When Your Head Explodes
Despite the provocative title, this post is NOT about self-destruction, or really any other kind of explosion.
It is about how to avoid that, in a world, and a time, when everyone is overloaded, overstimulated, overwhelmed, and maybe just barely keeping themselves from going over the top.
What to do when conflicting demands, world crises, the seemingly ever-faster passage of time, and the never-ending allure and addiction of the internet challenge our time management skills?
Well, in many cases we may need to do what one of my students did in a recent workshop….create
…and make lemonade out of lemons, and not the other way around.
One way to do this is to, as I term it, “Slow it all down” and take a breath, take a moment, and if you are engaged in a task, really concentrate on it, focus, and allow yourself to be drawn into its magic, and even its mystery. Allow your attention to be captured, and the results may be unexpectedly healing, centering, renewing, and revitalizing.
I did this recently, when in a moment of feeling conflicting demands, needs, commitments, desires and possibilities, including the need to post on my Artissimablog, took a moment, and focused on my HOUZZ design blog posts. Some of you may subscribe to this amazing entity…and receive, like I do, hundreds of fascinating, applicable and glorious posts, images, ideas and blurbs a week.
Hard to keep up with, and I have moved from reading EVERYTHING/EVERY ONE, to just those that truly fall within my current central focus of interest: color, art integration, decorative painting, D.Y.I., small spaces, the handmade, hands-on, bespoke, vintage, re-purposed and recycled. Plenty to keep anyone busy. However, often I am rushing through them, just to get them “done”, read, checked off my ever-lengthening “to-do list”. Not always really taking the material in; like flipping through a magazine, and not really reading.
Well, on this particular day, for whatever reason, despite feeling like I needed to and should do a host of other things, I scanned my HOUZZ posts, and chose a few “treat” myself to. I put my whole attention on reading them, taking in the images, opening my heart, mind and soul to the ideas, aesthetics, whimsical innovation, and sheer beauty before me on the screen. As I became absorbed in what I was doing, the concerns, tensions, worries and conflicts seemed to slip away, and I was transported into other worlds of artful fascination and loveliness, feeling my spirit drink this in for all it was worth. The beauty, stimulation, and peacefulness of the images and ideas before me “worked” upon me, instead of the other way around.
When I had perused and imbibed several chosen, intriguing posts, I was ready to move forward with my day, energized, calmer, and with renewed vigor for the tasks at hand. It was like my nervous system had taken a break and come back refreshed, and maybe it had. Agitation may drive us to the place where we need to be creative or productive (not always the same thing), but it doesn’t seem to be the state in which we ARE the most creative or productive, as John Cleese shares with us in an intriguing talk.
Sometimes that is just a matter of a shift in attitude, decision, focus, or breath.
Quiet, clear, calm, focus, seems to be necessary, for us to “drop down” into that state where we are free of worry and stress, and can just roam; create, produce, play, complete, whatever. Anxiety and the worry over conflicting demands takes a greater toll on our energy sources then simply releasing ourselves from those states, and giving ourselves fully to what is before us.
So, the next time You feel that Your head might explode,
STOP….
Take a breath. Stay calm. Choose a task, or just focus on the one right in front of you, and for just a few minutes, try to give yourself to it completely, and see what happens.
You may find yourself not only calmer, more alive, and less agitated, but also a bit richer in experience then you were before.
And that is certainly worth the price of admission!
Photo: Bernard Wolf
Artissima - Blog of ArtiFactory Studio 