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Painting Your Life

One of my very favorite activities is my weekly acrylic painting class. Besides the fact that it is a perfect zone-out event that keeps me totally focused in the now, it is populated with other lovely like-minded artists. And because it is a class, it is also educational. We learn techniques to better express ourselves through our paint. The most fascinating aspect, however, is the tremendous differences in the way each painting turns out. Despite the fact the we each paint the very same picture, our finished products are remarkably different. Each unique painting is the product of the painter’s view of the world, and in particular, that one little snippet of it within the assigned picture. No one sets out to create a different painting, but our creations are influenced by our own unique visions of what we each perceive. These very differences are most fascinating to me and are clearly an expression of our individuality and how we interpret what we see. I realized that this exercise in painting is a metaphor of how we paint our lives. I began to think about how we color our lives, how we see and interpret what is around us, how we judge it to create an idea or belief and so on. So I began to ponder, how do we paint our lives?   I was just wondering…………..

Acrylic is very forgiving, which is probably why I like it so much. If you make a mistake, you can just paint over it. We can paint with the same acrylic in our lives, I mused. We can learn forgiveness, we can learn to move on, we can learn new techniques from our errors and use them the next time. We don’t have to stay stuck in a bad picture. We can just paint over it!

As I mentioned, painting is the best thing I know to keep me in the now. There are many other things in life to keep us focused on the now, so that we can enjoy each moment as it occurs, rather than missing things because our focus is elsewhere.   Do you paint your life with focus, or is your life filled with distraction, chaos, hurriedness? There are paintings that depict these unpleasant experiences as well. Which kind of painting do you create for yourself?

What is the mood of your life painting? Is it filled with color, beauty, pleasantry, serenity?   Or does your life depict a painting filled with angst, despair, resentment, full of darkness, with cold murky corners, secrets, hidden meanings? Is your life painting orderly or is it filled with confusion, untidiness, chaos? Do you enjoy viewing your painting of your life, or do you shudder at the sight of it?

Does your painting have integrity, honesty, virtue? Or is it blackened by shame, disgrace, disrespect? Can you look at it with pride and feel satisfaction about how you behave and handle problems as they arise? If you don’t like it, how can you correct it? Perhaps you could add more color, remove the darkness, make it more honest, truer to the real picture.

What is the texture of your life painting? Is it bumpy, full of ups and downs? Or is it flat, too flat and boring, needing some added points of interest? Are there too many snags? Is it smooth sailing or is it a rocky sea for your “life” boat? Does it have too many rough edges?

What depth does your painting have? Is it demonstrated through your relationships? Are they loving, kind, supportive, nurturing? Or are they disengaged, unavailable, unloving? Sometimes if you look again they may seem different. Is there enough intimacy and fulfillment? Many paintings need to be studied, viewed with a keen eye. Sometimes we misinterpret and then have to paint over, or in the case of life, look again. Sometimes we miss love and support because we are not in a good place as we view it. If the fault is not in our vision, then it is time to connect to a better painting, drawing nurturing people into our lives.

What is the meaning of your life painting? Is this something you have thought about? If you have considered the meaning, then is it going in the direction you had intended? How can you change it so that the meaning becomes clearer and is experienced in your life as you would desire? What needs to be corrected and repainted?When I circle the room of my painting class, I get ideas from the other paintings I see. Sometimes these ideas help me to add or subtract something that makes my painting more interesting, more expressive, more unique. We are all stuck in our own vision of the world. It is very powerful to try to look again, see what you are viewing in another way. For your life painting, use some ideas from your admired friends to alter the parts of your life painting that you don’t like. Changing the picture is always possible. There are endless ways to depict the same thing, because it is different for every eye that views it. Readjust your sight! Paint over what you don’t like and try again. And don’t give up! You can achieve the same feeling of homeostasis that I have in my painting class when you make positive adjustments to your life painting!

After evaluating your life painting, are you happy with it? Are there changes that need to be made? Are you willing to start over and paint again in the areas that need touching up?

I was just wondering…………

Jan 26, 2016 By life, Mindfulness 1 Comment

Our Changing Brains

I was just wondering……

We have become so reliant on technology today that in some ways we may be losing our ability to think.  I myself am guilty of the instant google and I admit I am addicted to obtaining an immediate answer about anything I wonder about. While we are able to obtain information quickly, are we losing something from this immediate indulgence to our love of instant gratification and reliance on a computer brain?

Also, what is the effect of the computer age on childhood play and imagination? My adult son and I had a conversation about this the other day. He still enjoys playing video games, which exasperates me to no end, but he feels that the play of imagination can be learned to some degree through the computer and video games.  Perhaps some element of it, but it is definitely not the same kind of vibrant, spontaneous play that children of my generation enjoyed in our youth.

This leads me to further musings. For instance, what will be the long term effect, from the point of evolution, of our current technology on the structure of our brains?  Of even greater concern is what will be the long range effect of how these technologies are training us to react immediately, at the expense of everything else in our lives, to a simple beep? In one sense we are being conditioned like Pavlovian dogs.  When the phone beeps, we immediately rush to view the message.  I know, because I again plead guilty! Beep, react, beep, react. How will this rewire us and what will happen to the spontaneous sense of play and contemplation that arises out of pure imagination that doesn’t provide an immediate answer?

The new field of neuroplasticity has arisen to begin to look at the ways our brains change, now that we have become aware that they are so malleable.  What we are fast learning is that what we expose ourselves to is what we become. Our brains create new neurons and new pathways to enable these new activities. This idea has tremendous implications for us individually and for our future as a human race.  What kind of person do you want to be?  How do we want ourselves to be as a human race?

The really good news is that we then have a choice, a choice of what and how we want to be.  Once we have made that choice, then all we have to do is to expose ourselves to those ideas.  Kind of reminds you of brainwashing, doesn’t it?  The beauty is that we have control over this!  In brainwashing, someone else has made the decision what to implant as a belief system, but now that we know our brains are plastic, we can decide with careful thought and planning to what we should expose ourselves.  While this sounds like a simple undertaking, it is not as easy as it appears.  We may consciously plan to learn some things, but a lot of learning is going on all the time unconsciously and we are not used to paying attention to everything we do, everything we think.  Mind you, this means we are influenced by the news we watch, the movies we view, what we do for work, the company we keep, and how we spend our spare time, both in action and rumination.

For those of you interested in learning more about neuroplasticity, I would highly recommend the book “The Brain that Changes Itself” by Norman Doidge.  Meanwhile, let’s all start to become more aware of how we spend our time and to what we expose ourselves. As you review the events of your day will you be able to express satisfaction with the way you have trained your brain today?

Will you be able to include contemplation and thoughtfulness as methods employed to make your decisions?

Or will you spending too much time being trained by your technological appendages?

I was just wondering….

 

May 3, 2013 By Mindfulness, Technology Leave a Comment

I Was Just Wondering

I was just wondering………when did we forget how to think?

A friend of mine recently suggested I write a column.

I don’t know where the idea came from, because she didn’t even know about my lifetime of musings.

All of us have a period of time during our childhoods when we incessantly ask “Why?” “Why do we have to go to bed now?,” “Why do we have to brush our teeth?,” “Why do the leaves fall off the trees?” We never stop wondering about things then, but when does the WONDER stop?  Fortunately or unfortunately, as you would have it, no one I know has ever had a reprieve from that question from me!  My husband would love for me to “put a sock in it” just once in a while, but I just cannot put a plug into my incessant desire to see the many flavors, colors, ideas and ways of viewing things and the world.  After all, I am a Gemini but perhaps it is more a byproduct of my profession as a psychologist and life coach.

Anyway, after the friend put the idea of a column into my head it didn’t take me long to realize that this was my opportunity to get us all thinking again, thinking about our choices, our beliefs, our decisions, our values, and maybe even our morals. Read More

Apr 7, 2013 By Mindfulness 1 Comment