shifting from tension to lightness

Gotta get away

Today I was reflecting on the family photos for the stream. (Where everyone who subs gets an icon as a part of a bigger image.) I kept trying to find a balance between the art as I would like to do it and sustainability. I love the idea of working with more physical art, but I also worry that it will eventually just contribute to waste and it might be better to just do it all on my PC.

My mind initially framed it in a way that had me desperately needing to get away from my PC and devices, and ended with me realizing that what I’m actually seeking are tactile sensations. Feelings. Textures. I want a sensory experience beyond that of smooth plastic, glass and high resolution digital colors.

The way it came up in my mind made the work feel urgent. I had started by simply trying to think of how to mix mediums a bit, and instead of it being a fun creative project, it was “ugh how do I do this? Screens are the worst!”

As soon as I caught it, I realized I could shift it to one that felt more empowering, more active.

“I am prioritizing felt experiences over digital ones. I want to see, hear, smell touch, taste, feel - I want every possible way my body can wake up with sensation to be available to me as I create art and move throughout the world.”

I want to feel this shit!

Even the awful. I want to be able to fully experience it all. I want to know the way my body and mind react to every type of stimulus I can. I want to understand myself better so I can continue to offer myself the types of things that create the opportunity for a more easeful experience - even in the midst of hardship.

I know that a more embodied version of me, one who is present with the aliveness of this moment, she is the type of person who helps to alleviate suffering wherever she goes. She is a person who can lean fully into caring without worrying about losing herself in the process. She is able to trust in the power of this very moment and offer that trust to others as well. She's more fun, too. She's more present. She's more open.

Tightness to lightness

I absolutely love finding all these little moments where language is tripping me up and changing my actual felt experience. Wild that it can do that.

When my mind was brainstorming for the family photo with the belief system of “I have to get away from these screens they’re ruining my life” my body felt tense. My breath was shallow and mostly in my chest. My face was all scrunched up in focus, brow furrowed, jaw tight. My fingers were interlaced in my lap, but my thumbs were tap, tap, tapping thumbnails against each other quietly. My knees and lower legs felt rigid.

It was an unpleasant experience, if I really look at it from this view.

If I had a choice, would I like to experience this same state again? Nah, I think I’m good on that. 3/10 on the fun experience scale.

Even now as I type this, my body is priming itself for the same icky energy. The same tense and frantic - "gotta figure this shit out" - energy.

After a deep breath, now I get to reflect on what came up for me once I realized that’s what was happening for me.

Starting to shift with some cool new Q's

I felt the tension. I felt the tippy tappy fingernails. I noticed the thought: “I want to do some part of this art physically. I am so tired of screens.” I realized I was describing what I didn’t want in a way that felt heavy and connected to so many other things about devices that I feel burnt out on right now. The emails. The social media sites. The news. The horror. The beauty. The memes. The ads.

My mind was pretty fixated on the second part of the thought - the stuff it doesn’t like and all the reasons I wanted to get away.

I asked myself a question - what do you want? What do you want out of your art experience? Instead of asking how to get away from devices, maybe we can figure out what we like about physical art?

How can I create something physically, in a way that engages my senses and feels so grounding, AND feel like I’m not going too far with the physical media and just filling up landfills more?

Then my mind got exciiiited. It jumped into action on all the ways I could do the family photos without excessive waste - possibly without any! That sweet, saucy brain just went wild with ideas of how I could do things and all the different possibilities month by month.

I literally spaced out while writing this and was staring out the window thinking about more ideas for the family photos. So fun.

...2 minutes later...

Ope, just did it again.

Hey, cool, look - a new experience

Anyway, I wanted to share this today because guess what my body felt like after that gentle redirect? (I want to emphasize gentle here, because it wasn’t a super flowery kind of gentle, it was just chill, right?)

It felt nice.

The excitement bubbled up my body like the carbonation in a Midwest-garage-pop opened up on a hot summer day. I could feel my upper body especially well, it felt so warm and suddenly could even notice the actual warmth on my body because I was sitting outside. My face softened and a slight smile could be felt behind my mouth, but not quite on it.
My fingers no longer tapped, they just rested together in my lap. Belly soft, legs relaxed. It felt like I was at an outdoor event watching a great show play out, while enjoying a gorgeous day. No efforting involved.

As I reflect now, I can feel the effort behind the first experience. I was trying. I was trying to figure it out.

This time around, I was watching as it was just done, and occasionally offering new questions to send the mind in a new direction.

I fucking love language.

Notice your human suit more, it's actually v cool I swear

Mindfulness practice is incredibly valuable, and if you’re looking for some places to start paying attention with kindness - your body and mind are fucking fascinating.

By noticing the body more often and asking yourself simple questions like “is this unpleasant, neutral, or pleasant?” “What was I just thinking about?” “What am I believing right now?” - so many opportunities for gentle redirects appear.

By noticing the mind more often, and asking yourself simple questions like: “why do I believe this?” “What are some other options or possibilities here?” “Are there other ways of thinking about this that will feel more empowering?”

I'd like to highlight that these are just some examples of questions I ask myself. Not necessarily the only way to approach this. Get to know yourself. It’ll be interesting. Especially if you are kind to yourself as you go.

(Side note: please tell me, do you feel that you have a grasp on what it means to be kind to yourself? Does this feel like an easy task for you?)

You aren’t the one who intentionally made your brain think the way it does, but you’re definitely capable of helping to redirect that squishy goo ball. (The word squishy comes up every time I think of brains, anyone else?)

So yeah, two felt experiences of the same creative moment - one tense and unpleasant, one DELIGHTFUL - and the main difference was how my mind was framing it.

I understand sitting with the minor discomfort of a wayward thought process isn’t the worst thing a person could go through. The tension would probably have gone mostly unnoticed throughout the rest of my day once I got up and got back to work / life.

What could happen though, is a pretty easy cascade into grumpiness from there. Imagine something unexpected interrupts me when my body is already tensed up and stressed, mind fixated on a problem that suddenly feels urgent. Now there's tension resting on top of the tension, and it tends to snowball from there. By the end of the day I'm a ball of nerves, overstimulated and ready to cry because I stepped on a cracker crumb.

That's not even factoring all the external life stuff, like that fact that the country I live in is currently bombing people in a number of places and working to reduce our rights every chance they get, our climate is suffering, there are children without food and shelter, etc.

All of that and more connects to why I am committed to offering myself joy and ease in every moment I can. There’s a quote I think of often from this essay titled "In defense of hope" (Highly recommend reading the entire post.):

Joy is revolutionary.

There have always been weddings and births in death camps. There have always been gardens and sex and parties and birthdays amid wars and oppressive regimes.

We get one life, and many of us will spend some portion of that life in terror. We owe it to ourselves to spend as much of it as we can in joy.

Zawn Villines

In my experience with mindfulness practices, every time I find a new little pocket of awareness, a new place I can notice more directly, more easily, my life gets a little bit lighter. A little bit brighter. I laugh a little bit more. I'm able to be present more. I can make my daughter smile more.

That is so, so worth it to me.

The universe loves you, see?