

We tend to be unconscious most of the time, and that is neither wrong nor right, it is simply not as healthy as being conscious and aware and making choices in full awareness of our motives and potential consequences. Things like brushing your teeth. We have learned it and repeated it so many times that we no longer need to think about it. In a way, it frees us up to be able to consider other more important things. But usually we use that precious time and energy to allow our minds to wander off somewhere. We use it to escape reality. In this moment, are you aware of something else that you could use that time and your energy for? Affirmations perhaps? Something that will uplift you and inspire you to be more of who you truly are? The bigger you perhaps?

So responsibility is about being conscious. Aware. Present to everything that is happening within you and around you. All of the time. Easy peasy? Nope, it takes practice. Simple? The process of coming back to the moment can be simple - unless we complicate it which I have much experience in. I highly recommend that you don't do that, it takes longer and creates more struggle and we don't need any more of that. We have enough without creating more in our lives.

Persistant practice, patience - and kindness - to remember as soon as you forget, and getting back on the horse so to speak. And never giving up! Because you have perhaps decided that you have had enough of being controlled by your negative ego programming, by your mind. Perhaps you feel that you have had enough of struggle and suffering, of feeling unworthy and useless and you want to experience something different. Know that you are worth the effort! You ARE worthy. You are also much more than your programming. Start now!

I have met so many adults who think they are not creative. Sadly this ‘dis-ease’ is also catching onto the older children or younger teens. It’s simply not true. I was so surprised recently when my 10 year old granddaughter came to me with her head down and said that she is not creative, that she can’t paint, yet she’s one of the most creative and talented people I know. It oozes out of her when she has a pencil or brush in her hand, along with the joy.

We are all naturally creative. As kids we easily create things yet by the time we are adults we have bought into an idea that something has to look a certain way in order to be ‘good enough’, or to be classed as art. Again that is not true.

As adults we tend to tighten up in many areas of our lives – my physical body would agree with that . We are so used to putting things in boxes, as in, having expectations on how we, others, life and the world around us is meant to behave, look, sound etc.

Boxes! Instead of seeing and feeling the uniqueness of every living thing, including ourselves we are so stressed about trying to fit into some societal idea of what’s acceptable and what’s not. How can we be comfortable with anything we create? We can’t really, unless and until we are get out of the boxes and allow ourselves to express our uniqueness, our individuality.

So ... YES you are creative!