How To Deal With The Crazymakers In Your life

I had plans to review two books and write articles about each one, but my plans were derailed by a Crazymaker.

Ah, so why not write an article about Crazymakers and Crazymaking?

The scenario involved a family member, as do many cases although bosses, co-workers and friends can just as easily be the people carrying the Crazymaking gifts.

I use the word gifts because these situation have the potential to help you stand your own ground, stay firm within your own boundaries and to allow people to act out their own stuff, realizing it is just that: projections of pain and suffering (right into YOUR lap), fragments from the past, fear of the future and even death.

I first heard the term Crazymakers in "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. Since that time, the antennae are always on the alert for situations that take me away from my writing.

According to Julia Cameron: "Crazymakers are those personalities that create storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive and powerfully persuasive. And for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive.

"Crazymakers create dramas--but seldom where they belong. Crazymakers are often blocked creatives themselves. Afraid to effectively tap their own creativity, they loath to allow that same creativity in others. It makes them jealous. It makes them threatened. It makes them threatened at your expense."

Ah yes, you are entitled to your opinions, judgments and reactions but do not expect me to save you from yourself, says I.

I have an appointment with the clean blank white page.

You don't have to like what I write.

You don't have to read what I write.

But I am happy to say, I will keep on writing no matter what.

And as Julia Cameron also says, "I practice what I preach: If you dump drama into my life, I will put it, and you, onto the page."

Why would I do this? because Crazymakers don't have to cause us to question our motives, our art or our integrity as a person.

I have an appointment with the moment at hand that leads me to pick up the fountain pen of choice, and to joyfully write exactly what inspires me at that time.

This is my unwavering committment: with the pen, the paper, the text editor and keyboard.

Synchronistically, I picked up a book on the subject: "Dealing With the Crazymakers In Your Life," by Dr. David Hawkins.

Crazymakers can "hook" you if you are unaware. Awareness and alert consciousness will help to shorten the time you are effected by this venom.

The following 10 keys will help you deal with the Crazymakers in your life:

1) Realize that by reacting negatively to the Crazymakers you strengthen that negativity within yourself.

2) If you condemn the Crazymaker, you are displacing negativity onto the Crazymaker which she/he has already done to you.

3) Labeling a Crazymaker a Crazymaker may help at first to identify the upsetting situation but to successfully detach and unhook from the situation, you need to move beyond the labels by grounding yourself in the breath and the here and now.

4) By detaching from the label of Crazymaker and from the Crazymaker herself, you allow yourself to settle into your core, your essence and gain peace of mind in the situation.

5) If you feel hurt or even crazy by the situation, realize that you have created a mental image of yourself and a story about yourself that now wants to defend against perceived accusation.

6) When you realize that you are reacting with your egoic mind (based upon past conditioning), you naturally begin the process of forgiveness of yourself (because you reacted) and also for the Crazymaker, who was doing the best she knew how to do in that moment.

7) Disidentify with the need to be right within the situation. Whatever you are engaged in, whatever makes you feel more alive, get back to that project.

8) After becoming conscious about how you've been hooked by the Crazymaker, sit with yourself in silence and feel the inner spaces, the stillness, and reconnect with the consciousness that heals all wounds.

9) Walk in nature, write in your journal, unhook from the guilt and from the need to defend.

10) Lastly, you have an appointment with the Joy of Living; find that joy; elevate your vibrations, turn off the TV.

Be alive to the happiness that already exists, and when you do, you have come home to your True Self.