Tag: creativity

Doin’ It Yoga Style

I have this extreme love/hate relationship with this hardcore yoga class called yoga sculpt. The temperature is turned up so high your body begins dripping with sweat, and then along with some yoga moves, you are pumping iron

WITH WEIGHTS.

The first time I did it I ended up stopping in the middle, totally done, gasping for breath on the floor and thought I was going to die. Seriously. I have worked out my entire life and yet this is the absolute hardest class I have ever done.

Now this is where things get interesting. Sure the class is hard, sure it’s like a fucking nightmare, lez be honest. But it does end! The intervals end, the downward dogs end, the horrible squats, all end.

It was a habit of mine for most of the time I was in this class to STOP when it got horrible. My chest starts burning, and my limbs shake so hard I think they will fall off, and there is so much sweat on my face that my contacts are swimming. So I would stop.

I started to believe that I COULDN’T go on.

Stopping became a habit.

 

And then I realized something.

I’m stopping before the miracle even happens. I’m stopping when it gets tough, when I feel super uncomfortable,..

I was outta there.

This didn’t just happen in yoga for me, it was like my whole life was laid out on the mat.

I’VE DONE THIS BEFORE IN SO MANY AREAS OF MY LIFE.

Life gets horrible, or feels nearly impossible and I checked out.

So what if I start to do things differently in this yoga class? Maybe there’s a chance that I start to become more aware of it in my life. What I have also realized is that it’s okay to slow down. What if instead of STOPPING, I get really present and breathe in compassion and MOVE SLOWER,

BUT DON’T STOP?

I’m not always perfect about this little tweak. Sometimes I still get so mind bobblingly ill that I have to stop, and that is okay. But I would say in general I push myself more.

Isn’t this true about LIFE? All parts of LIFE? Creating art or having relationships or finding a great job or doing really anything? If we QUIT when it hurts or feels yucky, what happens? We miss out. The art won’t get looked at, we won’t get that great job, we won’t work out relationship issues,

NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

I’m focusing on slowing down if I need to, but NOT STOPPING. I can do this, I can get through life (and HORRIBLY AMAZING yoga). There is always an ebb and flow, and it always gets better. I can do this, and so can you. We can move through even when it’s hard.

 

 

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Michael Kagan

I just so happened to be browsing through Instagram when I found this frickin’ cool ass artist. He does a lot of mountainesque paintings, and a lovely large collection of astronauts, among other things. He’s very painterly, and his brush strokes are jagged up close and yet very refined far away. I love how so many different colors show up in his work. It feels very detailed and yet sort of blurry and pixelated, like a dream.

Check it out: http://www.michaelkagan.com/

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Creativity Circle, uh yes please.

This morning while I was taking a shower, I was thinking about what to write today.

My love of almond butter?

My attempts at shutting up my super loud, (sorta cute) kitten from meowing me off a ledge?

My present situation with my step children?

My sudden 80’s ballad outbursts?

On one hand, I’m really enjoying getting down my thoughts about life and art and my kitten,.. hahah And yet on another hand, it feels really really yuckily self indulgent.

Normally, if you’d met me in real life, I would tell you less about myself, and I’d be asking a lot of questions. I am very fascinated by people and want to know ALL. OF. IT.

You know what I’d like to do? I’d really like to have a creativity circle where everyone comes, brings the thing they are working on, we each take turns discussing our FEELINGS and our FEARS and we RELISH in the fact that we GET TO CREATE. We can all hear and SUPPORT and VALIDATE each other. Ah!

Doesn’t that sound amazing?

 

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Girl Time

I just returned from a long walk close to the beach with my sister in law. We’ve decided to do this every Tuesday from now on. Ahhh!! I just love my time with her! There is seriously nothing better than girl time where BOTH of you get to purge your thoughts and feelings and BOTH of you are engaged in what’s being said. I always leave feeling really heard and much lighter. It’s also helpful that BOTH of us are always looking for ways that we can be our best and truest selves. Sometimes rare to find that in a friend.

Anyway.

I’m seeing how important more GIRL TIME is in my life, and how easy it is to let it slip away. As much as I love my hubby, which I do more than anything, he’s not a WOMAN and I crave female interaction. When I don’t have it for long periods of time, I feel like I try shaping him into a girlfriend.

‘Please don’t give me a SOLUTION, I just need to feel.’ Ha!

He’s so good at attempting, but even as I say out loud what I need from him, I can hear how silly it sounds.

This video is my favorite depiction of gender differences. ahhahah! It’s so perfect!!!

I am always wanting to cry about ‘the nail’ before I can do anything about it. ahahhah

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Purple clouds foreva

This is a new piece I’m working on. I’m using this lovely thick watercolor paper, acrylic paint and smooth black ink from Japan. I wanted to incorporate my tiny detailed lines with luscious paint color to give it a contrasting effect. I want to create more pieces with lots of color and depth. I’ll post it again when it’s finished!

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So much to do so much time

In this crazy, buzzy world it’s been so easy to get anxious about TIME.  The day is moving away from me, I didn’t get this done or that or that or that! How frickin’ mind boggling! The day would leave me gasping for breath, unfunctionable and drained.

I’m looking in my art journal right now and it’s full of designs, doodles to try on a larger scale, tiny pen marks that excite me and make me hungry to create. Now, in the past I would see this as something I need to do NOW. RIGHT NOW. LIKE NOW NOW.

But really, the more that I spend time MAKING WORK, the more TIME I realize it actually takes for each piece to make it the way I want it.

The more that I am starting to

CHILL THE FUCK OUT.

Like seriously. I thought I was a pretty chill laid back chic before, but that was only because it was when I was relaxed that I was even aware. I have NOT been relaxed in my life. I’ve been a HARD CORE, FINGER PICKING, STRESS FACE. And you know what, it’s not that great. I didn’t feel great about myself. I didn’t feel strong or magical or at peace. AT all. So I’m not gunna do it anymore.

What is the most loving thing I can do for myself.

Make some fuckin art.

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Productive waste of time

Here I am, Monday morning so grateful to be home after an extremely packed weekend at Disneyland. If I were to ask my heart what it wants to do, it would say DRAW! CREATE! PAINT! That is seriously all I want to do. It would probably be wrapped up in emotions and tears and these huge beautiful epiphanies. And yet there is still this silly little part of me that thinks, ‘Noooo that sounds too great, maybe you should find things that need to be CLEANED! FIXED! WORKED ON! Things that don’t make you happy, but make you feel PRODUCTIVE.’

There’s that word, productive.

I remember for years,hoping and wishing and praying and basing everything on FEELING PRODUCTIVE. It had NOTHING to do with if I was HAPPY or RELISHING or GRATEFUL or USING MY GIFTS.

What good is feeling PRODUCTIVE if you aren’t actually accomplishing anything that really matters to you. Just the feeling of PRODUCTIVITY doesn’t mean you’re living your passion, or on your path. To me, many times it can be running in circles very fast just so I feel like I’m kicking my ass. It doesn’t actually mean I’m

DOING ANYTHING WORTHWHILE.

How’s that for weirdness? Is this what we WANT?

What does PRODUCTIVE mask for you? For me, it would hide the fact that I was uncomfortable,

or felt incompetent,

or that I couldn’t say no

or stand up for myself.

I was really good at hiding all of those super yucky feelings under a thick blanket of PRODUCTIVE.

I guess this is just one more thing I’m working on. I love the feeling of starting new projects and finishing them, setting goals of things that I actually really care about. I’m saying no to staying BUSY out of FEAR of facing reality.

 

 

 

 

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