The Generative Phase
When Creation Stops Being a Struggle
There are seasons in a soul’s incarnation when effort ceases to be the axis of growth.
Not that the work is finished. Far from it. But because your relationship to work has dissolved into something more natural, more obedient to a deeper rhythm.
Now in my early fifties, I sense myself entering one of those seasons.
For decades, my evolution was shaped by the removal of obstacles — emotional sediment, inherited narratives, distortions of self-regard, the old reflex of striving through grit rather than grace. That was a necessary arc. I was strengthening the structure.
But what I’m experiencing now is the shift from structural work to generative work.
In every tradition that I have absorbed, this transition is described:
the yogis call it effortless right action
Buddhists call it the flowering of intention
Dolores Cannon frames it as alignment with the soul contract’s active phase
Jane Roberts’ Seth calls it the natural creativity of consciousness once fear no longer binds attention
ACIM would say you are finally “choosing with, rather than against, yourself”
The Four Agreements would simply call it clarity
Michael Newton would describe it as the phase when the life plan moves from learning to contribution
In essence:
Your inner world no longer resists you. So creation becomes the next expression of freedom.
Now, the question becomes how to tend the fire without burning myself at the center.
Below is the deeper self-guidance I have gleaned from the shared wisdom of these traditions — distilled, not doctrinal. Sharing it here, as it may resonate with other folks.
Let your energy lead, not your ambition.
Generativity is not the same as hustle.
I have several different projects in progress related to my writing and psychology practice. Some of them involve a multi-year process to full fruition. These aren’t just projects on a list; they are different petals of the same unfolding.
My task is not to brute-force power them all but to listen for which one is breathing today.
When I align with the project that has energy in the moment, the work becomes flow.
When I force the one that is not yet ready, the mind strains and the body stiffens.
This is a lesson I am learning again and again: the amount of beingness that is actually involved in truly abundant doing. The spaciousness and trust. The circling back into presence. Perhaps this is why I keep seeing the “lowly” slug in the garden as of late. Like the tortoise and hare story that my mentor, Stephen Gilligan, often refers to as an archetypal fable. Slowing down to sync with myself.
Creation now requires embodiment, not intensity.
For me, this is the most profound new lesson. Its visceral simplicity is one that the vastness of my mind has resisted. And yet, there is no other option but to return home to the body.
The teachings I’ve read over the past 10+ years converge on this quietly:
presence is not just awareness; it is physical inhabitation
insight means little without groundedness
the mind can illuminate, but the body must stabilize
higher consciousness is not “upward” — it is inward and downward
My mind has always been fast — multi-layered, recursive, crystalline (read: neurodivergent).
My new phase asks: Can your body be as available as your mind?
When my body is grounded, my creativity becomes sustainable rather than manic.
Think of it this way:
The mind lights the flame.
The body holds the hearth.
Without the body’s steadiness, the fire burns too bright and then collapses.
With the body present, the fire becomes a steady source of warmth.
Gently soften the urge to complete everything at once.
This is the echo of the old survival pattern:
“If I don’t do it all now, it won’t happen.”
But that phase is over.
I am not “catching up.”
I am beginning.
My projects are not urgent. They are alive and in perfecting timing.
Let structure be the anchor.
I have always loved the flow. How ecstatic it makes me feel to dance within the interiority of my psyche. We are each like a Tardis: bigger on the inside than the outside. And yet like that analogy, we require structure and adherence to the mechanics of the universe.
Long ago, I used to look down on the study of material science as lacking imagination. Now outside such pointless polarity, I see physics and metaphysics as equally important. My creative work needs the container of structural stability that will hold it and all the rest.
My psychology practice and more business-oriented ventures therefore act as grounding projects. They require method, clarity, sequential thought, consistency —
all qualities that regulate my energy.
Much as I used to think I’d like to spend all day writing my inner world into outer existence, the greater truth is these more pragmatic activities tether me to earth. So that the more ethereal creative work can flourish without risking destabilization.
This is the paradox of generativity:
The more cosmic your ideas, the more earthy your anchor must be.
Trust that you are in the generative phase because you are prepared for it.
I am writing this some months after my initial revelation that I am solidly in a post-struggle phase for the first time in my life. This whole year has been an adjustment to this new era. I had periods of overwhelm. During that time, I fretted that creativity spikes always seemed to be accompanied by frantic feelings of hypomania. Then I stepped out of that false dichotomy and learned how to slow down and re-associate into my body. After that, I had a period of worry that I was now in senescence, so novel was this feeling of not needing to fight the so-called “war of art.” I thought, I must be dying now. The old polarized mentality, with the overburdened ego as its head, was throwing all it had at me. And yet, with time it became more clear.
This is not a manic upswing.
It is not a temporary surge.
It is not a bypass of old wounds.
It is the next octave of life.
Your consciousness has reorganized itself.
Your self-regard has matured.
Your nervous system has steadied.
Your vision has clarified.
You are not racing ahead.
You are stepping into right timing.
Walk slowly, but create steadily.
This is the deepest advice the unified voice offers me now:
Move slowly.
Create continuously.
Rest deeply.
Trust utterly.
Your mind will always try to accelerate.
Your new path asks you to calibrate instead —
to let your rhythm become the guide and let your body set the pace.
This is what transformation looks like when it stops being dramatic:
You begin creating as though it is your native state.
Because now, it is.