We usually feel that we have to have control of all things around us. It is an automatic mechanism we learned early in our life. The sense of control let us feeling that we can ‘’be sure what is next’’, we feel ‘’safe’’ imagining a hundreds of possible scenarios: we try to calculate almost every future.
We feel reassurance knowing all the possibilities with our mind; comparing with ours past experiences we can predict the future. But this is not effortless: we feel anxiety because we doubt of those scenarios we have created in ours minds; we are stressed thinking more and more possibilities just in case we have missing something. It is a vicious cycle hard to avoid. We finally are a mess : anxious, stressed and not knowing anyway what the future will bring us. We create expectations and when the reality is not what we ‘’calculated’’ we are devastated. We are so worry about the future that we can not live or enjoy the present moment.
We are stuck in a future that could never arrived. We feel frustrated and hopeless.
When we open up ourselves to possibilities, abandoning the sense of control things, we stop suffering. We accept things in the way they arrive, fully living the present moment in its splendor. We feel gratitude for whatever happens because we know that it is what it supposes to be, maybe there is a lesson for us, something we need to acknowledge. We can use the present moment to enjoy our NOW, because time is precious and irrecuperable. We can regret our actions, but we can’t go back on time, so each minute we lose living in the past depressed, or anxious for the future, it is a minute wasted.
I fully understand this concept, but living this way is not easy as it sounds. Art is helping me out a lot to practically live in this philosophy.
Some people believe that, when you didn’t get something, the Universe put it in front of you as many times as you realize why this particular situation is coming back again and again… Eventually, you understand that it is there to help you out in your personal evolution, to grow up as a human being.
When I reconnected with my art, I was attracted almost immediately with two very different techniques that have something in common: unpredictability. Those techniques were Abstract. Abstract is indeed not ‘’concrete’’, so harder to ‘’understand’’ for someone like me with a scientific training (strong left brain!). When you work in something concrete, like design, you know exactly what you expect to accomplish, so it is a matter of time and perseverance to reach the result you want to achieve. You can compare your design with your target to measure your progress: all is about logic.
In the other hand, abstract has no pattern to follow up or compare to, all is subjective: your colors, your movements, your feelings and your intuition. It is all about you! That means that you need to connect with your inner emotions and your deeper feelings and reach your intuition.
Your right brain allows you to be creative, to visualize things trough your intuition not using your logic at all. When you start understanding that you can put all your emotions in your ART, you really understand how therapeutic is it, how easy you can empty what is inside you, what you have probably kept hidden from years. You will feel you can release what was stuck inside you and start healing from the inside-out and simply feel full of love.
Don’t be afraid of expressing yourself through your ART, let your art heal you. Your ART is whatever connects you with your inner self, with your essence, like paint, draw, dance, cook, play a musical instrument, hear or create music, write.
Another interesting fact of doing your ART is that you lost track of time, because you have another idea, and another one…. You focus in the present moment, you put your attention and your intention in your NOW, you let go your past and stops feeling anxious for your future.
For me ART is create, painting, making jewelry, silk scarves, coasters, and more and more. This is my connection with my true self, when teaching art, I am helping my students and myself to live in the present.
Be free to use your ART to release whatever you need to, let it go! Enjoy the ride: live your present moment!
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