The Muse is IN Blog

Peace of Mindfulness and Car Alarms

 

“Peace comes from within.  Do not seek it without.” ― Gautama Buddha
 
 “The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.”  

 “But a true and accurate measurement of one’s self-worth is how people feel about the negative aspects of themselves.”
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
 
  
 
Hi Creative Friends,
 
 
Yesterday, blissfully positioned in pigeon pose, (my favorite yoga asana), a car alarm went off in my neighborhood.
 

BLEeeHK! BLEeeHK! BLEeeHK!

 
It kept going ON AND ON so I decided to try the practice of Tonglen. Here’s an explanation from the great reference guru, Wikipedia:
 
Tonglen is Tibetan for 'giving and taking' (or sending and receiving), and refers to a meditation ... In the practice, one visualizes taking in the suffering of oneself and of others on the in-breath, and on the out-breath giving recognition, compassion, and succor to all sentient beings.
 
So I breathed in the car alarm: the annoyance, intrusion, and the suffering of sound pollution, and breathed out peace and serenity to all living things.
 

And you know what?
It didn’t work a bit. Not tong bit.

 
So I went into a practice I’ve adopted and modified according to my own quirky  needs: Mindfulness with a Creative Twist.   Basically, there are times we can’t reframe, find the silver lining, or accept things with grace in their annoying, troubling form. It’s unrealistic and uses up a lot of energy we could be using for our creativity, plus, thinking we can overcome certain annoyances in life often creates indigestion and gas unless you’re an enlightened one, which you very well may be. I’m not. Do you have indigestion and gas? Read on.
 
If I've done all that I can to make a change toward the annoyance, the pain, regret, ineptness, or  gas then I gracefully accept that I don’t like disturbing noises and that's okay. Life is always pleasing and as a recovering perfectionist I sometimes still think it should be until I remember I can’t fix everything to rainbows and unicorns, it’s unavailable as an option in this life. That’s where my mindfulness frees me, it's kind of a Buddhist thing.
 
Here’s how it looks:
I have high sensitivity to noise (and a whole host of other things as many of you creative people do too). I’m unable to realistically tune-out or accept the noise of car alarms, dogs barking, inconsiderate people talking loudly on cell phone, and leaf blowers. When I accept that they annoy me, I have more peace. It's the salve of common sense. 
 
At first my mind can’t even wrap around this idea because I had the habit of going into radical annoyance, chronic crankiness, and “why is the world so unfair?” As I practiced accepting that I don’t have to like these things  it began to neutralize the experience. Now after a few years of practice, I actually smile because it feels like a triumph to have found a solution. (Notice it doesn't work overnight, like anything creative it takes perseverance and practice ... and it doesn't have to be perfect).
 
I also apply it to things that break like favorite ceramics, illusions, and my heart; people who don’t like me, when I'm wrong, losing constantly at Words with Friends to Linda Mushka, the way the world can be so cruel, and any other problem that tries to steal my joy. I share it here in case it might work for you too. We need our energy for our creative passions.

Creativity Out There in the Cyberland:


Draw something soothing: 

Tap your keyboard and make music

Seeing Eyed Dogs for Love Blindness

Dog caught in the wake of a wish on a dandelion

Hi Creative Friends,

"I believe when you stand in the middle of the driveway and wish upon a star for a handsome prince, you get bit by a mosquito and your mom tells you to come in and get a sweater." ~Me at 10 years old

I just recently had my heart broken. All the red flags were there, but ... you know ... love being blind and all. I needed two Seeing Eye Dogs for Love Blindness like the ones below. (They are blind memory drawings because I love how it looks when I draw without looking, it frees me from having to be perfect like I was expected to be in that relationship).

 

I need to look closer before I give my heart but when I take a risk and it doesn't work out, it's fodder for my first love - creativity. Out of the broken heart emerged these seeing eye dogs for blind love ^, (I drew big noses on them so they could sniff out the imposters including myself), this funny speech, a blues song I quite fancy (lyrics available upon request), and a renaissance of creativity as I returned to my own authenticity -- which, despite my tenure as a self-help author, I compromised.

And yet I am still a hopeless romantic, I still believe in princes, I'm still nine years old in my heart. I never want to lose the innocence and imagination that goes into wishing but at this age I know that if those wishes don't come true, or if the idea doesn't translate, if the result of sharing my work does live up to my wish, if I don't get the writing residency in Taos... I'll be okay. I'll wake up and create again. I'll love again. I'll laugh.

I'll write and even dance.

In the creative process we create more than the writing and the art. We create ourselves as more powerful beings. I've built my tolerance muscle in the creative process for Things Not Turning Out As I Wish - and that muscle now applies to life and saves me from sinking in a quick sand of despair. I don't pretend to be happy when things don't work out, but I can accept that I don't have to always like it when that happens, life is full of loss and pain. And grace and joy.

I shall go to Scotland in August and visit the castles ....

“Love is a circular emotion that surrounds you, like a hug. Or a noose.” ― Jarod Kintz

“My love is meatloaf flavored. I just wish my meatloaf was also meatloaf flavored.” ― Dora J. Arod

“I run like I have cirrus clouds for legs and rainbow knees. What is life, if not a marathon of love?
” ― Jarod Kintz  

It's Monday: Thought You Could Use a Hummingbird

When you are convinced that all the exits are blocked,
either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.
The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose,
only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it.
The worst is not death but being blind,
blind to the fact that everything about life
is in the nature of the miraculous.
~Henry Miller, Miraculous kind of an enlightened writer guy

 

Concerning that quote up there^ by Henry Miller? If you want it right under your nose, it's in the front of my book, The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard).

I found it important enough to put there because reading it shifts my entire existence ... sort of like a miracle does ... kind of like imagination can ... certainly how inspired thinking will when I remember to apply it to my life.

When I forget about the creative powers we have, I am convinced the exits are blocked:

The exits from heartache, the endless inner-loop of the blathering high-pressured commands, or irritable anxiety about the current destabilization of our country. The exits from growing old, from all the mistakes I made, from the constant inner taunting of "I'm not enough" are blocked... But they're not.

There's a door that opens the same time our mind does. EXACTLY. Time it.

When I pay attention to all I have and all I am right now, I can to choose to do what I love, instead of feeling forced to do anything in any way... period. I can defy the trance of never feeling enough and experience the bliss of enough.

When I pay attention to the flight of the hummingbird, the purr of the new kitten, the way the soundtrack in a movie transports me to a mood, the way a mood moves me to a poem, the way a poem heals my pain, and the way caramelized onions taste so much better than the grilled ones, I am in concert with the little miracles of being alive which is much better than staring at the graffiti on the doors I've perceived closed.

The creative mind gifts us with defining miracles however our we choose and in doing so, being in constant wonder instead of chronic crankiness. Creativity is a miraculous antidote to the craziness in the world.

And all it takes is a question: What's one small step I can take next in my passion and can I do it without putting a lot of pressure on myself because it's the pressure that leads to resistance)? Okay, that was two questions and some parentheses.

Or have a five minute tryst with your creativity's passion - see where it leads.

Albert Einstein said, "There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle."

What would it feel like to believe just 5% more in the miracle?

Some interesting links:

The Miracle of Paying Attention

The Magic of Perseverance Elephant-style

 Workshops and Trainings

 

It's Monday, Do You Know Where Your Strange Jewels Are?

 

Hi Creative Friends, 

Elizabeth Gilbert writes:

“The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.”  
 So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”   
 

When I sit with that quote for a moment, maybe even close my eyes and imagine strange jewels waiting to be found, I become eager to take a step in my writing. I know I have the courage, but I get stuck with all the mental games my blocks rally around so that step needs to be tiny or like a defiant child, I won't take it.

 

If I berate myself for not showing up sooner or if the step is not broken down so small it's hard not to do it, chances are I'll resist, procrastinate, crumble into disappointment and eat a lot of cashews. This does not beget more diligence. I'll check Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email and repeat - ad infinitum and then not respect myself for the time that will never be again.  I don't think to myself... "Ack, too much pressure, I think I'll swerve to the hollow reward of immediate gratification," I just do it because it's a habit and feels familiar.

 

I now have new habits that lead to more creative contentment and productivity.

 

I remember to show-up for with the small step of simply opening a document or setting up my space for art supplies.  Or I take a walk and daydream about what next step I could take. Those are my habits. Making it mechanical makes it enticing and easy. Trying to motivate myself with the thought, "I shall now create a masterpiece like no other" make it intimidating   The rest takes care of itself because I've started a very low pressure momentum and am so dazzled by the possible strange treasures to discover, that I stay and unearth them. 

 

What tiny mechanical step can you take to start a treasure bound momentum? 

Nurture your creativity. Here's a 45 minute workshop from Mother's Day.

Click here to download

Click here to listen on your computer

 

Creative Call + Deep Longing = Overcoming Resistance

 All sorts of subterranean dynamics ranging from messages we received in early childhood to our concentration hijacked habitually by fixations with media and the refrigerator are stealing our time and rendering us creatively pissed.  I either have to abide to my creative calling or be cranky. It's a law. 

Creative call + do something to answer it = content, generous, kind, energetic, cordial, witty, insightful (at times, grandiose)

Creative call + ignore/avoid/resist it = cranky

 Kahlil Gibran said: There is a space between man’s imagination and
mans attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

• Evidently longing is important for traversing big spaces. 
• How's your longing doing?
• Does it need to be longer, deeper, more nourished? 
• Take a moment now, (I'll wait), and recall why you were drawn to the whatever endeavor you may not be getting to as much as you'd like. What was the allure in the first place?
• Write it down, obsess about it, think about it constantly. (For the next several decades)
• This question works in marriage counseling -- creativity is like a relationship:
  What drew you and your creativity together in the first place?
• Remember what it feels like when you're in that timeless, ageless flow with your creative passion. You can do this while showering, walking, feeding the cat, or shaving. 
• Or other activities work as well. 
• This exercise ramps up your longing.
• Evidently longing is important for traversing. 
• Simply ask: What would it feel like to render distractions useless by ramping up my longing?
• You may need to tweak your focus, your approach, your technique just a tad so it best matches up with what would spark a more passionate devotion. 
• Remember what has worked in the past- it has treasures, strength, and proven successes handy for application to the present.

  

Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching

How Tolerance is Essential to Perserverance

 

Download Permission to SLIP Up

 

“Take the first step in faith.
You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
~Confucius

 

On this day that honors a man who taught tolerance, I'd like to propose another kind of tolerance that will make your creative life easier if you buy into it. If you don't, good luck.

 

  Once I decided creativity was going to be my life, I knew I had to either develop a "tolerance muscle" or be among the 85% that gives up on their dreams because they have an unrealistic expectation of accomplishing things quickly, easily, and the way they look in their minds.

(hahahaha snort haha). 

 

Creativity has another plan for us.  She says, this isn't about getting your way immediately, it's about searching the depths of your soul to muster up devotion to a process who's rewards go far beyond your acrylic landscape or chapter four in your book. Perhaps the world never showed any faith in you.... do you have the strength to show faith in yourself by showing-up for your creative call? Can you show-up if not for the product, for the process of being true to yourself? Don't worry about showing-up perfectly - do it as inconsistently as possible if you must.

 

 To stay on the path of my passion I got to tolerate my ineptness, blunders, inadvertently published typos, and the fact that my painting and writing didn't look like other people stuff that I liked a lot. I got to tolerate projects taking three and four times as long as I planned, hitting walls, looking foolish and coming face to face with my ugly shadows. I got to tolerate my habits of procrastination and continually starting something new without completing anything. I got to tolerate people not liking me, thinking I'm strange, unsubscribing from my newsletter, not "getting" my art. I got to tolerate proposals getting rejected and once, I got to tolerate ripping up my favorite painting because I was looking at the wrong side.  If you're a warrior, you've tolerated these things too.  And changing the language from "I had to tolerate ..." to "I got to ...." makes it clear that it was an honor to do that for myself. 

 

Self-love is required to stay the course and in that love you discover an unmatched contentment which is a light for the contentment of others. I like being strange.

 

Creativity reassures you that when you passionately persevere through the tumult of detractors, the reward is far beyond the painting and the piece of writing.  Creativity awards you with a strength, self-respect, and confidence that applies to every area of your life, breaking limitations, presenting a new perception that widens your existence beyond what you formerly knew what was possible. There's a faith that you can get through anything, have the company of, and share with the world, your brilliance.

Along those same lines, here's my interview last year with the illustrious Nikol Peterson- The Unstoppable Artist:

Audio: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fpf74leuwp2ouja/Jill%20Badonsky%20AUDIO%20only.mp3?dl=0

 

Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aeqinjho45gj63c/Jill%20Badonsky%20VIDEO%20Interview.mp4?dl=0

 

Creativity, Politics, and Digestive Problems

I have digestive problems. I’m one of those creative people some call an empath, others consider highly sensitive, and my family deemed, “Oh, why do you have to be so sensitive?”

Nevertheless my creativity runs on sensitivity so despite its inconvenience, despite it being a pain in the ass when my feelings get easily hurt and I get irritable from the noise other people tolerate, I’m grateful for my sensitivity.

Sensitivity not only gives me profound spiritual experiences in nature, helps me design creative work for my audience, it also feeds the intuition that wakes up when it senses an overheard conversation could be the first line of a poem or when an image wants to be painted in my whimsical style.

The highly sensitive nature of being creative finds that clouds are more than dry air mixed with water drops. Joni Mitchell recalls that they are angel air and ice cream castles, Paul Simon’s thoughts are cloudy -- “They echo and they swell from Tolstoy to Tinker Bell”, and they’re in Carly Simon’s coffee.

So why do I have digestive problems? One of my theories is that what is happening in the world, our country – our sweet land of liberty – is disturbing and hard to digest. It’s worse than a bad burrito.

When you’re a sensitive creative person you may find yourself experiencing metaphors literally. You may have a hard time digesting the news therefore your turkey club sandwich just sits in your belly and fatigues you. You may have a leaky gut because you have a hard time setting boundaries with yourself and the world's consternation.

Creativity is also my go-to for almost all my maladies because I’ve immersed myself in writing and art for many years and the resourcefulness, tenacity, and flexibility required to endure the ebb and flow of the creative process are also available for confronting what life throws at me. It throws a lot.

On Facebook today I posted one of those feel-good posts about our need to love everyone not just the people that love us. A friend asked this:

"Nice sentiment. How do you love the neighbors and countrymen who elected Donald Trump for their leader and the congress who is dismantling every progressive, cultural, financial, gender based, environmental, and educational achievements we've made in the last few decades? I’m trying but it’s hard to keep an open heart. Pointers appreciated from anyone out there. It hurts to be a hater."

Excellent question.

As a recovering perfectionist, I know I can’t go from disgust to love. But I know now that unlike a perfectionist’s thinking, the world is not either black or white. It’s not either disgust or love. There are others ways to process love. Being in disgust all the time is not loving myself, it gave me have an allergy to rice, night shades and waffles.

Expectations can psych us out. We simply avoid, dismiss, or give-up when expecting ourselves to love a president we feel is destroying our country. I will probably never love President Trump and those who refuse to save us from his infantile bullying and narcissism. I have some empathy for the lost and discouraged who believe in him, but not the government officials who know he’s not good for our country and do nothing. But if I continually condemn him in my mind because I can’t fathom how he got in office or why he is still there, I’m in a world of condemnation and can’t eat anything but a blended spinach, blueberry, and collagen powder shake. 

Everything we think and say affects the way we feel. If you’re highly sensitive, how you feel affects your health. We are wandering around in disgust and getting sick. Curiosity not only feels better, it also opens our centers of creativity for EVERYTHING.

Questions move me from toxic thoughts and feelings to curious ones. Creative thoughts and feelings not only are healing, they are either neutral or enjoyable. The questions don’t even need answers. The simple asking of them shift your internal landscape.

Question Medicine:

Which one of these questions are you willing to use to replace your disgust?

• What would it feel like to be kinder to my body right now by choosing kinder thoughts?
• What would it feel like to love people who do things I don't like?

You don't have to love them, just wonder about the question.

At the very least asking these questions feel better and do more for my health than the things my smaller mind obsesses about when I'm not able to digest the weirdness happening.

If if that doesn't work, I seek the healing sphere of painting clouds in bowls or writing words about imaginary worlds. 

Lunch break.

Join me in a Journey of Creative Spirituality this January 2018.
Finding Uber Bliss: A Wildly Creative Journey to the Present Moment 

 

Don't Fall in the Fountain

 

 

“Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually
recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited
reservoir of self. Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.”
~Vera Nazarian

 

Don't fall in the fountain. 

 

Originally developed by Abraham Maslow in 1964, "peak experiences" are described as
"rare, exciting, oceanic, <(really?!), deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter."

 

I've been swimming a mile at La Jolla cove at sunrise a couple times a week for the past couple of years. I'm accompanied by sea lions, Garibaldi fish, pelicans, occasionally my friend Reba, and sometimes, off in the distance, I can see dolphins and whales romping . One day, Jonathan Livingston seagull floated by and said "Baaach!" I think he meant Richard Bach.

 

The activity feels like a peak experience; Maslow is nodding. In fact I actually say to myself, THIS is a peak experience as I watch the sun emerge from the clouds, feel the waves' perpetual cycling and relish the water suspending me. I'm not sure if announcing that to myself counts but despite the current way of the world and the daily dribble of my life, when I'm swimming at dawn, there's nothing there but the ocean and a space for creative ideas to float by my consciousness. Bliss.

 

 

I'm present with this sea because my focus on the creative process has prepared me for it. Focusing on the creative process is practice with being present with every aspect of being alive, not just my art and writing. And in a world where focus is constantly hijacked by the myriad of shiny and chocolate covered things, that's a blessing.

 

Creativity requires a love affair with the present moment –it is the pinnacle of mindfulness because in the creative process we are lost IN the moment. And it is here where our spirit is alive with expression and we are experiencing a freedom like nothing else.

What if we were so present with THIS moment, the one we're in right NOW, that we would be able to write about it two months from now? You don't have to do that, but what if you played with the possibility? What feelings, sensations, visuals, realizations are in this moment for you? What do you notice about your mind when you do that? Is there more space? Let's go for oceanic.

 

What love affair is all about being present for you?

 

Quotes like the one with the mermaid at the top are inspiring … but how do you put it into

operation?  How indeed, do you begin to experience yourself as an ocean of consciousness versus a fountain circulating the same thoughts over and over?

Habits drive us, are familiar and comfortable, and when life isn’t as comfortable as we’d like, they take over more than ever.

 

Finding the Ocean :

1. Remind myself that there may be more possibilities than what’s currently circulating. I ask small questions: What tiny way can I look at my world differently? How can I  approach my creativity differently? Withe curious expectation? Childlike fascination? Mischievous irreverence? Chocolate coated? What new thinking can I expand into? Just asking is enough but if you do this, be ready to write things down should they bubble up from the depths of your uniqueness.
   
   
2. Expose myself to something inspiring and ask the small question: How does this inspire my own version of creativity?
   
   
3. Set the stage for expansion. When I’m feeling resistant toward starting, sometimes simply doing something mechanical to get me out of my habitual zombie avoidant strategies makes it easier for the creative work to happen. Opening a file, reading a passage, listening to a podcast, going for a walk or a drive, reading a quote. None of those bring up resistance, all of them set the stage for the next small expansive step.

I have to remember to routinely reset my thinking settings from "fountain" to "OCEAN."  Less pigeons that way.

David Crosby as a Modern Day Muse

 From a recent NPR interview about his creative process, David Crosby shows he a disciple of the Modern Day Muse, Albert:

“’If you want to talk about something you can't go straight at it,’ he says. ‘It doesn't work that way. If you want to write about the Eiffel Tower you don't say, 'It's big and it's tall and it's made out of iron!' You don't. You look at the Eiffel Tower through somebody's eyes who's watching it in the mist over their lover's head. In Paris. On a quiet night. And then, you see the Eiffel Tower.’”

 When the Muses were upgraded to the Nine Modern Day Muses, Albert, the Muse of Thinking Differently became part of the pack, (named after Albert Einstein, one of our most innovative rule breakers).

Albert teaches that thinking differently is easier when contemplating what everyone else sees but using a different perspective,  trigger or trick to sacrifice the obvious in the name of the novel. Free associating, modifying what's in existence, deviating from the directions, defying the predictable, combining two unrelated concepts... this is the art of discovering a "different" often brilliant idea.

 Test-driving the Powers of the Modern Day Muse, Albert

• What's one way you can think differently about your next creative move? 
• Write about your creative project as if you were looking at it through someone else’s eyes: A child’s, an  intellectual, a down-to-earth hippie, someone greatly in need of whatever it is you are doing.

Joni Mitchell as a Modern Day Muse: Both Sides of Ideas

 

"Aha-phrodite" inspires mortals to pay attention.

She's a modern day Muse from my first book The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): 10 Guides to Creative Inspiration which was about ten creative principles personified as nine new and improved Muses and the all-important, Bodyguard.  The Greek Muses were rendered obsolete because they couldn’t keep up with the modern day distractions including Netflix, Facebook, and computer solitaire so a new gaggle of Muses was required to get creative inspiration to mortals. That’s what Muses do. 

Each Muse has a story about how she or he, (yes... he) were part of the new Muse upgrade. Included in each of their chapters is their power to free the modern day mortal’s creative potential, hobbies, modes of transportation, quotes from great creative people inspired by each Muse, and a treasure trove of creative prompts that demonstrate their prowess and give you an opportunity to test drive their powers as your own.

Despite the whimsical humor, these are ten legitimately practical ways to go deeper with your creativity and move you through all the blockades to which mortals typically butt heads. When we listen to the voices of fear and ego we get stuck. Our creative voices empower us... if we pay attention to them. The modern day Muses are the voices of creativity. Those Muse principles are here.

What brings their principles alive in a way we can relate are stories from people who have been visited by these Muses (whether they know it or not), accompanied by questions that your creative mind will want to ponder in a way that makes someone else’s story a catalyst in your own journey.

I just heard such a story yesterday on NPR’s morning edition where Joni Mitchell was described as David Crosby's Aha-phrodite :

“Crosby says his habit of writing anything and everything down came from a lesson Joni Mitchell taught him.

"I said something to her and she said, 'Write that down,'" he recounts. "I said, 'Huh?' She said, 'Write that down!' I said, 'Why?' 'Because it was good! If you don't write it down, it didn't happen.'"

It seemed like such basic advice, but became an important part of Crosby's creative process.

In fact, he put Mitchell's lesson to use in a song called ‘Sell Me A Diamond.’ Its hook includes the lyric, ‘You said it was conflict free / Such a beautiful concept, that such a thing could be,’ which came from a phrase he heard that caught his ear.”

Writing down what you notice that can become fodder for creative alchemy requires PAYING ATTENTION. Joni Mitchell was Crosby's Aha-phrodite.

You hear interesting phrases or see something that triggers creative possibility?

Simple things out of context like Crosby’s example "conflict free" can be great springboards for titles, writings, lyrics, photographs, painting. Take a moment and think of what you might write and envision for those words.

Are you aware that you sometimes say and think things that are really “good” maybe even if you don’t think so? Write them down! Anne Lamott says, always have paper and pen and if you can’t have paper, at least have a pen because you can write on your hand.

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