Your Celebrant-Training Course Improved My Marriage
This morning I was clearing paperwork out of our celebrant-training room (which also serves as my writing room) and I came across a whole bunch of pieces of paper from when my seven-year-old granddaughter last stayed with us. There were times tables, stories and many pictures. I faced the same dilemma that I did twenty plus years ago when my daughters created artwork like there was no tomorrow. For now, they’re tucked away somewhere safe.
Creativity is a beautiful thing. For many people, though, it gets knocked on the head quite early in life as if it’s not as important or useful like algebra or science.
Creativity is what makes us human.
Creativity is what brings us joy.
Creativity is what gets us out of bed in the morning.
We are creating every single day. We are creating our lives! If we don’t like it, the power lies with us, and us alone, to create a different reality.
One of the core values we hold as Heart-led Celebrants and at Heart-led Ceremonies Celebrant Training is that of creativity. It’s at the heart of our work. To create is to make. To build. To design. To imagine. To innovate. To inspire.
It is to incubate a seed and watch it grow and flourish and take on a new life. We create when we use our ability to imagine and combine that with a motivation or drive to make something new. When you have an idea or use your imagination to act on it, then you are creating.
Typically, many people associate creativity with painting a picture or playing an instrument. Creativity is those things, yes, but it is so wide and deep and life affirming that we can find it expressed across the globe in myriad ways. Perhaps it’s writing a poem or painting a grey wall into a seascape or decorating a room or growing a herb garden or baking a brownie or sewing a ragdoll or reupholstering a chair or learning to belly dance. Maybe it’s picking up a camera and seeing the world through a different lens or learning how to sing.
One of our recent students, who was studying for her Diploma in Advanced Celebrancy and Ritual, said that the course improved her marriage. To be clear, there was nothing wrong with her marriage. It’s just that this deep-level immersion in self exploration gave her permission to be creative in wholly new ways.
Creativity is at the heart
of a healthy, happy life.
She said that the course fulfilled her in a radical way. When two fulfilled people come together, especially in something so intimate as marriage, creative exploration and satisfaction enhances what is beautiful in the relationship and makes it even more gorgeous and compelling.
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed over and over again across the years of my life, it’s that a woman’s level of creativity can be crushed (sometimes to oblivion) if she’s in a relationship with someone who either doesn’t support it and her or actively begrudges the time spent on making new art. Some of the most creative and artistic women I have ever met ended up putting their art away and deemed it as ‘not important’ because the man in their life was, quite frankly, jealous.
Creativity is the life force within us. What right does any other human have to squelch our soul? An emotionally secure person will not be put out because you’re alive and on fire with passion. The creative spark was given to you by the Great Creator (whatever that means to you). Beware of those who douse your flames.
Surely if we love someone we will not only honour their creativity at play but we’ll lean in and say “What do you need? What can I do to support you so that you can thrive?”
Being a Heart-led Celebrant is a creative role, and it’s important that the people you surround yourself with are your greatest cheerleaders. This begins from day one of your celebrant training.
Veronika Robinson and Paul Robinson (voice and presentation coach for celebrants) are tutors at Heart-led Ceremonies Celebrant Training. Veronika Robinson is a specialist in ritual and has been officiating beautiful, bespoke ceremonies since 1995. She’s a certified Infant Loss Professional; founder of Penrith’s first Death Café; is certified in Self-harm and Suicide Awareness and Prevention; is a celebrant for the charity Gift of a Wedding; and mentors celebrants around the world in all aspects of celebrancy including mastering writing life stories and love stories. Veronika also runs workshops and retreats for celebrants.
Veronika Robinson officiates beautiful and bespoke ceremonies across Cumbria, from Cornwall to Callanish, and internationally. She earned her Master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Cumbria.
Veronika is the author of many books both fiction and non-fiction, including the popular Celebrant Collection:
Write That Eulogy;
The Successful Celebrant;
Funeral Celebrant Ceremony Planner;
Wedding Celebrant Ceremony Planner;
The Blessingway.
Three more titles will be added in late February 2024:
The Gentle Celebrant’s Guide: Funerals For Children;
The Discrimination-free Celebrant;
The Celebrant’s Guide to the Five Elements.
Also in 2024:
Every Couple Has a Love Story: A Wedding Celebrant’s Guide to Creating Compelling Narrative from Once Upon A Time to “I do!”
You can also find the wonderful library of magazines Veronika edited, here: www.thecelebrantmagazine.co.uk
