Wiry Fankle One

Talk about being comforted! I spent 45 minutes being inspired by Janice Lynn Lundy this week. She is the Wisdom Expert at the Comfort Cafe for March and an author, spiritual director and retreat creator.

But mostly, she’s love.

I excerpted a gem from our conversation to share with you – it may change how you think of your breath forever.

Enjoy!

Janice Lynn Lundy Audio

Wiry Fankle Two

One of the things I talk about with my writer’s coaching group and at the Writer’s Retreat (and certainly practice myself) is the art of lovingly noticing your creative habits.

What inspires you?

When do you work best?

Where?

Does it change depending on what kind of project you are working or what stage of a project?

By being lovingly curious about our own process, we can so much better support ourselves to create – in writing, in art, in life – with so much more ease and joy.

And truth!

So I’ve been watching my own process

I’ve learned that creating a monthly workshop, almost daily dollops, audios, and talking on the forums for the Comfort Cafe is utterly wildly feeding my creativity.

I’m sparked, I’m inspirited, I’m enthused.

I’m on fire.

Can’t wait to lead my retreats at Kripalu – they are going to rock!

I share my fire for two reasons:

• One, I’ve gotten feedback that I’m over-delivering at the Cafe. May be true, I may need to back off so I don’t burn out or overwhelm people and I do need to raise the price so people value what I’m giving (that’s a different fankle) but the truth is: creating this much is better for me than creating less.

which brings me to point

• Two, don’t let anybody tell you what your process should be.
• Be a student of it, and trust it.

And know it is subject to change at any moment.

Wiry Fankle Three

One aspect of comfort:

allowing yourself be taken care of by what’s around you, by life itself, to be held and

not believing you have to do it all alone

Otherwise known as Fear I Will Never Create Again.

I knew this but I forgot it. If I’m not creating pretty regularly (with frequent shortish breaks otherwise creative burnout can result) empty space opens up where fear likes to take up residence. This isn’t true for everybody but some of us need to regularly create with the intention of finishing a discrete something to our own satisfaction.

Why finish to our own satisfication?  Because:

1

Finishing gives you a feeling of success simply through the act of completion and when you cajole your way through to finishing, you inevitably learn a number of things–  from how to deepen a piece of writing to how to apply that varnish you bought but never used before to how to cast off.  You also create momentum that can take you into your next project. I had a writing teacher who advised us to take parts of our novels and turn them into short stories, particularly good advice when you are working on a long haul project.

2

Being a creator means you will forever be assessed – some people will love what you do, some will like it, a few will hate it, and most won’t give a poop. I can read a book and press it on my friend telling her it will change her life and she can read it and say, “WTF?” If we are to stay (relatively) sane as creators, we must declare our own conditions of satisfaction for our work, conditions that are not dependent on anyone else. This is a hugely freeing idea that I talk about a ton at the writer’s retreat and with my writing clients.  Here are some examples from the retreat.

Before I write and if I start to feel lost or stuck, I check in with my heart by stopping, feeling my butt in the chair, and remembering a time I felt loving and connected.
I do not check email while writing.
I read a poem or short story once a week and make notes about sentence structure, words I like, and character development.
I look ahead each evening to when I will write the next day and make an appointment.
I record on my calendar that I wrote.
I generate new work four out of seven writing days.

Versus:

I’ll write when I feel inspired
I know this project will get done but it has it’s own life and I can’t rush it.
I have to hurry up and write this in a week because this idea must get out.
I must get up at 4 am every day to write seven days a week.
I have to go away to write, I can’t write at home
I’ll be happy when it is finished and I publish it and everybody loves it.

But wait? What if you can’t even get to the work because you are too afraid to sit down or even look at your supplies? You’ve got to ease into it, baby, ease in. C’mon on in, the water is fine. Here are a few very gentle ways to start:

• Pick up your pen or your paintbrush or a scrap of collaging material. Put it back down. That’s it for the day.
• Pause near your work space or your materials and as you gaze at them, recall a time you were creating that felt great: you were in the flow, you loved what you were doing, you were totally enjoying yourself. (When I do this, I think of a very specific moment rather than big swath of time.) Concentrate on those feelings of being in the flow and let them grow stronger. Relax into the good feeling.
• Pause near your work space and think about how much you love creating. If thoughts come chattering along like “You are so worthless for not working again today” or “You should give all those luscious paints away to someone who will appreciate them,” allow the thoughts to be there like you would allow clouds to be present in the sky. They don’t change the sky, they don’t hurt the sky, and they never ever stay put. Let the thoughts be there, neither resisting nor engaging.
• Ask yourself, “If it didn’t matter what I created or what I did with it or who liked it, what would I really really love to do today?”
• Take your art journal or computer to a cozy cafe. Sometimes you need other people’s energy to get started.
• Find a very supportive teacher and coach who showers you with love to jump start you.

What are your favorite ways to ease into creating?  And don’t forget to sign up here for the pre-release plus extra goodies and heck, I might even throw in my first born child if I actually finish the damn thing discount on my Comfort During Fearful, Perplexing, Overwhelming Times.

I was upstairs this morning making some various art messes and as I was painting pages in my art journal because I thought that might get me into the creative flow (which feels tantalizing close these days but I’m not quite immersed in it yet) and as I was painting I watched thoughts go by that sounded somewhat like this: “You should be working. What are you going to call the retreats you want to lead? Where are you going to hold them? What about your new speaking topics? This art stuff is a waste of time, you have no idea what you are doing. Why are you even doing this? You should be out making a difference like Michele Obama or raising money to help New Orleans if it gets smashed again.”

Whew, I know that was toxic to read! It was toxic to hear.  I don’t let these thoughts stop me and they sure do get old. My inner critic is of the productivity save-the-world variety which I suspect is part of what keeps me from kindly finding my next step. It’s better to stay lost when nothing is good enough.

But I kept painting and letting my thoughts go, not getting attached, and then after a bit, I came downstairs to my office to check my mail and Facebook page (I joined to see what my daughter was experiencing but found it’s very cool for grown-ups too – want to be friends?) and found this email from Pamela:

The artwork on the site and in the newsletter is so beautiful!! Will you ever offer T-shirts and other items, perhaps a calendar with “Jen-isms” and the artwork together, etc?
It would really be wonderful!

Thanks and many blessings-
Pamela H.

I love you Pamela, not because you made me feel talented or that what I was doing in the studio was worthwhile but because it reminded me that our story (in this case, the one from my pushy inner productivity bitch) is just one story. It is not the truth. As I was feeling conflicted and doubtful in my mess making, Pamela was deriving energy or delight from my messes. That doesn’t mean I’m signing up for art school tomorrow – that would be dumb but fun – but that I (we) can trust our desires and let them lead us more than we ever can our stories about what those desires mean or don’t mean. Or we’re being mean to ourselves.

Do you have an inner productivity bitch? Do you think being satisfied is one of the keys to kindly find yourself?