The Muse is IN Blog

Hanging with Our Creativity

  I noticed that when I hang out with my creativity, it wants to hang out with me. Just thinking about it can be enough for me to break through resistance to a tiny step which then leads to a momentum.  Writing and reading about creativity does the same thing, so I thought I'd share these ideas, in case reading them helps you.

Five Ways to Hang with Our Creativity

1. First: Wash out distractions 
   They may be lodged deep in the fabric of our habits so we shouldn't fret if they don't come out immediately. Rather than trying to move away from distractions, it works better if we entice ourselves by co-oping the pleasure centers of our brain. Let's make it fun and remember why we are doing it.
   
   
2. Hang in Originality
   Let's hang our creativeness outside our rut, our tired-out routines. Best way to do this is simply by asking the question: How can I make this different? Immediate answers may arrive, but more often simply asking will begin a series of connections and percolations, and the answer will come gradually.
   
   
3. Hang with Your Breath and with Mindfulness
   Let's allow the breeze to wash over the tapestry of who we are. Judgments, fears, and other unhelpful thoughts don't go away completely, so just allow them to be there, but give more attention to small helpful thoughts like "I can do this."
   
   
4. And then Listen.
   OVER HERE... our wondering minds need to settle on the voice inside that's been trying to get through. If we take most the distractions off the line every now and then, originality has a chance to light our mind. Be patient.  Set a timer for 15 minutes and stay focused during that time. If we are aware of the steps we have taken and acknowledge each step we do take, we are more likely to show up over and over.
   

For Optional Genius-inducing Sheen:
Ask questions and don't expect an immediate answer. Questions start the creative spin cycle both consciously and sub-consciously. Here are some examples:

• What small fresh twist can I add to this idea?
• What if my idea could talk to me?
• What would I say if I was telling the world about my idea?
• How can I make showing up for my creativity easier?

What if I approached my idea:

• With really big gestures of action?
• With unfettered courage?
• From a really narrow point of view?
• With reckless abandon?
• With sympathy and tenderness?
• Pretending I'm the foremost world expert?
• As if I didn't care so much about it?
• As if my mission was to save the world with each tiny step I took?
• As if I was extremely confident?
• With as much love as possible
• As if I were a  gypsy, boat captain, a goof-ball, superhero or 5 year old child?

 Hang with the possibilities. Entertain the absurd because absurd often associates to  genius. Keep your creative passion in your mind in between activities, while driving, walking, downloading, showering, and/or staring at your lampshade. The more you hang with your creativity, the deeper the colors.

 Or just maybe your mind is on overwhelm, in static oblivion, on the multitasking freeway of focuslessness, beating yourself up, or expecting waaaay too much. I know what you mean. Relax, lower the pressure, start with five minutes.

I'm Just Not Creative... Ugh

 

“I’m just not creative.”

“I can’t draw like that.”

“I wish I could write, but I can’t.

“This isn’t good enough.”

“I’m not good at art.. writing… etc.”

I want everyone to experience the province of creative delight the way I do… yet, I wasn’t always in this place of liberation myself, so… there’s that. Maybe you hear those things too, if so, consider passing this on. The world is a better place when we’re creative.

Most of these insecurities and untruths come from unmet expectations; expectations that are unrealistic, dare I say, to a delusional degree. These are expectations to immediately know how to do something and be good at it. Also included in this array of delusions is expecting that if you’ll get good at something, it will always be easy.

When we compare ourselves to others, we are also under the influence of delusional thinking. We compare ourselves to the work of people who HAVE put the work in. But comparison is a typical human punishment conspired by our fear-based consciousness. Let’s ascend the consciousness ladder a bit, into the realm of creative practicality where real progress can be made. Here's an article about Comparison that might help.

 

Mary Oliver is a Gateway Drug

Poet, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg wrote, “[Mary] Oliver’s writing is a gateway drug to poetry, gently and fiercely cajoling would-be readers into the wilds of the shining earth and living poem… Oliver’s poems landed on thousands of refrigerator doors and in multitudes of journals, scribbled by people at wit’s end finding solace in the questions she asked, such as ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?’”
 
My poet friend, david brydges, shared that, “Much of Oliver’s inspiration was going for walks in the woods with her dog and observing. She even hid pencils in trees so she would not forget to write down anything.”
 
 
I’d like to complete the equation from two paragraphs above and surmise that one way this wild and precious life will come alive is to pay attention (and hide pencils in trees).
 

In other words, write things down!
They do not have to be the fantastic; the "normal" is filled with poetry too.

 
I don't know about you, but my attention is often captive to a habitual loop of required daily activities, chaos in the news, curious meanderings of social media, as well as teaching, marketing, healthy fats, hair balls, rock and roll, and the perplexing but delicate nature of relationships – and within that merry-go-round I can forget to pay attention to the creative possibilities inherent in everything. Including mundane trivial happenings.

When I amuse myself with creative inner commentary about my merry-go-round world, using humor to survive the chaos in the news, making social media a playground of prompts, stirring my passion with new approaches to teaching, and observing those nutty cats! -- I am at a low pressured vantage point of practicing paying attention to easy creative prospects. Thinking something different about the usual things in our lives is a gateway drug to poetry and art.  People put so much pressure on themselves to produce astounding works when "simple" is the place to start.
 

What’s right in front of our noses is art and poetry waiting to alchemize a rut into an original. We can simply start with the question:

How can I think differently about the simple things in my world?

 

Write Now:

Take 30 seconds and write down three things you see right now. They can be simple, mundane things but add two specific details to each of those three things; perhaps add a feeling or commentary about them.

If you’re into sketching, sketch something right in front of you, but embellish it with an attitude or a random addition.

 
Take away any need to be brilliant, precise, or articulate because those are expectations that keep people from trying at all. Simply be curious, like an anthropologist studying the emanations of poetry and art waiting for you to notice them. Find a tree of pencils, pull one out, and record them without care that what transpires, wins a prize, or impresses your followers:
 

• A silk poinsettia leftover from Christmas is watching me from underneath my dresser, laughing at my laziness for leaving it there but pleased that it wasn’t stuffed in the box with the snowman ornaments.
• My chaotic bookshelf is my rebellion against becoming so ordered that my life is no longer an art installation of a messy human.
• My kitten fetches pipe cleaners obsessively like a huntress bringing the booty home, 100 times only to have it thrown out to retrieve again.

 
This exercise takes seconds, can turn the small things around us into poetry or art, (even if they are really rough first drafts that go nowhere), and is an act of healing creative transcendence. We are refusing to get lost in the blind hypnosis of routine and the fear-mongering media which erodes our creative capacity. We are choosing to exalt our existence by wrapping it in the attention of a Muse.
 

“Instructions for living a life. 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.”

~Mary Oliver

Escaping the Incarceration

I was in prison for eight years.

Okay, I taught yoga in a military prison for eight years. The men in my classes weren’t hardened criminals like the big institutional reformatories. Just ones caught in drug and … sexual offenses. Okay, some of them were a little scary.

On the other hand, many of the women did really bad stuff because this particular facility was one of the only women’s brigs in the country. I wasn’t allowed to ask them what they did to receive a prison sentence but when one of the guards said, “She’s a lifer,” I had a pretty good guess. No judgment, I only had compassion for these women. My only concern was that they learn some yoga because I know what yoga can do.

Before the prison gig, I taught yoga for Jack-in-the-Box corporate headquarters and a smattering of women’s spas and wellness centers for many years, but the reward in those establishments was not even within a downward facing dog of teaching yoga to prisoners.

I taught two classes in a row every Monday night, one for “females” and one for “males,” as they were called to reduce their identity from the more personal “men and women”

In the prison yoga class, I instructed the prisoners to find the freedom inside of themselves. In a place where you first are stripped of your identity and then stripped of your freedom because of a crime you commit, finding freedom inside yourself can be a means of survival and reform.

The paradox was not lost on me nor the guards watching my class, when I instructed the prisoners to “reconnect with yourself by going inside to that inner sanctuary where you are undisturbed by anyone or anything on the outside. There you will find a freedom no one can take away from you.” The prisoners liked hearing this, I liked reminding myself of it, the guards … not so much on liking but they did get some eye-rolling in which can be considered a form of yoga if it's paired with a breath.

The stress of life itself can feel like wearing shackles, but with stretch, breathing, the invitation to let go, the physical feeling of relief, you can experience a freedom that defies words and walls… and depression.

Having no real incident preceding being depressed makes you look like a sadness imposter. Most people don’t realize that you can snap out of a depression in much the same way you can snap out of diabetes. You can’t. People also don’t understand why you are stuck in this place especially when your life looks so shiny from the outside.

Allie Brosh nails depression in her book Hyperbole and a Half. Here’s just one example from the two chapters those of us who experience depression are grateful she wrote:

“I tried to force myself not to be depressed. But trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn’t going to work. … I followed myself around like a bully narrating my thoughts and actions with a constant stream of abuse.”    

If you’re doing it “right,” you cannot help but be kind to yourself when you are doing yoga.

Yoga is one of the only ways I can move from feeling rigidly stuck in a place of anguish and inertia to one where I fold, twist, stretch and move my body out of the immobilization I feel with the debilitation. Depression makes breathing shallow; yoga focuses on deepening the breath as a life force and meets you where you are with compassion.

The shackles melted and I was able to reconnect with that place where depression is an observation, not an incarceration. Even in the midst of despair, joy can be accessed without compromise, but it takes willingness, practice, and intention. It may not happen the first 10 times. Putting the body in a nurturing motion such as yoga strengthens the spirit. The spirit is resilient. Instead of holding onto the pain and discomfort of life, we can release it just as we release the tension of a yoga stretch and feel a surge of energy.

We can be freed whether it’s in a place or a state in which we have found ourselves stuck. It doesn’t need to be a formal hour and a half yoga class, it can be 10 minutes on our living room floor. I break my resistance to starting by giving myself permission just to do one dogward-facing dog. That’s the extrinsic motivation; once started, the desire to do more becomes intrinsic –- which is the more important and lasting motivation.

There’s a freedom to be found in yoga, whether it’s five minutes or eight years. It’s a breath and a stretch away. I wish that on you.

 

Etch-a-Sketch Mind

It is in those moments when our intuition can get through all the chatter in the monkey mind that we hear our soul entice us with possible stories alchemized from our hardships into prose, give us ideas on how we can breathe new energy into that landscape by painting the sky pink, and reinforce our place in the world of creativity.
 
To me, the feeling of words are powerful in shifting me from a stressed state of mind to one that is receptive to my inner world of creative wisdom. Here are some words I use, maybe they'll work for you:
 
1. Breathe in ... and as you breathe out imagine all your tension falling to the earth and melting like a snowflake. (Repeat as often as needed).

 
2. Imagine the chatter that is not serving you in your mind as scribbles on an Etch-a-Sketch

 
3. If you're practicing mindfulness, you can just be curious about this phenomenon of chatter-scribble, observing it from a compassionate witness consciousness. Our minds chatter, trying to get rid of it completely isn't realistic.  Just observe and return your attention to the melting of the breath into the body.
 
4. Imagine shaking your etch-a-sketch mind gently and allowing those chatter lines to form a beautiful scene that reminds you of the masterpiece that you are:

 

 
5. Or allow your Etch-a-sketch to go blank then, close your eyes and imagine a benevolent soul writing a message on it that is kind and inspiring. What did you get?  I got: "Make it easier."

6. Then ask a small question without needing an answer. Here are some I ask:

 

• How can I make this easier?
• What's one small way I can do this project differently in line with my originality?
• How can I make this fun?
• What do I love about my creative time?

 
Pay attention. You may effortlessly gravitate toward answers.

Make it Easy: Breathe

Breathe in vitality, Breathe out Art

SELF-KINDNESS - A Realistic Approach

Being a recovering perfectionist, I am intimately familiar with the inner tyrant. Perfectionism is my creativity’s evil step-sister and robs the joy of who I am and what I do.... if I'm not equipped with a strategy. Those are big crimes in the realm of being a creative seeker. My inner tyrant committee (cuz there are several) likes to regularly remind me of total mess-ups from my past, how I sometimes squander my time away, and what an organization Neanderthal I am (I hope I haven’t offended an Neanderthals).

I figured out how to be free from her looping oppressive ruminations and party-pooping but it’s a little different from much of the self-help gristle you’ve heard, so stay with me here unless you’re enjoying the harassment.   Making a change has to be done in a realistic way or it will stick as well as throwing a basketball at a refrigerator.

I've read the self-help books that tell you to stop being mean to yourself, heard the talks, perused the inspirational quotes ... but nothing really gave me any method I could truly believe in, or that resonated with who I am. Just telling us to stop cold-turkey is wildly unrealistic but that's what they do.

 

I want to share what I figured out for myself because I know most of you are hard on yourselves and when we are hard on ourselves, we are hard on others too. This is my contribution to world peace.  I'm sure this is not an original philosophy, it's a little of this, a little of that, and a pair of new socks.

 

See if this works for you:

1.  Here’s the reality: As humans we often come with this feature: Looking for what’s wrong. It’s a primitive survival function but we still need it when roaming the back-streets of Detroit, eating food that’s made of crap, or sensing someone is not rallying for our best interest. It also helps at the end of a creative project when we need to be appropriately discerning … but the inner tyrant operates over-time, bonking us on the head with disapproval, judgment, and a lot of sarcastic “REALLY?s” It’s related to the Tasmanian devil in terms of creative destructiveness. It’s also fascinating and would make a great character in a movie.

2. Why fight with reality? Using your energy to stop “stinkin’ thinkin,” (oo, what an ugly term), censor your critic, or tell it to fuck off is using energy you could be using to create something else (I’ll get to “something else” in a minute). Plus when you are censoring, fucking off, and alienating - you are doing that to yourself. Your inner critic IS a part of you, SUrPrISE! Review: Self-love is needed for creativity.

 We need all parts of ourselves for creating – the shadows and the light. We can still love ourselves and accept there are some parts of ourselves that we aren't fond of . Accepting that we DON’T love all parts is a lot like compassion. (I’ll explain more about that conundrum in a minute). In new age circles, I think this saying is dumb: “You can’t afford the luxury of a negative thought.” WE THINK NEGATIVE THOUGHTS. WE ARE HUMAN. I believe this phrase, “What you resist, persists.” Resist the inner critic and she persists and brings in her friends, relatives, flying-monkeys, and jet-packs.

3. Something else: Create art, writing, contentment, whimsical gardens, fantastic dinners but first create a realistic, small-step approach to acceptance and compassion. Here’s how it works REALISTICALLY:

When you catch yourself beating yourself up, pause. Say to yourself, “That’s interesting, I’m beating myself up again. Oh well, I’m human we do those things.” DON’T TRY AND STOP IT.. that’s resisting! Sometimes for me that’s enough to neutralize the tyrant.

4. Accept. You don’t need to accept that you’re a self-beater, but you’re with yourself quite often, so experiment with accepting that you do beat yourself up sometimes and you DON’T like that. We perfectionists think things need to be perfect, that we need to LIKE everything we do … we don’t. But when we ACCEPT that what we do isn’t always the way we want it, life is a lot easier. This is a way not to resist, suppress or deny our tyrant, it neutralizes it. We aren’t perfect… YAY. How boring to be perfect.

5. Interesting People in Your Club (for sensitive people like me): I used to think I needed to abandon places, groups, and events if there was someone I didn’t like there. I almost left my favorite Toastmasters club because a woman in it doesn’t like me, she will never like me, I’m not that fond of her either. We don’t need to like everyone nor do we need to even try to work things out… takes too much energy we need for the people and activities we love. The club has actually become more interesting now that I stay despite that fact that she makes it clear she doesn’t like me. It’s now full of freedom and rich layers of character.

The club inside my mind has a resident tyrant, I don’t like her either, but she can be there if she wants because now instead of being controlled by her or repressing her, I’m curious, fascinated, and not under her dictatorship. I hear her talk, tell her "Thanks for sharing" and then I engage my Muses (explained in #6). I accept that not all parts of me are likable, some are annoying but interesting, just like my Toastmasters "friend".

6. The Creative Voice  But there’s another important step. This one is vital. After the awareness of the tyrant,
after the acceptance and the inclusion of this part of you, summon up your kind and creative voices. These are the voices I call Muses because they inspire creativity. Say to yourself things like:

• You may not be perfect but your damn interesting.
• It’s okay, I’m always here for you.
• So? Next!
• Or anything you might say to your best friend or a gifted creative child.

Say these things CONSTANTLY. Write them on notes, put them in pockets, schedule a future e-card, ask yourself: "How will I remember this?". The only way they will stick is through repetition and ...

8. Making it Realistic

What makes this more realistic? Expecting small steps toward these things works better than making a big change when you’ve spent years cultivating your tyrant and this is how you do that: Accept that you are someone who has a tyrant just 5%, just crack the door open to the possibility. No need to be okay with your tyrant just accept that you’re human and have one. Going for a 100% acceptance will just not work and you’ll have a tendency to give up on the practice completely.

 

Ask: What would it feel like to be more accepting of myself? JUST ASK.. no need for an answer in the moment. Your subconscious will start finding an answer, and the more you ask it, the more you just might find that you are just effortless gravitating toward treating yourself better.

7. Buy Yourself A Comfortable Pair of Socks

It’s a symbolic gesture, feels kind, and you deserve them. You're enough just the way you are. Is your inner critic poo pooing that last remark? So? Be enough anyway.

 

(C) 2018 Jill Badonsky

So What, Sketch it Anyway

Ever feel intimidated by other writers, artists, musicians, or dancers to a degree of despair or paralysis? Me too.

I ventured into travel journaling on my trip to Scotland a few weeks ago. I did this despite fears of messing up the pages of my newly acquired Field Artist 6.5 in. x 6.5 in. Square Watercolor Journal, Hardbound with 80 pgs. 200 GSM, Cold Press Paper.

Those fears came partially from looking at other people's travel journals and KNOWING mine wasn't going to look like theirs.   

Well duh. 

1. Most of those people have been sketching on trips for years. 
2. Why would I want my art to look like everyone else's?
3. I teach about how to avoid the toxicity of comparison, but I'm only immune when I realize it's insidious nature has snuck past the guards standing at the entry way to my mind. I caught it JUST IN TIME not to be thwarted. I have tools. Comparison has been neutralized. Stay calm.

AND I DID mess up a few pages. Turns out I was okay with that. Tolerance to imminent blunders was the ticket to moving pass avoiding the whole experience of venturing into the scary waters of trying to render buildings, events, people [yikes!] and me sleeping on the plane right there in the exalted moment, bringing that moment more alive than is possible when snapping a photo - and practicing (because I'm not perfect at it) loving myself despite not flowing in my usual area of adequacy.

 

That's another reason people avoid these life-deepening episodes that could turn them on to an endeavor that makes their life more juicy: They fear inadequacy, but common sense tells us we must go through inadequacy before we find sporadic quality. Only a handful of people have a hall pass for instant talent and those people STILL need to practice. 

  

One of the most popular fears in the creative process is: "I won't be good enough." 

So, here's a thought. Don't be good enough. Use that illustrious imagination you have and give yourself permission to make your first journal part of an installation in a modern art museum.  Call it Floundering Sketcher With Her "Interesting*" Travel Journal

That's what I did and it worked. I even had myself a peanut butter s'more during one of my sessions. Let's put all our first sketchbooks in that exhibit and celebrate that WE DID SKETCHED DESPITE OUR FEARS. (And drew a blind contour Americano which made it fun.) 

If you have permission to show-up no matter what... you WILL get better. It's a mathematical reality.

*my mom used to called my art "interesting" as a way of being nice because she didn't get it. Not everyone is our audience and that's okay too.

Here's one of my favorite replies to fear's claim,
"You're not going to be good enough:

 

"So?"

[In my best snotty adolescent voice, fear hates that]

 

Vincent van Gogh knew:

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,'

then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

 

1. I actually liked my sketches more than I thought I would, placing me in that, “I’m-glad-I-did this-cuz-I-almost-chickened-out-and-now-I have-cool-mementos-of-my-trip-that-I-would'nt-have-had-and-I-want-to-do-this-again mode:
   
2. Many of them didn't suck.
3. But I love the ones that suck anyway....because it's good practice for the inevitable ones that will suck in the future and the writing that won't be that good and the ukelele playing - well, that's never very good... among the sporadic masterpieces.

 

 .

 

Sketch Guru and prolific author, Danny Gregory describes how wonderful it is to sketch when you travel:

“When you sit and draw something, all of your senses are on. Study Notre Dame for half an hour and you will never forget it,.  Draw the plaza outside St Paul and it will be seared into your brain cells. Not just the sights but the smells, the sounds, the temperature, all of it.  While I draw, I am experienced life in super high definition.”

I will be speaking about:

1. These and other tools,
2. Experiences in exalted creativity 
   
3. More sketches, blunders, tangents, Bermuda Triangles, castles, and epiphanies at Sketchkon in Pasadena in November.
4. Join Danny Gregory, Austin Kleon, Jane LaFazio and a whole slue of other amazing artists and inspirational souls.

 What about you? How do you show up when you're intimidated?

  

Edinburgh, Jazz Bar August 30 

Rumi will Gently Lead You to Your Creative Passion

When I was a miniature muse, I was a wild child -- rarely disciplined by my parents to be or do anything in a certain way. Perhaps, they were afraid of me because my real mom was Ruler of the Amazons and dad was Zeus… Oh wait, that’s not me, that’s some wondrous bracelet-wearing woman. But I was an imaginative and willful imp who liked to do things my way, which is not rare in the land of creative kids. Maybe you were a wild child too and that’s why we get along so well.
 
My parents kinda gave up.
 

The good news is because of the no-discipline-thing no-supervision thing, wolves raised me. Dang, that wasn’t me either, that kid hung-out with a bear. I wish! Back to the good news: I didn’t experience the limitations that came from parental discipline.
 
In fact, I had to figure out myself how life worked which, although a little lonely, made me ruggedly independent, boldly confident, and comfortable with owning many of my imperfections – which is a form of freedom I’m grateful for and encourage you to try if you’re trying to defend being perfect. It came from experiencing frequent errors involved in the trial and error of trying to figure out how to maneuver through life; either you learn acceptance or live under a bed (dust bunnies don't like that).
 
The bad news is, with no opportunity to develop internalized discipline, the shoulds, have-tos, or directives from myself to show-up were (and still are), met with rebelliousness because as a wild creative child I had the words, YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, stamped on my forehead. That means I was the one I was rebelling against most of the time, I was my own worse enemy and it was a struggle to get to my creative passions. It’s not anymore because I don’t tell myself what to do anymore.
 
Despite lack of discipline, I did stuff I’m really proud of like designing three trainings, writing and illustrating four books; having a body of art work; writing and performing a full length one woman show; writing creative speeches; helping a myriad of people use an original approach to creativity coaching, and playing two and half songs on the ukulele.
 
It’s not about being perfect, because some days I rebel against having to do anything, and I know that’s okay because acceptance is freedom
 

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

~Rumi

 Rumi:
 I let myself be silently drawn to the things I love. Rumi, of course, is right. Being drawn to what I love IS a stronger, more enticing and therefore more effective than pressuring myself do things. Instead of discipline and following the often rigid directions that many claim to be the only way to succeed, I find that focusing on what I love about what I do makes showing up effortless.  What we focus on becomes our world.
 
Focus on your procrastination, resistance, and inability to show-up, focus on what others are doing and you’re NOT doing, focus on not feeling good enough, that becomes your world too. And if that’s been your usual focus, it’s going to take a little ruthless practice to shift.  Love is often the answer, and it is in this circumstance too. “Only love can truly save the world.” ~ Wonder Woman said that and here’s how I want to translate that for you – love will save your creativity. Practice loving your creative call, before, during and after answering it. Make love toward what you do as much of a skill as the sport of writing, art, and living.
 

• What do you love about your creative passion? Ask that, close your eyes, and see how many things you can conjure up. 
• How can you show up for yourself with love?
• How does your creative call love you? (suspend logic all you literal thinkers).

Ask those questions without needing an immediate answer and watch what happens.
When we show-up with love not only is the process sweeter, we are likely stay longer and perseverance is in the top three qualities of successful (and content) creative people.

 

Parallel Universe Time Mondays! FREE
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