recapping your questions:  how do i detach from the effects and outcomes of this person’s choices? how do we reverse response patterns that feel so ingrained in our bodies? why does life feel so freaking HARD sometimes, and how do i change THAT mentality? how can i honor my feelings/needs and keep a boundary around me and my life without feeling guilty? how can i incorporate this into my art? how do we accept and thank people in our lives for being exactly as they are? how do i let go of fear?

my thoughts in no particular order:

different types of questions are on my mind… but it’s all related, isn’t it?

I’d rather be a new-age hippie loon than, say, a republican or something! (he he! no offense to any republicans who might someday read this…)

so yes, i like your receipt book analogy. i think the stub, the pindot memory, is where we get triggered. we hear/see/saay something, and it takes us back to that point. i have been absolutely triggered these past 2 days, and it feels horrible. for me these days, i can recognize when i’m stuck in that memory/receipt stub… the hard part is knowing where to go from there and how to let it go. how to FORGIVE. there. i said it. i don’t think i know how to fully forgive. or DETACH. specifically i’m talking about some issues with a family member— i worry about this person, and i judge her lifestyle and how she thinks she’s invincible. so when her partying lifestyle inevitably starts to affect her health, i get terrified. i have been terrified of losing this person for quite some time. i lost my dad to alcoholism 3 years ago and fear i’m watching someone else that is important to me head down the same path. yes, some of it is just my hyper-worrier personality (i always go to the most extreme possibilities in my head in an instant), but some of it, i believe, is not.

anyway, to get back on track, when this person seems ok, or she’s convinced me that she’s ok, those old layers/stubs retreat and i think “ok good, i’ve worked my way through THAT.” then something pops up, like a weird blood test, and i’m hurled into crisis-mode. i have been worrying non-stop since yesterday afternoon, making myself sick. this layer is clearly not just a stub.

the trouble is that i let this person’s life choices affect MY life and how i feel during MY day. it gets in the way of everything: my work, my happiness, my art, everything.

so, big questions come: how do i detach from the effects and outcomes of this person’s choices? how do we reverse response patterns that feel so ingrained in our bodies? why does life feel so freaking HARD sometimes, and how do i change THAT mentality? how can i honor my feelings/needs and keep a boundary around me and my life without feeling guilty? how can i incorporate this into my art? how do we accept and thank people in our lives for being exactly as they are? how do i let go of fear? ( i know the simple answer: just let it go. but, as i said before, simple does not always mean easy.)

agggghh! sorry to lay this on you. i figured writing might help, and i seem to have a lot of questions and stuckness, so this is the landing place for it all. hope you don’t mind…..

ps- i’m going to post some artsy thing soon, i promise!

Get out of the way and listen? Now that is really crazy talk!

It’s been much easier for me to type my thoughts while I’m at work, rather than write when I get home, which is somewhat self-defeating for this slow-down-and-purposefully-think blog.  I’m so sorry for that. I’ve been doing yoga and cooking and nourishing the insides when I get home. . . neglecting the drawing/making.

It seems to be a constant battle I fight: the balance of life. Hopefully that will come with some of the answers.

Layers are infiltrating my life, becoming a constant theme.  Forgiving myself and others for the piles of mud I’ve packed into my heart. Drawing the beautiful layers of the natural world, teaching the ego not to think we’re so much different than the other forms of life around us (we’re all just trying to live, right?)

If you’ll pardon the overuse of metaphors, I think layers maybe should be more like receipt books.  The stub stays in place as a reference point, but the actual receipt (tally, perhaps) should be allowed to blow away in the wind.  Whoosh, let it go.

But the reference point, the pindot memory, is what we need to dig deeper, no?

Cripes (why do I love that word so much??!?)  it’s hard for me to talk about this stuff in terms of spirituality without feeling like a total new agey hippie loon!

simple does not equal easy

yes, of course it’s hard! i like remembering the idea that nothing that is worth while is ever easy. simple, yes, but never easy. i think there is a profound difference between the words simple and easy.

i think the only reason our lives and purposes get convoluted is because our egos get involved and mess everything up. if we listen to our intuition (and, believe me, i instantly think: “intuition? only lucky people get to hear what their intuition has to say…”, when really i think what is going on is that my ego/thoughts/never-ending battle with myself gets in the way and is too loud for me to listen to the intuition that is inside me),  i mean REALLY listen to it and HEAR it, then life is simple and complete. like in making art. we’re learning to get ourselves out of the way and listen to what’s coming through us to put on the paper. why can’t we recognize that it’s the same in our lives? if we just get out of the way and listen, then all will be well. but i forget all this in a split second…… maybe that’s what i mean about it all being a process. a process of becoming aware.

question: where did we pick up the idea that if we can’t do or ‘get’ something immediately, we’ll never get it? isn’t that incredibly self-defeating? how can we allow outselves to just BE! this is what’s hard for me. the real thing that gets in my way is judgment/expectation of myself….

as for the layers, i think there are things we are each probably ashamed of in our pasts, and that makes it hard to live from the heart, too. it’s not fun to be honest about past mistakes, but what if we just tried to not take it so seriously? we’re human!! we all make mistakes!! what if we said  “hooray! we’re learning something in this life!” and let the layers fly? what would THAT feel like? (yikes…!)

okay–so here’s a thought, because I fully agree with living through the heart, with a purposeful, simple and honest approach.

BUT IT’S SO HARD! That love, in itself, can become so convoluted just like in a relationship.

validating   *   VALID:dating   *   valid:DATING

getting to know the idea as a process instead of as a single work – this is an especially difficult task for me

*   *   *   *

Also the correlation we discussed in emails, of layering personal history, opening up those layers to be exposed and felt (anyone care for the last little bit of vulnerability?)

living from the heart

yes. brilliant. no doubt about that. everything seems to be leading to the idea of ‘doing what you love because you love to do it’ in my life these days. the more honest and heart-felt it is, the better i feel, and then a positive response naturally grows out of it. it’s interesting: as i’ve felt relatively good about my own work lately, self-satisfied at least, the more outer attention it is getting, just like keri smith says. like my attitude and the pureness of just doing something because it feels good to me is attracting what i’ve tried so hard in the past to get (shows, blog mentions, etc.)

i’m noticing that when i let things come through me rather than forcing them, everything feels easier. let the art come through, let the feelings come through….

i’m also noticing that the more my art involves something i care deeply about, the better it feels to me. i’ve been dealing with the idea of the environment and its destruction by humans a bit lately, and i feel as if i’m actually expressing something, more than through my previous work. it also feels harder to make, but i think that’s because i’m trying to force it sometimes. sometimes they flow out and it’s as if i don’t know where they came from. but i also love just making things to make something pretty and nice to look at. is one better that the other, or more ‘real art’ or something like that?

*ok, i just realized i set a theme for the year 2008 and it is living from the heart, and this is exactly what this piece of keri smith’s, this answer of ours, is about. how would my life feel different if everything i did was from the heart? something to strive for indeed….

I’m confident in the brilliance of this

Of course! Keri Smith says so much with so much thought. This is exactly how I feel today, Jess. This is one of the answers. It makes me feel quiet and still inside.

the art of life

 this is something i wrote out sometime in college and recently found hidden away in an old sketchbook. i like how it focuses on the process of art and the process of life being the same.

when i think about it, it seems that if you can make your art (and live your life) fully in and about the present moment, there is no question that it is your own.

what would the intent be then? to have art be an expression of the present moment? it seems that it would take everything else out: the fame, the ego involved in it, the appropriation of others’ ideas, the over-thinking… because then you are just BEING, and however that comes out is just part of your life as a unique human being.

this may not be making any sense… i’m resisting the urge to rewrite and edit, or maybe even erase the whole thing, because i fear it doesn’t sound “deep” enough or smart enough, or that it simply makes no sense.

i’m also feeding into the “shoulds” about all this… I should’ve hand-written it, i should’ve thought more about it, i should make it look more “arty”…

sigh. how do we rid our brains of the idea of “should?” didn’t we just make all that up anyway?

yes, HONESTY and INTEGRITY. i think that involves being honest that what we believe about the world may not necessarily be true, too. questioning what we believe, why we believe it, and how we came to believe it just might be the ticket.

what do you think?

~jess

~Renee