The Inspiration for Simply Be More

The Inspiration For Simply Be More

Overnight in March 2020, all my work as a headline flautist was cancelled. For the first time in my entire career, my diary, normally packed full of wonderful concerts was completely clear. I knew this was a reset button. I could just sense that the world would never be the same again and I needed help navigating what was happening.  

They say that when the pupil is ready, the master appears and as if by magic I was given the opportunity to embark upon a weekly course with life coach Chad E. Cooper. Simply Be More is the result of a challenge he set to do something you hadn’t done since a child for 100 consecutive days. 

I wracked my brains as to what to do and in the dark recesses of my mind I recalled my art teacher writing in my year book “I will always say you should never have given up art”….

“Was he right?”, I asked myself. “Could I do a sketch a day for 100 days?”

I had recently taken up running and had set myself the challenge of doing a half marathon, so I was spending a lot of time pounding the trails of the beautiful countryside where I live listening to podcasts and audio books as I worked through losing all my work and my recent divorce.  Some days I found myself screaming “WHY GOD? WHY?” as I processed the seismic changes in my life…thankfully I live in the middle of nowhere!

So, what was I going to do a sketch about for 100 days? With the consistency of running and meditating daily, it was as if my eyes were being opened. I started noticing all sorts of details in nature – things I had never seen before. It felt like all of nature was calling to me saying “I have something to tell you…if you will just listen”.  

One of the first sketches was of a rose, and as I sketched it I thought to myself this rose doesn’t discriminate with whom it shares it’s fragrance – it just shares it with all, it is there for all to enjoy…to be in joy with…how wonderful if I could be more like a rose and share my life like that…maybe I could simply be more rose… and with that, I had the idea.

I would run in all weathers trying to find meaning to what was happening around me and every day a new idea would pop into my head. I would then sit down and draw. It became a meditation in itself; it gave rhythm to my days. I could not believe what I was doing. It was like discovering a mosaic with me…I was brushing away a lifetime of self-limiting beliefs to reveal an amazing design.

As I sketched the words came…I guess I was in flow.

About a fortnight into the challenge I had a life coaching class group call and at that session there happened to be a literary agent who had been charting my progress. She said “you need to send this to John Hunt Publishing”…Everything in me cried out ‘are you crazy!’ but I knew I had to trust the process, so I duly sent it off and to my amazement they came back to me with a contract…this is the stuff of fairy tales and dreams…I still had another 80 sketches to do.

Day after day I meditated and sketched and worked on myself. Tears flowed as my heart melted and I emerged like a butterfly from a chrysalis from my old life.

In July 2021 the founder and CEO of a UK charity called Lost Chord which provides interactive music sessions for people living with dementia, asked me to take over from her as CEO. I had performed as a flute player for this non-profit on and off for over 20 years and was certainly passionate about it, but a voice inside me cried out “What do you know about running a charity? You are a flute player not a CEO!” But then another voice – that still small voice of calm whispered “How can you write a book called ‘Simply be more’ and then, when you are given the opportunity to simply be more you reject it and become less than you were created to be?”

As the world emerged from the pandemic I took on the role of CEO in addition to continuing performing my headline flute show all over the world sharing my story and sketches of ‘Simply Be More’. The conversations resulting from sharing my story are so inspiring. A lady came up to me and said “Clare, I knew it! I knew I could ‘simply be more.’ I am 78 and am going to start yoga and the ukulele. I have more in me!” 

Rumi said “The entire universe is within you”. I never understood this until I embarked on my Simply Be More journey. Now every day is filled with possibility. I try to embrace everything as an opportunity to ‘Simply Be More’. It truly is a way of life, but I tell you, it is demanding, however once you start it is like moving from a black and white movie into technicolour! 

Just when I thought my life was stalling I found God/the source was calling…”simply be more”.

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SIMPLY BE MORE

Simply Be More is a collection of beautiful, inspiring and soothing sketches using animals and nature to illustrate time-preserved wisdom. Life isn’t determined by where we have come from; it is where we are going that is important. Clare Langan has lived it – and rather than talked about it, has written it and now drawn it, too.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing