Sometimes life gives you lemons. But not to worry. Your Creativity Guides are on hand, helping you transform your lemons into lemonade. No matter who you are or what circumstances you’ve inherited, life is always a blend of both the positive and the negative. Your Creativity Guides urge you to be grateful for the pluses of your life and to be creative with the negatives. They’ll help you use your inventiveness to transform any adverse situation into one for the better. So, rather than dwell on your lousy childhood, true though it may have been, appreciate the courage it developed in you and use it to change the unsupportive past into a self-reliant present. Rather than endure an unfulfilling job, be resourceful and start the business you’ve dreamed of for years.

This is not to deny the pain in your life, but to use it as an incentive to move to higher ground. Allow your Creativity Guides to serve you; they’re not afraid of the lemons you encounter in life. Gather their juice as fuel to invent much better circumstances, and ask them for inspiration and ideas. They have plenty to share. Their message: “When you get lemons, make lemonade.”

Our culturally perverse notion that “doing, doing, doing” is the correct use of time, and that “doing nothing” is a complete waste of time, has indeed made us a sick society. Your overwhelming desire to back off from this whirlwind of activity and take a break—even throw in the towel altogether—isn’t crazy or unrealistic. It’s a direct summons from the Holy Spirit to withdraw your attention from the outer world and reconnect with your soul. Your life is not to be frittered away in meaningless and unexamined activity. You came in with a purpose, and specific soul intentions that are being neglected. They’re now knocking at the door of your attention, reminding you that you have commitments to keep. If you don’t heed this call and begin to self-examine, you may even enter a dark night of the soul, a time where nothing feels meaningful.

Listen to the Holy Spirit and open your heart to its direction. Take lots of time to be alone, and get in touch with your soul. Write in a journal, seek counseling, and pray. Allow yourself to be in direct contact with the guiding wisdom of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. Withdrawing from the world—whether through contemplation, meditation, or even a sabbatical—is the most powerful way to use your time right now. The Holy Spirit is guiding you in your quiet moments. Its message: “Make time for yourself.”

Sooner or later in our evolutionary process, each of us begins to realize that it’s not the having that fulfills our soul, but rather it’s the act of creating that brings us satisfaction. Contentment in what we’ve created—no matter how grand—inevitably subsides, and our creative juices once again long to flow. That’s why the once-ideal partner ceases to mesmerize, the perfect job eventually becomes mundane, and the great adventure becomes tedious. Although there’s a lot to be said for enjoying what we have now, we must nevertheless respect the fact that our basic nature as creative beings is . . . to create. Without the process, we can’t be fully content—at least not for long.

Your Muses are present, and they call on you now to embrace your creative discontent and undertake new projects. Their message: “See your frustration as a longing to learn more, expand more, dare more, and create more.”