Tag: love

Ink and Paper and Detail, Oh My!

So I get really excited with newness. I love the replenishing wave of a fresh passion, it’s so invigorating. But I’ve realized through the years that I’ve had a tendency to NOT FINISH what I start because of this. I love the first bursts of creativity, but it tends to wane for some reason. I’ve realized that maybe it’s because I haven’t known how to end what I’m currently working on, or just dislike feeling stuck with any part of it. All valid reasons, but having a bunch of unfinished art work sitting around isn’t going to work for me anymore.

Lately when I get a burst of a new idea, I jot it down quickly in my art journal, relishing the moment I get to try it out, but not giving in to the temptation.

However. I could. Not. Stop. Thinking about this one. I was having these vivid daydreams of sitting on the floor surrounded with liquid ink and tiny black pens and just allowing whatever my fingers decided to create, to come forth.

So, I stopped what I was doing and started this. Sometimes you just have to follow the passion. Ah! Loving working on this!!

The only thing is that I was so excited to start that I didn’t properly prepare the watercolor paper. So the paper rippled, and now needs to have some books stacked on top to straighten it out. Next time I have gotta take a deep breath,..

and take my time!

Does anyone have any great suggestions for 140lbs. hot press watercolor paper? I’ve heard putting it in the bathtub for awhile works well…. Love some advice!

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Jump Scared and Grow into Brave

For years I knew I wanted to do super awesome things and for some reason I thought they were literally going to be dropped on my porch. Like someone would maybe even stop me on the side of the road and say, “Excuse me, are you Jackie? We have an exciting life for you! Just follow me!”

Obviously that didn’t happen, but I spent a lot of time WAITING FOR IT.

I knew the things I sorta kinda wanted but my FEAR was way too great to do anything physical about it.

Slowly through the years I’ve realized a bit about getting what we want. Even if we have the best intentions for receiving the life we want, but we refuse to take any risks at all,.. WE WON’T GET IT. We won’t.

If we refuse to quit the job that is draining the life out of us, or say no way to standing up for ourselves, or taking a class to learn a new skill we have really been wanting,.. if we aren’t willing to RISK, and to be BRAVE,….

WE. WILL. NOT. CHANGE.

I’m totally in my element now, making art. Making art for me, isn’t a risk, it’s a necessity. But I am DEFINITELY making sure to take little risks everyday.

Here are the risks I’ve been taking lately:

  • Writing this blog – Puts my voice out there! My innermost feelings and joys and pains. It feels vulnerable and not always that comfortable.
  • Making a Facebook business page of my art – I literally cringed when I started inviting people to like it. Ah! I feel so exposed! ughaserk!
  • Posting Doodle-a-Day photos for Instagram – I’ve never never been one to show my work, it feels like I’m being a show off. And yet, art is my heart and soul, and I’m no longer going to hide.
  • Saying I’m an artist – There’s a part of me that feels uncomfortable saying I’m an artist, and yet I know that BEING AN ARTIST sings through my veins, and so I suck it up, and say it anyway.

With each of these circumstances, my heart starts racing, my palms get sweaty, I feel nauseous and fiercely anxious. None of them are easy for me. And yet,… I know that this is where I will grow. I think back to all the times that I thought I might take a jump and then quickly replaced that thought with this one:

‘That sounds really scary, I think I’ll wait until I’m braver.’

I realize now, that we don’t just become brave. Bravery doesn’t just appear so the jump is easier.

If we jump scared, then we grow into being brave.  

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Looking For Art

Before I started this blog,

before I was waking up every morning excited to create ART,

I was attempting to get a couple other business ideas going. I’ve always been severely passionate about many things and it seemed like I could swing quickly from one idea to another.

This would cause a lot of stress for me. I thought I SHOULD have been the kind of person that decided what I wanted to do at 18, went for it, and then that would be my life.

Life wasn’t like this for me at all. I have been all over the map! I’ve had plenty of corporate jobs with sales and recruiting and marketing and customer service. (I secretly wished I loved them enough for them to be ENOUGH), and then I’ve also had different kinds of jobs off the normal job scale, working for a spiritual healer, and in a trendy shop in Venice, California. Jobs that seemed kinda kick back and not very ambitious. And yet, I learned parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. As I look back, any of these jobs that I had where I was working FOR someone, no matter what they were, they were based on providing me with either enough resources to make art, or time to do it.

All of that is fine, except that I judged myself horribly for this. I thought “What is wrong with you, Jackie, that you need to create?” “Can’t you just find a CAREER and stick to it?”Even though my heart LONGED to create, I felt like needing to make art, was kind of in the way.

Life would be easier if I was simpler. 

It’s funny that I’ve longed to have one career, when I know many people change what they are doing or wanting to do throughout their lives. But we are always evolving anyway, so it makes sense that how we want to show up in the world changes as well.

So back to my own businesses I was in the middle of… They were based on things that I like, and one was even concepts that I was PASSIONATE about; when I was working in a corporate setting. And yet, the actual work, the planning workshops, the research, not that horrible, but not super fun. The whole time I was doing this WORK for these businesses, I secretly wanted to be making art. Isn’t that funny?

And then I realized:

I decided to do these other businesses because I thought they would MAKE MONEY. And then if I was successful enough, maybe

I’D HAVE TIME TO MAKE ART.

What I really wanted to do,…

WAS MAKE ART.

It’s always always been that, but because I didn’t trust that I’d be taken care of, that I have been given these gifts for a reason, I’ve searched for YEARS to find JOBS and my own BUSINESSES that will give me the joy and fulfillment that art does.

So there’s been this part of me that feels embarrassed that I’ve changed my mind so many times, and yet,.. as I look at it, I haven’t changed my mind at all. I’ve known all along that I wanted to make art, I just didn’t allow myself to do it.

Yet another lesson I’m seeing, is to use the gifts that I have been given to create the life that my soul longs for. I am doing that! I am starting to believe that the more I fill my heart with love and do things that genuinely bring me joy, the more the right people, the right situations will find me.

 

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Where’s the PASSION

I was talking to my hubby this morning. We have both been in the middle of an emotional upheaval and have felt so drained. I was telling him that lately I’ve just felt so tired, just longing to be back in bed, curled up.

I really dislike this feeling. Now I know when life is emotionally and mentally exhausting, it’s important to sleep. I got it. But I’ve had ENOUGH of that.

What I’ve realized about myself, is that if I’m not in a place of passion, I tend to get tired more quickly.

When I’m MAKING ART, and WRITING BLOGS and bubbling over with enthusiasm, I don’t need so much sleep. I jump out of bed at 4:30am, buzzing to create. My day is full of visions of what to make next, or the waves of paint swelling on my paper. I spend my time relishing what I’m grateful for and knowing that life is bringing me what is best for me. I am kind, I am fun, I am playful and silly and feel beautiful.

It’s not MORE sleep that I need, it’s taking a huge messy bite out of PASSION. Ah!

How can I get back to passion when I’ve been handling life stuff for so many days?

  1. Name off what I am grateful for. Set alarms if I need to.
  2. Meditate more often than I think necessary.
  3. Draw everything
  4. Release emotions (I work best if I cry at least every other day)
  5. Start something new
  6. Get my paints ready, and work on one of my pieces. Everything else can wait!
  7. Dump paint into my art journal and PLAY! The less thinking the better.

 

BURN

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I’m back

I’m finally sitting here at my little laptop ready to WRITE. Finally. It’s been so long! And actually it’s felt like forever since

I’ve MADE ART.

I went from driving many hours to a wonderful party in Los Angeles to a couple of days back home sorting through life stuff. Sometimes this happens, right? Days go in ways we don’t expect, and routine gets flipped around. But I have so missed writing my daily posts.

I think what I’m recognizing is that I am so much better at being easy on myself. It’s been an excruciatingly long month with so many stressful things happening, and lots of gory feelings exploding all over the place, and lots of places where cobwebs are literally falling out of the shadows.

When I’d go through things like this in the past, I’d feel so much SHAME and wonder WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??

I should be able to handle this! I should be STRONGER BETTER FASTER more amazing than I am.

I  SHOULD BE DIFFERENT.

Through the years, through the work I’ve been doing on myself, those voices still come up but they are softer, and they are way more in the background then they used to be. In fact, I can point them out! I can call them to the  front of the classroom and tell them their help is no longer needed.

Now, I am in charge.

Because the last week has been again so much learning and growing and aching and changing,…

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

I can make art.

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Messy

My dear sweet warm loving hubby told me yesterday that I am messy,

and he’s right.

I am messy.

Before I lived with him, I thought I was laid back. I thought I was nonchalant and super chill and I was so wrong. When I lived alone, I’d hide away in my house when I had FEELINGS so no one knew I did. I was so embarrassed about having them, I sort of forgot myself.

But when you live with someone, they SEE IT ALL,

and I. Am. Messy.

I can go from 0-60 in 2 seconds flat. I can be calm and then freakin’ lose it.

I can jump to conclusions, interrupt, burst into tears, and shut down completely. He doesn’t know what he’s going to get at any moment in time and I’m sure it’s totally annoying.

But just like everyone,  I am trying to figure it out. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got life under control and I feel enthusiastic, and uplifted and ready and alive. Other times I feel incompetent and petty and wrong.

Maybe I’m way more emotional then others. Maybe I’m a little bit scarier than some. But we all have STUFF and I’ll continue to learn and grow to become the best version of me that I can.

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More stress, more Jackie time

So I’m very much in the thick of some really deep stuff. This year started out with my hubby and I asking the universe for some MOVEMENT in many areas of our lives.

We cut cords of old beliefs that were no longer working for us,

We felt our feelings fully,

We made lists of what we want to feel and experience in the year 2017.

Anyway, there was a lot of stuff. A lot of work, and shifting ideas and beliefs and starting fresh. So it’s no wonder that so far this year has been full of

TRANSITION

CHANGE

GROWTH,.. oh so much, so much growth.

Everywhere I look has been another huge epiphany.

So I was thinking, what do most of us do when we are in pockets of life that are extremely stressful?

Most of us have been taught to:

HUNKER DOWN,

Put our nose to the grindstone,

Push harder,

Get less sleep,

Literally shove ourselves THROUGH THE STRESS.

 

Hm.

Well how’s that working for us? Not great, at least not for me.

So I’m taking a different approach. The more change, the more stress, the more crazy life gets, the more I will take CARE OF MYSELF. It’s already stressful, why make it more so? If I can give myself more naps, or breaks, or laughs, or doodle moments, I will come back renewed and in a great place full of creativity.

If I push without feeling, drained and exhausted, my work and my life will not be very good. I won’t be able to come up with solutions, and I’ll end up so annoyed and disconnected and irritated. What a horrible way to use my energy.

Never underestimate the power of being in a good place. The more time spent taking care of ourselves automatically will put us miles ahead of someone that is just hanging there by a thread.

So, I’ll be listening to my body and my heart. What do I NEED to do to get into an empowered fun open place? That is my priority so I can actually accomplish.

this mountain

 

 

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Girls Girls Girls

I was chilling on my yoga mat on Saturday morning, right before class started. Heat began flooding into the room, and it was filling up with lots of fellow yogis.

There was a girl next to me minding her own business, like most of us. But something about her made me realize something.

Girls are so funny. I mean not all of them, but a good portion of us are. We tend to be so competitive. I know I have been. Wanting to be acknowledged by them, maybe seen as the best or better, wanting to prove something.

And yet, in this crazy world right now, with all these women’s marches, etc. it’s obvious we are craving more women connection.

But can we do it?

Maybe I’m speaking only for myself. I am very aware that some of my girlfriends (especially my sister in law) meet other women with a pure open heart. She’s warm and makes eye contact and is truly waiting to connect.

I say I want the same thing as well, and yet if I’m totally honest about myself right now, I don’t really put it out there to women I don’t already know. I think I probably still operate out of the fear of not being enough, so I don’t always make eye contact, or smile the way that I could. It hasn’t been my intention to put other people at ease. It’s not that I don’t care, but it’s just not on my mind. I have been more concerned with HOW I AM PERCEIVED.

Now that I really look at it, it makes me sad to be that way.

I know I can change this, but it makes me curious, where did it start?

I have heard that women have been competitive with other women since the beginning of time. When we were a bunch of hulking cave women and needed to make sure no other burly cave woman was going to steal our caveman. Maybe that’s true, or maybe it’s just been learned through society.

We all know the mean girls in school.

I was never one of those. In fact, I was the girl that would take a scared newbie under my wing, and invite them to sit with me. But I certainly had felt like I wasn’t good enough for certain girl groups, and that made me steer clear of many of them. Don’t girls gossip and one up each other? At least that was what I was used to, and I did attract some really mean ones for a long time.

I am sure many of you may have also gone through a bitchy gossipy stage like I did as well. It felt better (at the time) to put down other women then actually feel my own feelings about my inadequacies. That didn’t last long, and I’m definitely not there now.

Also, for some reason if I saw a girl that I thought was prettier than me or more talented, I have assumed that she was a snob or that she was really better than me. So I wouldn’t go out of my way to connect. This isn’t fair to her at all, and I want to change it.

What I would prefer is to NOT jump into a place of being competitive, or assuming that I’m not on someone’s level.

I want to be MORE open and loving, and ready to connect with all women, recognizing that no matter what someone looks like, they are still going through difficult things in their life that they don’t have answers to.

I want to remember that we aren’t all that different.

I want to fully invest in being a really awesome friend to all women, even ones that I will never be close to.

It’s my goal starting today to make eye contact with everyone, everywhere I go, and send them all love. I am going to be the one that smiles and says ‘hello’ first, and has compassion when someone doesn’t say it back. Because I get it. Females can be strange, but we have protected ourselves long enough. It’s time to have each other’s back.

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Schedule Emotional Drains?

Wow! What a weekend! This is the first one in a long time that actually FELT like a weekend. Know what I mean?

Sometimes we have these ridiculously stressful weeks and then convince ourselves that the weekend will be the time to finally really relax, and yet it becomes just another couple of days where we are running around stressed out chasing the feeling of relief.

This has been a huge part of my life lately. My hubby and I have had some pretty stressful, exhausting things going on with the kids and his ex-wife. So we have done what any concerned, aware, loving parents would do,..

we’ve talked about it obsessively.

I think in my head, I felt that if we aren’t talking about the issues over and over and over again until they are SOLVED, then we must be:

Living under a rock

Hiding

Avoiding

Afraid.

So,.. I pushed it. All the time, with no break. Anytime we saw each other we would start talking about these extremely heavy, exhausting PROBLEMS, ISSUES.

Isn’t that what we are supposed to do? 

But they didn’t get any better. I realized that I was so drained, emotionally, mentally and physically, but

THE ISSUES STILL REMAINED. 

I started to not feel particularly close to my hubby. I didn’t feel at all at peace. I didn’t feel full of energy, and I wasn’t noticing things I am grateful for.

Once we both discussed our feelings about all of this,

something magical happened.

We got a fuckin’ BRILLIANT idea. I think it’s the best we have had all year.

If talking about certain things is exhausting, and yet to some extent we still need to do it, why not create a schedule where it’s okay to do it in?

So here’s the deal: We decided that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5pm -6pm is our talk time about the difficult stuff.

NO MORE THAN THAT. 

Can I even tell you what this has done to our lives! We have only been doing it for 5 days, and all ready I feel like a completely different person. I am lighter and happier and more joyful and so so grateful! I feel like I have my wonderful relationship back to where it was.

And I realized something else.

Before, I felt like if I WASN’T talking about the difficult stuff 24/7, then I was avoiding. But now, since there is a PLAN, a SYSTEM, I don’t feel that way at all!

I feel in control of my life.

So this situation reminded me that I am in control. It’s MY happiness, it’s MY joy, it’s MY life. I can make choices on when and who I want to discuss personal stuff with. And so far, I must say our schedule is

LIFE CHANGING.

This weekend was unbelievably connecting and fun and playful and open and I am so in love. We gave ourselves a much needed EMOTIONAL BREAK! Yesssssssssssssss!!

Sooooo grateful for intuition!!

Happy Monday! xo

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