Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching

Pull up a Chair: Art as a Solution for Election Anxiety

“… hope is 1,000 times as thunderous as a movement that marches with dread." ~James Carville

I am vacillating from anxiety to hope, dread to relief, excessive consumption of pizza to juice fasting – rinse, repeat, and scream. What a crazy time.

What I consider a disturbing and preposterousness possibility is flirting with upcoming election results and boggles the minds of millions as to how this could be a remote reality with the information we know. Some days it seems like it won’t happen, other days… we hear it’s imminent. Emotional whiplash prevention is in order.

Eight perfectly imperfect ways to cope with the current anxiety using creative thinking, art, and writing

1. Let Go
I’m letting go of speculation-obsession, (easier said that done because wondering what’s going to happen is laced with fear – real and imaginary -and fear has a way of removing cucumbers from my cool-as-them intentions.) When the speculation-fear pops up, I say, “Thanks for sharing but I have some living I’d like to do, a poem to write, a doodle to midwife, a laugh to emit.” I’ll find out who wins on election day. Hoping justice is finally kicking in and looking for it every day in the often toxic and ego-driven web of social media won’t make it happen and can eat away at my time, if I let it.

2. Trust
No matter what happens, I’ll handle it. The perseverance required in the chaos of art and writing teaches resilience, enjoying the moment, and letting go of attachment to way things need to look in order to be happy. I’ll flourish no matter the results because my power comes from within not without. I’m not perfect about that either, and that’s okay. When it works, it gives me a lovely break from dread.

3. Physical OutletI
put on Brent Lewis and move to the rhythm of his drums letting the heartbeat of anxiety morph to the ancient healing of a drum beat…Sometimes I pound on bongos for the subsequent catharsis. Any enjoyable physical outlet helps. Brent Lewis - Dinner at the Sugarbush -youtube

4. Gratitude
Redirecting the mind to that which I am blessedhas instant anxiety reducing powers. I’m grateful for about two million things… I just got back from teaching during a phenomenal Art walk on the Italian Riviera - that’s a wonderful memory to return to. with a slice of pizza.

5. Beauty
Fear has a greater pull than tranquility. It has more sponsors. Fear is how humans are wired to survive so it kicks in easier than being chill. I’m giving more airtime to nature, peace, and beauty even if it’s in five minute spans of time. Beauty is medicine.

6. Connection
When introversion doesn’t keep me happily solitary in my hovel of cats and books, I reach out to friends for connection, fun, and deliciousness with the understanding that we not talk about the thing. We are pack animals, connection is healing.

7. Make art or witness it.
Research shows we are less anxious, depressed and more fulfilled when we are immersed either in making art or receiving it. Not like I needed an excuse, but this boosts me aiming my direction toward writing and painting or going to a museum.

8. Halloween Wild Abandon Creativity Workshop:
Tuesday October 29 12 pm pacific/ 3 easternIf you want to experience how #7 works, come find revery by making art and receiving a guided relaxation writing in my Halloween Creativity Zoom workshop, join The Underground Highway for a supportive community . Especially for intimidated beginners and those who know the power of creativity to provide a timeless, fearless experience away from the craziness of the world. Link:

Halloween Workshop $25 Free to Paid Substack Subscribers (let me know in the comments you’d like to attend) and to Underground Members.

All best,

Jill

Bill Murray felt he was so bad at acting when he first started, he walked out of an audition in Chicago and, as he put it, “realized I had walked the wrong direction — not just the wrong direction in terms of where I lived, but the wrong direction in terms of a desire to stay alive.”

He ended up in front of the Art Institute of Chicago and decided to head inside. He didn’t feel like he had any place being there but walked through “because I was ready to die,” the actor recalled.

That’s when he saw “The Song of the Lark,” the painting you see above. It’s a painting by French artist Jules Breton from 1884 depicting a peasant woman in a field with a glorious orange sunrise behind her. She pauses to listen to a lark's morning melody.

I’ve always loved this painting,” Murray said. “I saw it that day and I just thought, ‘Well, there’s a girl who doesn’t have a lot of prospects, but the sun is coming up anyway, and she’s got another chance at it.’ So I think that gave me some sort of feeling that I, too, am a person and get another chance every day the sun comes up.”

Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, in the podcast On Being talked about her difficult childhood in Ohio and how she would escape to nature with a pen and pad. She is quoted with saying, “Poetry saved me.”

I know this for myself. Art, writing, poetry the receiving and the making of it pulled me out of some dark times. When I wrote and illustrated The Awe-manac I was feeling pretty low and found the writing and silly art as a sanctuary that revitalized my spirit. It’s worth the journey through not feeling good enough at the craft that’s often required if you want relax into the timeless, ageless, healing flow. Or it can be enough to just be present to wonder creativity is without worrying about the result.

Even just receiving art, music, and writing works. Researchers found that people who receive art by going to museums, concerts and art galleries are “less stressed, less likely to feel depressed or anxious report higher levels of life-satisfaction and well-being.”

This Sunday, I will be presenting a talk called Art as a Solution for Reality with a little more humor than has made itself known in this article, but performing the poetry of Sekou Sundiata, and speaking of how you can bring more art into your life, even if you’ve been blocked, reluctant, resistant, or unduly harsh about not being “good enough.”

The talk is part of a service at Vision: A Spiritual Community- and can be attended in person (with a workshop to follow) or streaming. If you’re around 10 am pacific time October 6, please attend and send notes.
4780 Mission Gorge Place, Suite H San Diego, CA 92120
It will also be streaming.

In junior high school I pinned a button on my backpack that looked something like this:

Ironically, I rarely smiled; seldom spoke for that matter. I was angst itself, accessorized with loafers, knee socks, and aching shyness. I kept cute, predominantly yellow things around to buoy me when the surf got turbulent, which was frequently in my family.

David, a kid in one of my classes, pointed at my sun and rainbow button one day (the one down there, remember?) and said, “I hate people who have these buttons.” He didn’t say, “I hate these buttons,” he said “I hate people who have these buttons.”

I had to think for a minute. Wait, that would be me.

The sun immediately turned to burnt umber and although David was not a contender for my affection, (mainly because I had no idea what that meant back then), I sunk further into my inferiority complex, (with which I was fully acquainted).

Instead of replying, “Hey di**it, bu**er off, the button said, ‘Have a nice day’ for God’s sake, what’s wrong with YOU?”

I deduced something was wrong with ME, removed the pin, and for many years, the sentiment. I would like to take this moment to finally reply:

illustration here
:http://www.gomnb.com/email/newsletter/1417202791
(actual thought that led to actual article)
Text:
Hey David, You should never ruin the day of a writer... they have weapons called pens... Have a nice day

It took me a long time to feel better about who I was, not just because of the David incident but because I believed the stories I told myself about me as well as believing stories from people I shouldn’t have listened to. They were just stories, but I didn’t know I could edit, revise, and rewrite them.

There was a diagnosis of clinical depression in there somewhere which actually inspired my writing and the realization that these tools called "pens" held the power to alchemize depression, davids, and darkness into poetry, and angst into art.

Now my depression just stands in the corner waving because I changed its story to something that just stands in corners waving, presenting up useful fodder for poems, new characters for prose, or moods for painting melancholy castles.

It was the birth of “So what, I’ll do it anyway!” I might not feel good enough… so what, I’m not going to let that stop me. It didn’t happen in 30 days and it didn’t happen in a straight line.

illustration here here:http://www.gomnb.com/email/newsletter/1417202791
(dramatization,don't try this at home)


There are still things I don’t like about myself because that’s how we humans roll most of the time. Out of habit, we think we are not good enough. Those thoughts keep locking the door to a more liberated life. We replay limiting thoughts until they become beliefs. We interpret the world in ways that don’t often serve our existence until we realize there’s another way.

We can accept that we don’t like everything about ourselves because denying it takes too much energy and doesn’t work. Just say thanks for sharing and, this is a challenge I know you’re capable of, notice the other stuff. What you pay attention to will begin to be your world. Pay attention to creativity.

It doesn’t happen immediately. It happens by asking a question repeatedly, until you’re living the answer because your subconscious found it while you were cleaning the kitchen counter and answered:
What would it feel like to feel good enough?”

Just ask the question and notice how it feels. The other question, "Why aren’t I good enough?" isn’t as helpful.

Ever since I started asking, What would it feel like to feel good enough?, I’ve surprised myself with how the yellow in life is more prominent than the umber.

Have a nice day.
Jill

Art is a solution for reality.
Follow me on Substack
https://jillbadonsky.substack.com/p/the-art-of-feeling-good-enough

Giraffter makes the world go round.

Hiya,

I've been teaching art and mentoring for the last few years, but have been yearning to get back to giving talks with performance poetry and various and sundry forms of inspiration.

I will be back on stage in October giving this talk (and optional workshop) and would love the support of friends and FB regulars there in person or if you're not in town, you can be there for me as it's streaming on Youtube. I'll be speaking from the book I've been working on for the last .... 92 years.