When Your Head Explodes

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!

Reconnecting to Our Joy…In Praise of Sitting

Time out of Time…Reconnecting to Our JOY

As artists, entrepreneurs, solo-preneurs, and art-preneurs, we have the tendency to either procrastinate, or work until we drop. To avoid a decision or an issue, or to wrestle and wrastle and wreak havoc upon our brains and our senses until we do or do not find an answer, or a solution.

But can we think to much?

Perhaps what we tend to forget, is that our work  is creative, and inspired by the imagination. I have found that when dealing with imagination lock down,  brain drain, or creative blocks, one of the best things I can do is get the heck out of there.

By “there”, I mean the circular pattern created by going over and over the same issue to no avail, the overload that can happen with too much input, or the standstill that fear, resistance, aggravation or frustration can create.

When this happens, I have learned that if I can get myself the heck out of “there” and back into my joy, to the central passion that brought me into my endeavor in the first place, I can move through the challenges at hand with that much more grace,, joy, and fun, to say nothing of success.

Chihuly in yellow...ain't we got fun...

I betake myself to the source,  inspiration central: the Art Museum. Blessed to live and work near The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The De Young and The Legion of Honor, in their magnificent natural locations, are a constant, offering up continual visual fare.  But here’s the thing: when I go to The Art Museum,  I rarely look at the “ART”, though fascinating, provocative, and inspiring art there is to be found.

Crushed Cans Creation

When I go to The Art Museum, (aka, The Art “Muse”),  I betake myself to the cafe, or the sculpture garden, or the patio, or the bench, and I sit.

I sit, often with eyes closed (nobody cares), and let my  mind simply drain away, basking in the warmth of absolute nothingness.  It’s a ready, set,  stop  kind of experience,  and when it can be achieved, it feels cleansing, rejuvenating,  divine. To  sit without anything required, even for a short time, can permit  the mind to unwind and  allow  insights, ideas and inspirations to reach the lizard  brain and break the gridlock.

Just to sit...

It can be difficult to allow oneself to do this, to take this “break”, but even a limited time of it can yield wonders. Give it a try. Find your own “inspiration central”, and go there for a time out of time. Just sit. Ask nothing of the experience. You stand to gain everything.