Change...

This is something that the world tells us to do, yet no one allows you to do.

Think on that for a minute...

On that note, I have just completed my Chakra Class. SO AMAZING!!! I'm telling you, go to lacyyoung.com and look at her stuff! She's a miracle worker!! I've never felt better!!!

The terrifying part of this is change. We all work ourselves into a rut, and DAMN is that rut comfy. It's easy to just chill, and change is terrifying all on its own. Then you bring friends and family into it.

Now don't get me wrong, I love both my friends and my family, but it's always the people you love who make it difficult to change. Which makes sense, I mean it's scary to think that you might lose a friend because they are going through all of these changes, and in the end you end up having nothing in common. I've felt this way, and I'm sure others have too, but this is no reason not to try change on!

"Not my circus, not my monkeys." It's easier said then done, ignoring the potentially hurtful things that people say to you when you tell them "I have to meditate today" or something along those lines. BUT!! If you stand tall and stick to your guns (metaphorically speaking of course:P), people will either learn to adjust to the new you and respect you for trying to better your life, or they'll leave. This is the hurtful and terrifying part. Having to let go of a friend you may have had for life, but just isn't liking the new you. If you are loving who you are (and you'd better believe it feels wonderful!!!) then you should let them go. It's doing all of your hard work a dis-service.

I'm still on the verge of climbing out of the rut I've dug myself into, but I can feel little things changing, very slowly. Starting with eating better! I ACTUALLY look at ingredients now, and made myself the deal that if I can't read it, or I don't understand it, back on the shelf you go!!! I've always been a huge fan of stuff made from scratch anyways. Also a HUGE fan of organic food!! ...OK so I may have gone a lil bit hippy... You know what though! I'm totally OK with that! I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I'm more cognizant of what I'm eating and where it came from.

That said, I'm also REALLY happy!!! Going through all of the Chakra's in my body, I found that almost every one was blocked and affecting my energy flow negatively. I've slowly worked through them and eased out some of the kinks and blocks, but still have a long way to go. But the most important thing is that I'm happy! I saw my life before for what it was, didn't really like it (or myself for that matter), and decided that something had to give.

Change is SUPER hard and SUPER scary, but if it's the right change and it makes you feel like you're floating on sunshine, then just go with it!! You are entitled to feel happy and to do things just for you, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!!

Well, sorry for the looonnnggg absence, but I've been doing a lot of introspection lately and there are really only 24 hours in a day (and I was on vacation IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!! The core of my soul:P). Hopefully I'll be writing more frequently now (I will be, don't worry), and we'll continue on our crazy ride of creativity together!!

Ciao for now!!!

Rethinking and Refocusing!

So! I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, chronic anxiety, and OCD... Not a new thing for me, but if I'm not constantly aware of it, it kind of takes on a life of it's own. It starts to control me! This is not even an over-exaggeration.

Depression makes me want to recede into myself. Anxiety makes me... Well anxious about everything and anything. Oh the anxiety, but we'll touch more on that later. And the OCD makes me want to put everything just so, and if it can't be just so then whatever, it can't be worth it.

All of these little wonders have been giving me chronic tension headaches like I haven't had in YEARS!! On the one hand, I guess it's a good thing because I'm getting out there and trying new things. On the other hand though, they are INCREDIBLY painful (bordering on migraine) and are really not helping me to grow and evolve as a person and as a multi-potentialite. So what the heck!?!

I think this is my body's way of telling my to SLOW DOWN!!!!! Not physically, I'm not really running myself physically ragged (quite the opposite:P Yay Chocolate!!), but mentally. I've been overthinking at a pace that I'm pretty sure a Bullet Train couldn't keep up with (or something else really fast).

I've been worrying and thinking about so many things that my body is starting to react physically. So I kinda zenned (it's a word if I say so) in and tried to refocus. What's really bothering me?

Well, to start I think that it might have started by reading/listening to two inspirational books at the same time, both telling me to GET OUT THERE AND DO WHAT YOU DO BEST!!! MAKE ART!! ...yeah that's all well and good, but it's REALLY not that simple with a mental illness. Like at all! My body was screaming at me, but I'm of the stubborn variety (I could out-stubborn my parents even when I was 5), so I just kept schlepping away at it. Trying to organize/paint/draw/sew, and throw in a little financial worries in there and just exhaustion, things weren't going so hot.

Plus work was being a drag, so on top of all the things going on in my personal life, I was constantly on the edge of tears. Ugh... Just writing this is bringing up all those icky feelings. All of this, along with the wonders of mental illness, brought me to my knees. Something had to stop this swirling in my glass box of emotion:P

So I sat back (in the Sun at my Farmer's Market) and really thought about it. What do I really need to do?? What's REALLY the reason I'm sitting on the edge of a full blown panic attack??

Well, I came up with a whole list of To Do's/Wish Lists/You name it, it was probably on the list. That made me feel much better, because now I get to CROSS IT OFF THE LIST!!! YAY!!! But it also made me think a little deeper about my current Farmer's Market experience...

I don't think I'm in the right crowd for my wares... The market I'm currently at is incredibly rural, and the baking goes the fastest. Clothes/Accessories (except jewelry for some reason?) don't really seem to sell. Things like Norwex, Avon, Epicure, small knitting projects, blankets, etc. seem to go over really well... I have a lot of people come and look at my loom and go "Oh wow!! That's really cool!!", but they don't seem to be terribly interested in what I'm selling. I've decided that I'm going to:
1. Lower my prices for now to maybe help it catch on
2. Set up an Etsy market postey hastey
3. Try trade shows/craft shows in more artsy places over the winter and see how I like it

If Etsy takes off I might just say screw it to the whole Farmer's Markets and just stick with artsy Trade Shows and online sales. I think that's something that's really been bugging me a lot lately. And if the rain stops by tonight, I'm going to start taking pictures of what I've done so far!! There!! It's decided!! I'll do it in my riverstone backyard in front of one of my old elm trees!!

I've reworked things a few times, but I think that this might be my biggest reworking yet. We'll see how the summer goes!!

Ciao for now!!

I Got Nothin'

Hello all!! 41st post!! ...alright I'll stop counting now...

 

Anyways, something interesting happened to me today. I didn't really want to do ANYTHING! Like nothing creative!

 

BUT! I've been reading a book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. AMAZING by the way!! But this lack of drive kind of made me think of this book... It's basically about fighting through a "lack of inspiration" or as he calls it "The Resistance" and doing the work anyways.

 

So I decided to give it a try! This is something I have NEVER done before!! At least not mindfully thinking about it. It was totally weird. At first all I could think about was the million things I have to do at home (there really aren't that many, I made a list the other day and it's no where near as bad as I'm making it out to be:P), or about how instead of writing, maybe I should be drawing, or reading because I have books due back at the library in the near future.

 

Long story short, the muses were not with me. At first that is. A little background to what I'm doing these days (guess I haven't done this in a while!!), is that I'm trying to write a short, literary non-fiction story for a local magazine contest. I'm also trying to come up with new things to draw/sketch out, and I'm trying a thing where I'm pulling it ALL from memory (or many memories of different places all squashed together) and making a scenery drawing. I ADORE drawing scenery. I've gone from a few photo's lately, and it's not the same... Totally different actually, but I'm trying to only look at the horizons and different angles, not the picture itself.

 

Whew!! That was an off-rant and not really where I wanted to go with this. Anyways!! I finally sat down and forced myself to write. Little more background, I love writing, but I hate actually doing it if that makes any sense... I'm complex like that:P So I forced myself to pick up my pen (it looks like a syringe and needle:P) and made myself write for my whole break (15 minutes). It wasn't one of those "never let your pen stop moving things." No, I even set my pen down at times to try and remember exactly what happened. It's a hilarious story, but it happened way back in 2012, so I'm a little fuzzy on all the details.

 

What did I find with this quick little writing exercise? Well, once some of the kinks worked out (def going to be doing some heavy editing in some parts), things actually started to flow. I actually started to get my groove of semi-formal writing back (I consider this informal:P). The weirdest thing I found was that it was actually pretty fun. I guess it's kind of like running for me, I really do enjoy it, but finding time for it and getting my butt out the door is really the hard part.

 

So where does "The War of Art" come in on all of this? Well, I probably never would have tried this little exercise out if I hadn't been reading it (I'm about 2/3 of the way done) and probably wasted time on my phone for the whole 15 minutes of my break. CRAZY PANTS!!

 

If you're looking for an amazing read, I would highly suggest it, along with a bunch of audio books I'm listening to right now (I can't read while I type at work so I just listen).

 

Anyways, have a good one!! Talk soon!!

A Needle over the Edge

Well folks, I finally snapped! First, I was trying to figure out how to sew a historically accurate skirt for my dress. I figured that to speed things up on such big seams I would use my sewing machine.

Backstory on this, I was sewing another outfit back in January and I broke a needle on my machine at pretty much the same time I ran out of my good thread. So, I managed to find another needle and some more thread, both second rate and kinda crummy. But it was the night before a big event and I needed the outfit. Chaos ensued. I wasn't sure at the time of it was the needle or the garbage old thread I was using. Well, now I know it WASN'T THE THREAD!! I have now come to the conclusion that I need a new needle for my machine (after half an hour of playing with the tension of the machine, the bobbin, and just about everything else). It was in this time I completely snapped. I yelled, I screamed, and I may have done some damage to the pieces of material for my skirt...

Anyways, long story short, I but the dogs in their kennel and went for a walk to the library to pick up some books I have on hold. Turns out Wednesday is the one day a week when it closes early! Ugh!! So, if I couldn't calm myself down by wandering around books, by God I needed chocolate. To 7/11 I went.

Then it hit me, meditation. I was so all over the place from stress and frustration I needed something to bring me back and center me again.

I've been playing with meditation for a little while now, and so far I've had some really good results with it. Lacy Young is the genious who introduced me to this. I had been curious about it for some time, but didn't really know where to start. So, while listening to my favourite podcast, I finally got some clarity. Lacy was featured in one of the New Years Resolution episodes, and it was love at first listen. Ever since then I've been scouring her website (link above). She has soooo much good, free (my favourite price:D) content it's unbelievable. Her guided meditations are to die for. This is what I've been using for my inner peace lately.

So, the moral of this post I guess, is keep breathing no matter how frustrating life gets, and find something that gives you some peace. It may not be a crappy sewing machine needle that finally sends you over the edge, but if you're not careful something definitely will.

Ciao for now!!

P.S. These are some wonderful pieces of art I cranked out after I calmed down😊