Happy New Year!  December was a hectic time for me-straightening loose ends and completing all I intended to accomplish by the end of 2016.  Emotions ran the gamut of excitement over finishing the first draft of my book to disappointment when I couldn’t work on my painting because of a cold.  I think it must be the flu because I’m dizzy and feeling no energy.

This picture above shows all  the painting I was able to do before I became incapacitated.  I’m glad I got enough finished to show some progress.

I was reading Amy Pohler’s memoir, Yes Please, and she said something about creatives that resonates with the subject of flow.  Pohler states that ambivalence is key to success.  This is my take on that statement.  When an artist or writer or actor is focused on success,  there’s no way they’re going to be in the flow.  When we’re expecting an outcome with what we love to do, we’re going to tense up big time and have to struggle with fear.

If you’re thinking about success and you’re worried about failure, you can’t let go enough to be One with what you’re doing.  There’s some pull outside of you that keeps you conscious of self, what you expect this thing that you’re doing to bring something outside to you.  This could be adulation, money, respect or some other reward.

Ambivalent would be like being on the fence.  You’re not choosing one way or another.  You may succeed or not.  You may have others like what you’re doing or not.  You may be paid handsomely for what you’re doing or not.

You are only in the flow when the experience is the only reward, is the only outcome you’re focused on while you’re loving what you’re doing.  And, from my own experience, whatever I do only excites when I’m in that space.  And the outcome always follows whatever vibrational energy I’ve painted from.  When I’m in the flow, the result flows too.

I’ve been painting on this portrait for 3 days, approaching the painting with Flow in mind.  I’ve never focused on the state I’m in before I begin to paint and to the question of whether or not what I’m feeling can predict if I’m gong to be in flow or not.  Through this experiment though, I’ve just realized how uncanny and reliable our emotions are at foretelling flow.

Csikszentmihaly describes how it feels to be in the flow on his video on Flow ( see Flow) :

• Attention is focused on a limited stimulus field.
• There is full concentration, complete involvement.

The first day of painting (See Flow 2) I was freely painting the local color, ignoring details, much like the child in us plays with paint.  This approach is always flow.  It’s play with color on some blank white material.  It’s focus on this paper with full concentration and complete involvement.

The second day, when I began the details, I battled the introduction of fear over painting.  It wasn’t so much a particular problem I can articulate, if felt more like an over-all pang of   panic, like “I have to get away from this”.  No way could I get into flow this way.  So, I’d paint 5-10 minutes tops, go rest till the panic subsided, and begin again.  This is not a particularly comfortable way to paint.

On the third day, (see the picture above) after convincing myself from the action I’d taken on the second day, seeing that, despite the fear, I had managed to paint some really good detail, I relaxed, and the painting flowed again.

My take-away from this exercise is that, in order to foster flow, I need to take the next best step, no matter how hard it may seem.  Out of each step, clear goals produce the next step.    There is immediate feedback to the action we’ve taken, so we know our next step.

In flow, there is a balance between challenges and skills (see Flow).  It’s inevitable that there will be challenges when we paint (unless we’re coloring inside a coloring book).  So, the challenge becomes the opportunity to let go and surrender to receive the answer, which brings us to another dimension of Flow:

Self-consciousness Disappears.

And we become One with God.

Thank you for reading my blogs, Doretta.

I had hoped to be further along when I posted the progress on my painting , but I had an unforeseen problem come up.  It’s 30 degrees outside here in Albuquerque today and my art studio is in a sun porch with no built-in heating.  I used a heater yesterday and got this far with applying local color for my first layer of the painting.  Today, since it’s so much colder, I turned on two heaters.  They blew a fuse, and, since I have to wait for someone to help me figure out which fuse it is, I probably am not going to be able to fix it anytime soon.

But, as I’ve realized, any challenge is always an opportunity.  This challenge gives me the opportunity to  demonstrate flow at its best.  This challenge, not having as much done to the painting as I would have liked, is actually a wonderful example of one of the dimensions of the flow experience:

There is freedom from worry about failure.

Because I’m doing this painting for the love of it, and, because I’ve already committed myself to exposing the painting progress, showing the work in its unfinished and raw state, not expecting anyone to love what they see, I’m in the flow.  Sharing this is making me happy because at least I did get enough paint in to show that I am making progress.  I’m doing this, sharing the progress, for the satisfaction it gives me.  I can’t fail because I don’t care about the outcome at this stage.

This is turning out to be more fun than I imagined.  I love the freedom this challenge is bringing up for me.  I love that there are people out there who are sharing this experience with me to keep me accountable.  Thank you for the time you’ve spent sharing this with me.

Doretta

Dante Aligheri wrote The Divine Comedy in which he states that people feel most fully alive and are enjoying living when they can express who they really are.

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly has several Ted Talks on youtube.com concerning Flow, the secret to happiness.  He says that you can’t make yourself happy, and that no one can make you happy, either .  Flow can and does make you happy.

So, what is Flow?  It’s what you’re feeling when you are fully alive.  It’s when you’re involved with what you do and in harmony with the environment around you.  It’s something that happens most easily when we sing, dance, do sports, paint, compose–but it can happen while we work, read a good book, or have a conversation.  Flow happens when you are carried by a force outside of you.

So, why am I telling you all this when what I want to share is my progress painting a picture of two little girls and watermelons?  Because, according to Mihaly, flow depends on a balance of challenge and skill.  You’re going to get frustrated when your level of skill doesn’t produce the outcome of your expectation, or if your challenge produces so much fear, you’re unable to allow the flow.

I know myself well enough to know that I’m susceptible to either having to find out how to achieve the look I want in a painting I’m doing by working on my skills, or having fear come up which results in not being able to see what I need to see to resolve the look I’m wanting.  Fear keeps us from seeing more options.

Actually, when I was transposing the drawing for my painting onto the canvas (picture above), I did experience fear when something didn’t look right in one of the faces.  I did what I always do when I’m scared.  I tried to fix it by drawing over what I’d drawn wrong before with darker lines.  This is always a disaster.

To get into the flow again, I tried to get into a higher vibration.  Feeling love always does the trick.  I took a small step forward.  I erased the mistake but got chalk dust on the drawing.  No matter.  Now I stand back from what I’ve just done, assess that the drawing is good enough.  It doesn’t have to be perfect.  Sometimes, when I think the drawing is perfect, it makes it harder for me to paint over the lines, thinking I’m going to lose that perfection.

Stay tuned for the steps I’m taking beginning painting on the canvas, and for more insights on Flow, the secret to happiness.

Thank you for visiting my blog, Doretta.

I’ve been commissioned to paint a portrait of these beautiful two little girls.  I decided to share the progress on the painting on this blog, mainly because I’ve found that other people are always interested in seeing the progression of a painting.  There’s another reason for sharing, and it’s one of a personal nature.  I want to force myself to be accountable.  Knowing someone is waiting to see the headway, I’ll be forcing myself to work on the painting.

I’m writing a book and it’s hard for me to commit to another project at this time.  I do love painting as much as I’m loving writing my book.  In fact,  I’ve been having images come into my mind lately that are so inviting, I’ve wondered if I can figure out a way to make the time to paint again and write at the same time.  Maybe that’s why this opportunity came to me on the heels of those thoughts of me in the studio, painting more freely than I have before.  This is my challenge.  This is my chance to bring into being something my heart has been obviously craving.

I’ve always been open to challenges.  They’ve always proven to be growth accelerators.  There was a time when I was drawing from live models with a group of other artists using pencil and paper.  I’d erase a line that didn’t seem right, opening more thoughts about  what was wrong.  The thoughts would escalate until everything about the drawing was wrong.  Drawing became frustrating.

Then, a brilliant idea came to me.  If I drew with a pen, something with which I couldn’t erase, I’d have to be committed to finishing the drawing.  I wouldn’t be able to go back.  I’d have to consistently move forward.

That’s when my drawings began to take on a life of their own.  Using pen and ink forced me to be attentive each moment, to commit myself and go with it.  Even mistakes became opportunities to new fresh approaches.

So, I’m intending to move forward with this project.  I appreciate this chance to force myself to become what I need to be to make something I want happen, and I thank you for helping me.

I may not be able to post the next couple of weeks due to a trip I’m taking.  Please stay tuned in to the first of my posts on my progress coming up soon.

Have you ever noticed that when something unexpected happens, or when you take action unexpectedly, that you feel your heart racing, your stomach tightens, your sense of self feels vulnerable?  That’s a good thing.  It’s an opening for more possibilities to enter your life.

That’s what was happening to me when I painted the picture above.  I had just quit a job to devote myself to painting full time.  It wasn’t a well planned move, nor was it rational.  Throwing caution to the wind, this painting turned out to have the feeling of being free from the sensibilities I wanted to be able to finally overcome.  I had finally given full reign to my emotions instead of “having to”, “should”, “must”, or any other fear based thoughts which had kept me from surrendering.

I’m finding that creativity depends on being vulnerable.  I have been writing these blog posts without any plans.  I pick one of my paintings to inspire the words and ideas I want to share.  It’s a lot like, when you want to spark your imagination, just go to the dictionary and pick any word.  That word will take you to unexplored places in your heart.

Creativity also depends on change.  If you aren’t mixing up things, you grow stagnant and what you do becomes boring.  An artist or writer or anyone else wanting to create something new always needs to find that one spark to motivate them.  You don’t have to put your whole life in jeopardy to accomplish what I did with this painting.  You can prepare yourself beforehand by making friends with change in your life, to let go of all fear by opening up your heart to trust that Divine Providence will step in to guide you, and then begin.

So what if this time you don’t meet your expectations?  Do it again.  Allow mistakes because sometimes those are the tidbits of the light that takes you in the direction of what you couldn’t know would be even better than the way you thought you should go.

More about change next time.  In the meantime, I would appreciate questions, comments and feedback.  Thanks for visiting my blog!