
Here is a drawing that a illustrated and “painted” using photoshop. I’m still experimenting a lot with this technique, but it’s pretty fun.
So this painting, although it just shows laundry, is really about my whole process with coming to realize that my primary focus for this next year is going to be on peacefulness. I came to it about a month ago and have been slowly putting the pieces together of what it means in my life and how to practice it.
So here’s the long story about how I figured it out.
At the end of November we went on a trip to visit some friends in Seattle. While I was there, I was talking with a friend that we were staying with, telling him how scattered I felt and how I had so many things that I was interested in and wanted to do, but felt overwhelmed by what to start or which one to work on, so I just felt like dumping it all and doing nothing.
So my friend say, “Erika, you can’t do it all. But you can do one or two. So just choose one or two to focus on.”
I knew he was right, but I just didn’t know what to focus on and I had a day or two where I felt like I was going through a mid-life crisis, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Chris helped talk me through it and suggested that it was an an incredible opportunity because I could do anything I wanted to do. The problem was I just didn’t know what to choose.
One night I ended up talking with my brother in law, Shane, and he told me the whole detailed story about how and why he chose to stop working as an actor and become a personal trainer instead. He looked back at his last 5 years and reflected on what he had learned and where the holes in his learning were - in other words, what he needed to learn next. He decided that ‘excellence’ was the quality that he needed to pursue and chose three areas of his life to focus on in order to pursue excellence.
His process really inspired me and I thought for a while that excellence was the quality that I needed to focus on as well. But when I sat down and reflected on my last 5 -10 years to see what I’ve learned, I realized that I already know how to pursue excellence. But it was very clear that what I really need to learn at this stage in my life with small children at home and limited time to myself is peacefulness.
So with peacefulness as my overall focus, I sat down to meditate on what few things I should focus on in order to help me achieve this goal. And then it became very clear.
Number one: journaling. Journaling helps me to sort out all of my issues. To reflect on my day, my life, my health, my children, my relationships and my dreams (night dreams). Journaling is the first step to bringing me peacefulness.
Number two: art. I wasn’t sure about how or why art was going to bring me peacefulness. Sometimes when I meditate, I receive an answer to something, but it takes me while to figure out exactly how all the pieces fit together.
When I think about art, I often have a surge of my negative issues: I feel self-conscious that other’s will judge or criticize me, I have way too high expectations of myself, I feel perfectionistic, controlling, judgmental and critical. I shy away from those emotions by avoiding art.
But when I actually do art, I let go of control, my self-consciousness disappears, I am fully present in the moment, and I feel connected to the invisible, spiritual reality. I feel at peace.
Art, therefore, brings me peacefulness because it forces me to confront all of my negative issues and to let them go.