You know that feeling when you read something incredible, eye-opening and inspiring? It's like a tingle that spreads from the core of your soul to your fingertips, weaving its way through your bloodstream and exploding out of your pores. You can feel the glow within.
That's how I feel when I'm reading Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
Elizabeth Gilbert has written the must-have book for creative people. It's filled with themes of compassion (particularly for yourself) and shares many methods of coping with the insecurity and fear that comes with living a creative life. Most importantly, it explains exactly what "living creatively" is all about - and thankfully, it doesn't require quitting your job or secluding yourself from the world.
Elizabeth brings forth the notion that ideas are little spiritual beings, not of this world, that float around searching for a human counterpart. Sometimes, an idea will pass through and you will catch it, and you will dance with it and bring it to life. Other times, the idea will come but you won't have the desire or skill to make it happen, and it will float away to someone else.
As someone who has held on doggedly to ideas, feeling like a failure if I couldn't make every single one of them happen all of the time - this notion was incredibly liberating.
The book also tackles the topic of fear head-on, leaving no prisoners. Elizabeth uses her own struggles and conversations with Fear to prove that you don't have to be fearless to succeed, so long as you refuse to let the feeling overcome you or influence your decisions.
Big Magic is a smooth, easy read, the kind of book that you won't want to put down once you've started. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, but most importantly - it'll make you think - larger, grander, and more joyfully than ever before.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is creative, but I would particularly recommend it for anyone who feels stuck or unfulfilled in their lives. It changed my stance on a lot of the nuances associated with creative living, and inspires me every single day.
Comment below if you have read this book. What was the most impacting lesson that you learned from it?
