Category: appreciation

Writing From Your Heart

This painting is one of many I did of the Franklin Mountains in El Paso. The mountains delineated west from east in the city. I lived on the west side.

I don’t live there anymore, but I do live at the foot of another mountain, the Sandia’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There’s always been a strong pull for me to have the reminder of the strength of a terrain that isn’t upended by weather or disasters.

Many people admire me for my resilience to life’s challenges and tests. I believe it’s the constancy of the unmoving and unshakable mound upon mound of earth at the base of the city that I find my trust in life’s unpredictable circumstances. The area is built up from the weight of a past. Mountains are formed “from Earth’s tectonic plates smashing together. Below the ground, Earth’s crust is made up of multiple tectonic plates. They’ve been moving around since the beginning of time. … The result of these tectonic plates crumpling is huge slabs of rock being pushed up into the air.”

This has been going on forever, so, for me, the mountain is the closest thing of something to count on in times such as the time we are living in. Nothing is as it has been. Our lives are dependent on circumstances out of our control. But the mountain being constant, firm and still, is the backdrop I use to let go.

When I let go, I feel my heart. I can’t feel my heart if there is any fear. The heart is the center of all that the mountain is. Our hearts are constant and still. We enter them by focusing on love, the absence of fear.

If I want to accomplish anything creative, this is what supports me to give up control and accept and acknowledge what comes into an empty mind.

You don’t have to live by a mountain to access the sense of solidity. You just have to let go of the fear of its absence.

Why You Have to Change Your Mind

flower - 1“Whatever is lovely, true, noble, right, pure, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy, think on such things.”

Philippians: 4.8

Recently, I descended into my ego again.  You know…..that arrogant, conceited, pompous state of mind that criticizes and deprecates everything and everyone around her.  That braggart who knows more, is better than, who gets pulled into convincing herself she’s superior to those around her.

Why do we do that?  It’s obvious, isn’t it?  Well, something or someone caused me to doubt myself, so my ego was on the watch for  ways to convince me that I am more than I fear I might not be.

I remember, in the past, how I would stay in that frame of mind for days, weeks, months.  I’ve even been there for years.  My disparaging thoughts would shift from thinking about other people to judging myself, depending on my vantage point.

Now that I know better, it’s hard to conceive how I could allow that pac man invasion to continue.  But I didn’t know better.

When I was in the midst of that mindset, I couldn’t sleep.  I didn’t get much accomplished.  I kept looking for something outside of myself to make me feel better.  And some things helped for awhile.  But not for long…..ever.

It wasn’t until that mentality began to not just attack my mind but began to assault my body, too, that I finally asked for help.  My need to prove to myself that I was good enough and I was worthy was now causing me to have not just thoughts to deal with, but real bodily concerns.

I surrendered and looked for help.  Some books provided insight into what was happening to me.  Some suggested using positive affirmations. Others gave me new ways to see my circumstances in a more positive way.  Again they helped for awhile, but not in the long run.

Negativity entrenches itself into your mind because we fear we’re not okay.  This is a part of a natural fight or flight response our bodies uses to help us stay safe.  In the midst of an onslaught of negativity, it’s impossible to change your mind.  The voice in your mind is just too loud.  But there is a process you might do to find happiness and peace once again:

  • Don’t react to the thoughts as you listen to them.
  • Instead, observe the thoughts.  You’re not the one thinking them.
  • Something magical happens when you acknowledge and disassociate with the negativity.  Negativity loses it’s hold in your mind.
  • Once the  thoughts lose momentum, replace those thoughts with some thoughts that make you happy, like the ones in the quote above.

As you keep practicing this, you’ll begin to notice that it’s getting easier and easier to know when you need to stop thinking the thoughts that make you suffer.  You’ll be able to turn around the negativity quicker.

Appreciation of what you see around you, all that which makes you feel good, is a higher vibration.  The vibration of Love is where Happiness resides.  Embrace happiness and help yourself and the world heal.

 

How Appreciation Can Change Your World

madison and sam - 1

Since I’ve always been inquisitive, and because I’ve always wanted to know why I act as I do, I’ve come to realize that creativity (which I once associated only with the arts) and Life (which was another world, ruled by circumstances beyond our control) are One.  Whatever motivates a person in creating art is the the same kind of motivation that you can apply to any situation in life.

Hold on, please.  If this doesn’t make sense yet, it will in a little while. I am going to share an experience I had today to illustrate this concept.

Today, getting ready to write this blog post, first I read my horoscope.  I receive a daily intuitive horoscope from Daily Intuitive Horoscopes written by Ghazaleah Lowe. I’ve found her horoscopes to be insightful and pointedly true most of the time.  If I don’t have the clarity to understand what she’s said yet, I’ve been willing to admit that I might not  be ready to see that in myself at that particular time.  Here’s today’s horoscope for Gemini’s ( that’s me).

I wouldn’t overthink it if I were you, dear Gemini, in fact, the truth is that your thoughts are way off and they are nowhere near close to whatever you seem to think is happening. Best you take your attention off of these thoughts and focus on your own life. A situation in your life requires more love than you are giving it right now and so it’s best that you focus on bringing more love to this situation than giving your attention to the thoughts in your mind.

The situation I found myself in when I read this was trying to figure out what to write about in this blog post.  I was having a hard time deciding.  So when I read this, it rang a bell.  I’ve realized that in order to create anything that excites and thrills me, I do have to feel love.

And then the next thing that happened amazed me.

As I was setting up my laptop computer at my desk, I noticed a quote I had scribbled on a post-it note.

“Trade your expectations for appreciation and the world changes instantly.”

Tony Robbins

I can do that, I thought.

The moment I felt appreciation, thinking about both of these serendipitous events–the horoscope and the quote–those moments opened a flood of love within me.  I was feeling enormous gratitude to Life for bringing me the ways to experience ease and effortlessness in writing a new blog post.  And appreciation that I didn’t have to battle with my mind commenting and judging what I’m writing.

I picked the painting I’ve posted up above, one I made fifteen years ago, to illustrate how appreciation can and does change your world.

I painted my son with his first daughter at that time because he was the father to his daughter my father never was to me.  Sometimes in life the appreciation we never felt before surfaces in a different, but as meaningful way as the way we hoped it would have.

Appreciation is the closest to love in our world.

So what does my story have in common with the concept that whatever motivates us in creating art is the the same kind of motivation that we can apply to any situation in life?

It’s often easier to let go when we are creating because we aren’t as fearful to lose control.  In life, to let go means we have to face our vulnerability, and being vulnerable is a word that implies being susceptible to being wounded or hurt by criticism or attack.

But when I opened or let go to feel appreciation for my son treating my granddaughter with the love I had wished from my father, it did change my world instantly.  Just as letting go to appreciate the serendipitous events in my life today opened me to clarity, knowing exactly what I wanted to write on this blog post.