Creative Circle Cafe

Creative splash

2008-09-14T16:12:00.001-05:00

Earlier today I wrote about meaning-making on my other blog called Walking The Circle Home. After writing that blog I thought I'd share some ideas that came up about creativity and it's place and meaning in our lives. We can't just "find" creativity just as we can't just "find" meaning but we can definitely support and manage the discovery of our creativity. We can be eager and alert for opportunities to explore our creativity with hope and vigor. If we don't feel hope and vigor we can try our best to fake it. It could become real. What do you have to lose?

Creativity that has staying power I think comes essentially from the heart. I'm not talking about a wage-earner who must create, I'm talking about passion. Passion comes from the heart. I believe that devoting our efforts for the good of other people will increase our staying power. As I said earlier to day effort that is devoted to furthering personal aims and ego will feel shallow eventually, perhaps so late in life it will carry a heavy burden of regret.

Our creative work can be traced by to cave drawings that are thousands of years old. Using ash and ochre our creative ancestors made creative marks to describe something of life, meaning and method. Creativity is inherent in our human nature. Nurture your creativity, it is sacred and honorable - hopefully used in the service of goodness and justice.

This week I invite you to take your creative work a step further in some way. It's entirely up to you, it's a free pass for a bit of creative freedom or expressiveness or joyful abandon. Perhaps an experimental piece...in your preferred creative medium of the day. Throw your arms wide and grasp something new and bright - have the brisk cold splash of a new creative experiment make you gasp with surprise. I'll try to do that same.Please share a comment about your experience if you feel like it.

Happy creative splash!

Pamela

Web hits and eyeballs

2008-07-08T09:00:00.015-05:00

A free webcam came with a used computer I bought four years ago. It came with a collection of cables I didn't need and a bundle of stuff the seller told me was a webcam. Sure, whatever.

My friend Jennifer is a professional web manager and she kindly offered to take on my website as a volunteer project, she's performing SEO (search engine optimization). Just imagine, I'm being optimized. Just about every teacher I even had at school tried that on me as well. It never worked. I remained un-optimized for the duration of those boring years shut up in school classrooms. It's different with my friend, she's engaged in optimizing an area I'm passionate about: my art sales.

Nurturing and increasing art sales directly from a website is a wonderful goal. I'd like to see those sales grow along with sales through galleries. Both are important in the same and different ways. Giving exposure to my gallery partners via my web site helps them and sales from my web site helps them and me.

The work I'm doing with my SEO-wise friend looks like this: some days I don't have to do a thing and other days she actually wants me to work. That's all well and good but this is all new to me and I have very little clue about what I'm doing. My part is to just answer her questions to help her understand the vision I have for my art on and off the web. Anyway, she was willing to do this mysterious SEO work and I'm very grateful that she wants to play around with it and wave her magic wand over my life-on-the-web for the eventual good of my art life and online art sales. It's all about hits. Who ever thought the day would come when we would want hits? I thought we wanted to avoid hitting. Sheesh.

Next, my friend suggested we cam-conference. It sounds harmless. I think, "Crikey! what the hell is that about" but I'm game. I tell her I think I've got one - a web camera. I hunt around to find my webcam (looks like someone lost an eye). Next I dig around on the web and download Skype (even my New Zealand grandmother's been using Skype for about six years). Then I go to the Logitech site and download the XP driver for the eyeball. I'm all prepared now. I'm wondering why. But I am prepared. I install the eyeball driver, then Skype, sign on, answer questions that will affect how the Skype world deals with me...like, whether my eyeball is always watching me...or not. That's a big one, hey? I chose "not" but keep looking at it to see if it's following me.

I waved my mouse over the whole shabang, including the eyeball and, wonder of wonders, my ugly mug showed up on my computer screen. Well, I never!

My SEO-wise friend and I ended up phone conferencing after all. Her eyeball wouldn't work properly. How do I feel? Well, honestly, I feel more complete as a human being and, anyway, grandmother Kuia Marion will be so proud of my new technical skills.

Tenderness and Depression in Creative People

2008-02-15T14:00:00.008-06:00

This is a second interview with Dr. Eric Maisel who was here at the Cafe yesterday. Today we're talking more about Eric's book The Van Gogh blues: the creative person's path through depression along with the notion that self-care and care for others - that is, love and tenderness - can help fight depression and anxiety in creative people.

Hi, Eric, and welcome. It's great to have you back. Let's talk more about this great book. In the introduction you say that virtually 100 percent of creative people will suffer from episodes of depression. In the book you describe the complete meaning-making process and vocabulary but can you describe a snapshot of how to handle a meaning-making crisis?

E: Love rekindles meaning: falling back in love with art or with your own art replenishes meaning. Having other meaning avenues available helps: possessing meaningful relationships and meaningful pursuits other than art-making are good things. Taking action helps: getting to the studio even if the blues have descended and working, even without enthusiasm, can help restore meaning, if not the first day then the second or the fifth or the eleventh. Having success helps: if you can’t find the wherewithal produce, it might be exactly the right moment to redouble your marketing efforts, so that success occurs, which success becomes a meaning boost. And accepting the rhythms of the creative process helps: knowing that the process comes with periods of time when you are lost, or not producing in your voice, or fulfilling commissions that don’t move you, and remembering that tomorrow or next week a sea change in meaning may come.

Q: You mention that intimacy and personal relationships are as important to alleviating depression as are individual accomplishments. What is the link between the two and are they forged in similar ways?

E: It is important that we create and it is also important that we relate. Many artists have discovered that even though their creating feels supremely meaningful to them, creating alone does not alleviate depression. If it did, we would predict that productive and prolific creators would be spared depression, but we know that they have not been spared. More than creating is needed to fend off depression, because we have other meaning needs as well as the need to actualize our potential via creating. We also have the meaning need for human warmth, love, and intimacy: we find loving meaningful. Therefore we work on treating our existential depression in at least these two ways: by reminding ourselves that our creating matters and that therefore we must actively create; and by reminding ourselves that our relationships also matters, and that therefore we must actively relate.

Q: In the chapter Sounding Silence you discuss Negative Self-Talk and it's role in meaning crises, do you think as creatives we sabotage ourselves and our abilities?

E: Yes, all the time. We are continually saying things to ourselves (though often just out of earshot) like “It’s too late for me” or “There’s too much competition” or “I don’t really have what it takes.” These negative thoughts need to be heard and disputed, and then more affirmative thoughts need to be substituted. More insidiously, as we are tricky creatures and because we don’t want to know to what extent we are disappointing ourselves by not creating, we couch our negativity in language that sounds true but that really isn’t. Today, the two most common phrases of this sort are “I’m too busy” and “I’m too tired.” We say these things because we know that they have enough grains of truth in them that we can believe them without examining them too closely. If we want to change this dynamic, we need to begin to say things to ourselves like “I’m very busy, but not too busy to spend twenty minutes on my novel.” In this way we honor the truth of our situation while at the same time not avoiding our existential responsibilities.

Q: Do you feel that it would be valuable to form a creative community to offer support to one another by following the principles in your book and talking out these disappointments that come along and working out how to get back on track when they happen?

E: It would be, if people could rise to the occasion and actually support each other. We are self-interested creatures and it is not so easy for us to provide genuine support for others of the species. What I think might be a first step is for people to speak about meaning more explicitly and clearly, using a vocabulary of meaning, and then they could see to whom they were drawn—that is, people who spoke the “same language” would begin to chat with one another, and that might form the basis of a supportive community. I think that would be an excellent first step on the road to actual mutual support.

Q: How can we cultivate an attitude of attention towards our creative dreams and goals? How do you suggest we focus love and attention on our creative work when there are so many other things completing for our attention?

E: One approach is to institute a regular, seven-day-a-week creativity practice, where we show up at the same time every day (at five in the morning, say), and create a habit that is so sturdy that distraction has no way in. I describe the details of such a creativity practice in The Creativity Book.

Q: Can you tell us more about the sense of commitment and your use of the word "force" in the sense that we can choose to make a commitment to force meaning on our lives? How can we think about this process in a way that helps us actualize our dreams and our best idea of ourselves?

E: I believe that it is very important that, as a species, we engage in a paradigm shift from seeking meaning to making meaning. “Forcing life to mean” is a phrase that the novelist Hermann Hesse used in his journals and it captures what I believe is our central existential task, to decide what cherished principles we want to uphold and how we want to represent ourselves in the world and then to act accordingly, whether or not what we have decided looks meaningful, proper, or appropriate to anyone else. The individual is the only arbiter of meaning in his or her life—there are no legitimate meaning police and we ought not allow there to be any meaning police of any sort. Rather than “looking for meaning in all the wrong places,” or even in the right places, we reflect on how we want to be and then live life that way, making our own meaning
as we passionately create ourselves.

Q: As creativity coaches we frequently hear from artists who need a "second job" to pay the bills and that the second job drains them of time, energy and spirit which they would otherwise devote to their creative lives and, worse yet, the second job drains meaning from their life, dragging down their hope and their spirit. Do you have any suggestions for restoring meaning?

E: As it happens I am working on a new book that is all about making meaning. To answer the question, there are only a handful of possible choices, none of them perfect. The first is to see if we can reinvest meaning in our current meaningless job by identifying any parts of the job that do feel meaningful and focusing our energy and attention there, insofar as we can. For instance, if you are a teacher and love your classes but hate faculty meetings, you reinvest meaning in your classes and plead a headache as often as you can and get out of as many meetings as possible—or spend the meetings dreaming of Tahiti or plotting your novel. The second is to see if, by investing meaning elsewhere (say, in a creative project), you can create enough meaning capital that you can stand the meaninglessness of your day job. The day feels different if you go off to work or if you write for an hour on your novel and then go off to work. In the latter case you may have built up enough meaning capital that the rest of the day can be endured. Third, you find your way out: you bite the bullet and announce to yourself that your meaning needs come before you financial needs and that you really must find another line of work. Reality bites; and we must meet its bite with our full endowment, which sometimes means getting the heck out.

Q: You note in the book that "Most creators feel miserable if few or none of their creative efforts succeed." What do you recommend to an artist facing this situation, struggling to find acceptance of their creative work and to make meaning in their life?

E: A lack of success and a lack of recognition are profound meaning crises that must be addressed just as any meaning crisis must be addressed, with all of our heart and all of our energy. We have the following options. We reinvest meaning in our art and reinvest meaning in our marketing efforts and make a new go at doing excellent work and also at becoming an excellent advocate for our work, in the hope that this time recognition and success will follow. That is, we try again, only harder and smarter. In addition, we invest meaning elsewhere, in other meaning avenues and other meaning containers, and especially in intimate relationships (Van Gogh was happy for one year, when he was in such an intimate relationship). There are no other existential answers: we try again (perhaps differently and hopefully with a better payoff) and/or we try something new.

Q: Do you think there's value in toughing it out through our anxiety and depression?

E: Many artists try. I believe that it serves us best to learn how to reduce or eliminate both depression and anxiety from our lives, as I do not hold them as useful in any way. I think that pain is overrated. That isn’t to say that the following might not happen: you work honorably and well on a creative project, you finish it, you are depleted and no new project wants to come forward, and after a certain amount of time the blues strike, since you aren’t making sufficient meaning and don’t feel quite up to making new meaning. This sort of depression can creep up on any working artist. The depression is not useful in and of itself but it is a clear signal that the time has come to see if new meaning can be made. It is the time to get back on the horse and back into the studio. Maybe there is nothing there yet and maybe you will experience days or weeks of nothing particularly generative happening. Be that as it may, the depression was not a gift; it was merely the warning sign that a meaning crisis was brewing or had erupted—and that action, even if futile at first, was now required.

Q: Let's visit the topic of addiction. In chapter 9 Disputing Happy Bondage you say, "Creators are prone to addictions because an addiction is an ineffective but tempting way to handle meaning crises" and "the pressures of meaning-making cause us to seek pleasurable meaning substitutes."

For many alcoholics and addicts the use of chemicals or behaviors or other forms of addiction are ways of lessening feelings of loneliness, sensitivity, lovelessness and other existential crises. Can there be some positive, meaning-enhancement uses for what you list as meaning substitutes?

E: In my vernacular, no, because a meaning substitute is just that—not meaningful. It is a “poor substitute” for making intentional meaning. That isn’t to say that it might not have tremendous blandishments and rewards, activating our pleasure center this way or numbing our pain that way. But, especially over time, the dangers are profoundly great, as witnessed by the number of creative and performing artists ruined by addiction. A drink is not a problem; turning to drink as a way to deal with meaning challenges is a problem. Shopping for a tie is not a problem; turning to acquisition as a way to deal with meaning challenges is a problem. To the extent that a creative person uses anything or does anything as a way to avoid the challenge of making sufficient meaning, that is a problem—maybe not the first time he does it, maybe not the second time, but certainly when it becomes habitual and a place of dependency.

I just finished writing a book on the subject (co-written with an addictions specialist, Dr. Susan Raeburn), in which she and I present what we think is the first addiction recovery program specifically geared to artists. Addiction is often a meaning substitute in a creative person’s life—it is a quick fix way to deal with existential depression but it ultimately becomes an additional source of depression as the artist loses control and begins to suffer large negative consequences of his addictive use, including often enough an inability to create regularly or well—or at all. Wish there was more room to chat about this!—but the book, Creative Recovery, comes out from Shambhala during the Fall of this year.

Q: In chapter 4 Sounding Silence you discuss Negative Self-Talk and it's role in meaning crises, do you think as creatives we sabotage ourselves and our abilities?

E: Yes, all the time. We are continually saying things to ourselves (though often just out of earshot) like “It’s too late for me” or “There’s too much competition” or “I don’t really have what it takes.” These negative thoughts need to be heard and disputed, and then more affirmative thoughts need to be substituted. More insidiously, as we are tricky creatures and because we don’t want to know to what extent we are disappointing ourselves by not creating, we couch our negativity in language that sounds true but that really isn’t. Today, the two most common phrases of this sort are “I’m too busy” and “I’m too tired.” We say these things because we know that they have enough grains of truth in them that we can believe them without examining them too closely. If we want to change this dynamic, we need to begin to say things to ourselves like “I’m very busy, but not too busy to spend twenty minutes on my novel.” In this way we honor the truth of our situation while at the same time not avoiding our existential responsibilities.

Q: Could you explain more about the importance of creating a life plan sentence/statement?

E: If you agree to commit to active meaning-making, you need to know where to make your meaning investments, both in the short-term sense of knowing what to do with the next hour and in the long-term sense of knowing which novel you are writing or which career you’re pursuing. Having a life purpose statement or life plan statement in place serves as an ongoing reminder of the sorts of meaning investments that you intend to make, both short-term and long-term, and helps you make the right “meaning decision” about where to spend your capital and how to realize your potential.

Q: In chapter 8 Nurturing Self-Support you say "you have to change your mind and heal your heart" and then what follows is a beautiful list of examples where you recommend whispering, "I am the beauty in life" as a way to heal shame, fight fears and mend sorrows and soothe all manner of human anguish.

Can you talk more about this?

E: Yes. Even before you can make meaning, you must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your own life and fashion a central connection with yourself, one that it more aware, active, and purposeful than the connection most people fashion with themselves. Having some ideas about purpose is not the same as standing in relationship to yourself in such a way that you turn your ideas about purpose into concrete actions. Self-connection—understanding that you are your own advocate, taskmaster, coach, best friend, and sole arbiter of meaning and that no one else can or will serve those functions for you—is crucial.

Eric, thank you so much for sharing your inspiring ideas and writing here today.

Dear visitors, that's all for now. Remember, if you decide to re-invest as the meaning-maker in your life The Van Gogh blues: the creative person's path through depression will gently and wisely walk you through the introspection and action steps to carry you to a new level of meaning-making in your life. To support you in that process and provide you with language for the journey there are "60 Terms for a Vocabulary of Meaning" at the back of the book to get you started, for meaningful self-talk and to communicate meaning-making with others.

Eric's book again is The Van Gogh blues: the creative person's path through depression just out in paperback by New World Library. You can learn more about Eric and his work from his web site at www.ericmaisel.com.

Good luck and enjoy the journey whenever you possibly can.

Love Helps Heal The Blues

2008-02-14T05:00:00.010-06:00

Welcome, everyone! I'm very pleased today to introduce to you Dr. Eric Maisel. Today and tomorrow Eric will be here talking with us about his book The Van Gogh blues: the creative person's path through depression just released in paperback by New World Library. Eric is an internationally known expert on the creative process, a workshop leader, a psychotherapist, and the author of more than 30 books including Coaching the Artist Within, Fearless Creating, Ten Zen Seconds, a Writer's Paris to name a few.

Pamela: Eric, welcome back. It's great to share news about another of your great books. When I was thinking about this interview I was drawn to focus partly on, well - love. It is Valentine's Day after all but my focus is on romancing the self rather than another person and by that I mean love from the perspective of a creative person's need for very healthy doses of confidence and self-love, and how to create that self-love. So, Eric, please tell us what The Van Gogh Blues is about.

Eric: For more than 25 years I've been looking at the realities of the creative life and the make-up of the creative person in books like Fearless Creating, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and lots of others. A certain theme or idea began to emerge: that creative people are people who stand in relation to life in a certain way-they see themselves as active meaning-makers rather than as passive folks with no stake in the world and no inner potential to realize. This orientation makes meaning a certain kind of problem for them-if, in their own estimation, they aren't making sufficient meaning, they get down. I began to see that this "simple" dynamic helped explain why so many creative people-I would say all of us at one time or another time-get the blues.

To say this more crisply, it seemed to me that the depression that we see in creative people was best conceptualized as existential depression, rather than as biological, psychological, or social depression. This meant that the treatment had to be existential in nature. You could medicate a depressed artist but you probably weren't really getting at what was bothering him, namely that the meaning had leaked out of his life and that, as a result, he was just going through the motions, paralyzed by his meaning crisis.

P: Are you saying that whenever a creative person is depressed, we are looking at existential depression? Or might that person be depressed in "some other way"?

E: When you're depressed, especially if you are severely depressed, if the depression won't go away, or if it comes back regularly, you owe it to yourself to get a medical work-up, because the cause might be biological and antidepressants might prove valuable. You also owe it to yourself to do some psychological work (hopefully with a sensible, talented, and effective therapist), as there may be psychological issues at play. But you ALSO owe it to yourself to explore whether the depression might be existential in nature and to see if your "treatment plan" should revolve around some key existential actions like reaffirming that your efforts matter and reinvesting meaning in your art and your life.

P: So you're saying that a person who decides, for whatever reason, that she is going to be a "meaning maker," is more likely to get depressed by virtue of that very decision. In addition to telling herself that she matters and that her creative work matters, what else should she do to "keep meaning afloat" in her life? What else helps?

E: I think it is a great help just to have a "vocabulary of meaning" and to have language to use so that you know what is going on in your life. If you can't accurately name a thing, it is very hard to think about that thing. That's why I present a whole vocabulary of meaning in The Van Gogh Blues and introduce ideas and phrases like "meaning effort," "meaning drain," "meaning container," and many others. When we get a rejection letter, we want to be able to say, "Oh, this is a meaning threat to my life as a novelist" and instantly reinvest meaning in our decision to write novels, because if we don't think that way and speak that way, it is terribly easy to let that rejection letter precipitate a meaning crisis and get us seriously blue. By reminding ourselves that is our job not only to make meaning but also to maintain meaning when it is threatened, we get in the habit of remembering that we and we alone are in charge of keeping meaning afloat-no one else will do that for us. Having a vocabulary of meaning available to talk about these matters is a crucial part of the process.

P: I'm so impressed with the tenderness for creative people that shows up in The Van Gogh Blues and indeed in all your other books. I think there's a great need for that sort of tenderness because our culture tends not to nurture artists. Do you think people creating in American culture have a more difficult time holding/making meaning for themselves and their work than creative workers in Europe, for example?

E: Yes. The very construction of European society, where people have more days off and more freedom to sit in a caf‚ and write, draw, dream, or chat, makes it easier for people to deeply consider how they what to represent themselves and how they want to make themselves proud. That is why European movies are "more meaningful" than American movies: our culture is dominated by the idea of happy endings and by clich‚d and superficial examinations of the facts of existence. Because of our insidious pop culture, mass media, and bottom line-driven dynamics, it is harder for a creative person here to feel motivated to do the kind of meaningful work that is in his or her heart to do.

P: It seems from the stories in your book, as well as stories from artist friends, my creativity coaching clients and my own experiences as an artist that a good portion of the depression you talk about in the book is caused or worsened by self-criticism and even much harsher kinds of self-denigration that creative people seem to assail themselves with. Do you think creative people are more harshly critical of themselves than other groups of people and if so does that arise from our personalities or culture or both?

E: Most people are self-critical and most people fear criticism. Because they know this about themselves, they decline to do the kinds of work that will get them criticized. They opt for accounting rather than performing or civil service work rather than writing. They make a calculation, somewhere just out of conscious awareness, to hide and, by hiding, avoid any more criticism. Creative people, by contrast, bite the bullet and risk constant criticism. Because they take this risk, they must deal with more criticism than the next person: they are putting themselves out there and must deal with consequences of going public. A gallery owner can criticize; the artist must bear the brunt of the criticism. An editor can criticize; the author must bear the brunt of the criticism. It isn't that the gallery owner or the editor is any less self-critical or any less afraid of criticism, it is just that they have put themselves in the position of doing the criticizing - a nice one-up power position.

P: In the hierarchy of self-care for creative people can you tell us in one or two sentences how important it is for us to learn and practice thinking, speaking and dealing with ourselves in ways that are respectful, confident and loving?

E: We keep waiting for someone to be our marketplace advocate and supporter and dream of being discovered, forgetting that we must be that advocate and supporter first, last, and all the time. If we are not confident, we will not take the necessary steps to find those advocates and supporters; if we are not self-respectful and self-loving, it will not matter if we do find those advocates and supporters, as we will ruin our success (as so many artists do) through ongoing negative self-talk and ongoing self-sabotaging tricks.

P: Do you find that this habit (habitual good self-talk, love and tenderness), if we can make it a habit, really does result in creative people achieving a happier more productive creative life? In other words being tender produces or increases the likelihood that we'll achieve the successful results we dream of and truly want?

E: It is very hard to get our work accomplished if we are hating our efforts and hating ourselves. It is one thing to have a splendid idea for a novel and get highly excited; that excitement will only last a very little while and then, as Virginia Woolf put it, "resignation sets in," that resigned sense that the novel is going to be hard work and not a lark. To see ourselves through that hard work, which may take years, we must not get too down on ourselves or too down on our novel: when we get too down, we stop-and maybe stop for good. That tenderness you speak of is the way that we keep ourselves gently in love with our work, our efforts, and our very self: if we are hard-hearted rather than tender and see only difficulty, darkness, and our putative faults, we are almost sure to quit.

P: What might a person interested in these issues do to keep abreast of your work?

E: They might subscribe to my two podcast shows, The Joy of Living Creatively and Your Purpose-Centered Life, both on the Personal Life Media Network. You can find a show list for The Joy of Living Creatively here and one for Your Purpose-Centered Life here. They might also follow this tour, since each host on the tour will be asking his or her own special questions. Here is the complete tour schedule. If they are writers, they might be interested in my new book, A Writer's Space, which appears this spring and in which I look at many existential issues in the lives of writers. They might also want to subscribe to my free newsletter, in which I preview a lot of the material that ends up in my books (and also keep folks abreast of my workshops and trainings). But of the course the most important thing is that they get their hands on The Van Gogh Blues!-since it is really likely to help them.

P: This is the paperback version of The Van Gogh Blues, How was the hardback version received?

E: Very well! The reviewer for the Midwest Book Review called The Van Gogh Blues "a mind-blowingly wonderful book." The reviewer for Library Journal wrote, "Maisel persuasively argues that creative individuals measure their happiness and success by how much meaning they create in their work." I've received countless emails from artists all over the world thanking me for identifying their "brand" of depression and for providing them with a clear and complete program for dealing with that depression. I hope that the paperback version will reach even more creative folks-and the people who care about them.

P: How does The Van Gogh Blues tie in with other books that you've written?

E: I'm interested in everything that makes a creative person creative and I'm also interested in every challenge that we creative people face. I believe that we have special anxiety issues and I spelled those out in Fearless Creating. I believe that we have a special relationship to addiction (and addictive tendencies) and with Dr. Susan Raeburn, an addiction professional, I've just finished a book called Creative Recovery, which spells out the first complete recovery program for creative people. That'll appear from Shambhala late in 2008. I'm fascinated by our special relationship to obsessions and compulsions and am currently working on a book about that. Everything that we are and do interests me-that's my "meaning agenda"!

P: Eric, thank you so much for sharing your work at the Creative Circle Cafe today. I'm excited to pick up this conversation again tomorrow. I hope a thousand artists working in any medium will read this blog and renew their love and honor for themselves and their creative work and renewed energy for their creative dreams and goals. Let's cross our fingers for that, eh?

Well, everyone, please join us again tomorrow when the topic will be The Link between Tenderness and Depression in Creative People. We'll look more at The Van Gogh Blues and the topic of self-love for creative people. I'll pick out some of my favorite passages from the book and we'll talk about the purpose and power of writing a life meaning statement. Please join Eric Maisel and myself again tomorrow, Friday, February 15th. That's also my birthday-what a great way to celebrate!

Creating in the Midst Of - Part II

2008-01-20T10:00:00.000-06:00

First a plug for two interviews coming up here at the Creative Circle Cafe on February 14th and 15th which I think you'll really find interesting and helpful. I'm pleased to share again the work of Dr. Eric Maisel who I'll be interviewing about his book The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person's Path through Depression, just released in paperback by New World Library. I hope you'll join us. The focus for each interview near as I can say now will be as follows but these are working titles and could change.

Love Helps Heal the Blues - February 14th, Valentine's Day

Tenderness and Depression in Creative People - February 15th

Antidotes for Northern Hemisphere Blues
So, now Part II in a four part series entitled Creating in the Midst Of where we're chatting about issues that support or hinder our creative work and this week we're going to chat about feeling blue and some ideas about self-care. If you live in the northern hemisphere, work indoors, travel to and from work mostly in the dark and don't spent a good amount of time outside during daylight you might be a good candidate for a case of the Northern Hemisphere Blues. The days begin to get longer after Winter Solstice on December 21 but by the time that rolls around we've already got lots of short, light-deprived days under our belts. For many of us this delivers a case of winter depression. While it's true that many folks don't seem to experience negative side effects from light deprivation at this time of the year, it's not "all in your head" if you can't concentrate, lose your focus, become sad and disorganized or experience a host of other symptoms. The cumulative effects often begin to show up in late December and January so it seems timely to put in a friendly plug about some simple ways we can gently help ourselves through this time. To that end my blog today is an incomplete, unscientific list of suggested ways to love yourself through and out of the Northern Hemisphere Blues. If you're feeling the blues, don't take it lying down. Perhaps you'll find just the right mix amongst these healing homespun suggestions for self-care. If you try one thing and nothing changes, try another, gently try a bunch of them.

- talk to someone you like and trust about how you feel, on the phone or in person and even email works.
- do some gentle exercise on the floor at home, a daily stretching routine might help and get you started.
- try a light lamp. I have friends who swear by them. It should be certified to meet the treatment specifications you need. You may be able to get a prescription for a light lamp from your doctor.
- try to spend some time outdoors once a day, take a walk, sit on a bench. Spend time with nature.
- spent time with friends even if you don't feel like talking.
- ask a friend or family member if you can check-in with them once a week about tasks you feel are important to help you focus and complete them. Be sure to tell them you need encouragement not censoring.
- look back over the last year or two for events that might have added to your depressed feelings and, if you find any, be aware that you're still processing those events so give yourself a break; be patient. Consider talking with a psychologist or therapist.
- if symptoms persist or you feel hopeless talk to your doctor. Listen to all your options and try to keep an open mind. Many neighborhoods have a free clinic if paying to see a doctor is a problem.
- remember you're not alone, you're not weird and it's not weird that this is happening to you.
- try as much as possible to resist the temptation to shame or blame yourself for the way you feel or for not being able to think your way out of it.
- give yourself a pat on the back for everything you do manage to accomplish on any given day no matter how small you think the accomplishment is.
- humility and acceptance are a challenge to achieve at the best of times nevertheless "just for today" try to be humble and accept your situation as it is while you begin a gently daily practice of some new kinds of self-care.
- take a peek at The Van Gogh Blues by Dr. Eric Maisel and just released in paperback by New World Press (ISBN 978-1-57731-604-6). The book offers 230 pages of humane insightful help, ideas and stories.
- consider hiring a professional organizer for just a couple of hours a week, do so to help you stay on top of bills and paperwork. One friend who did this said it made all the difference in the world, it was miraculous and made the difference between doing something and doing nothing. This might sound extravagant but it's very practical.
- once in a while consider dropping off laundry at your local self-serve laundromat many of which will charge by the pound to wash and fold your laundry. If you can afford it take laundry in once a week. Again, this is a practical option which conserves your energy for family, your job, etc.

Creating In The Midst Of - Part I

2008-01-13T06:37:00.000-06:00

Today is Part I of a four part series. We're going to be chatting about some of the challenges to creativity which arise because of the nature of our work, our personalities, and the responsibilities and commitments we have in other areas of our lives. We'll look at how to stay positive about our creativity in the midst of that. The call to create and to stay true to our creative vision is a challenge for most creators at some or many points in their life. Without digging too deeply we'll look at some of these challenges and talk about gentle ways to reward and honor yourself for doing the creative work you do.

Additionally while creative friends in the southern hemisphere are enjoying long days in the height of summer our creative friends here in the northern hemisphere could well be experiencing a down turn in spirit, perhaps full blown depression, brought on by less sunlight and shortened daylight hours. So I'll talk a bit about that as well.

Commitment to creative work - decide to maintain a consistently friendly, warm and genuine respect for yourself and for your commitment to your creative work regardless of the blocks of time available for doing your creative work. The need or choice to earn a living outside of or in addition to income from your creative work, caring for family and your self, taking care of other commitments that are important to you often mean time is short for doing your most meaningful creative work. Having made the choice to be responsible about these things can lead a creative person to question their commitment to their creative work. This is unfriendly to yourself at the very least and taken to extremes leads to undeserved self-criticism, feelings of hopelessness and self-betrayal. Give yourself permission to manage your responsibilities in ways that seem best to you at the time. If that means creating around other responsibilities, give yourself a pat on the back for being a well-rounded person. If the stress of managing too many responsibilities starts to weight on you, be open to exploring changing when you do different tasks, what can be shifted or re-arranged and find a different balance. Sometimes, taking a rest is all that's needed - a day or a weekend saying no to everything except truly absolute essentials. Honor and praise yourself all the more if it's difficult to negotiate the time you need to do your creative work.

The blues - also for the next four weeks I'll talk a bit about ways that creative people can help gently banish the depression which is so common in creative people. Creatives experience a special kind of blues-the existential blues-as we strive to do our meaningful creative work, think deeply about meaning and by nature explore issues which can be tiring and challenging. This week I'm excited to invite you to learn more about how to handle the depression that creative people so commonly experience. On February 15 I'll be interviewing Dr. Eric Maisel here at the Creative Circle Cafe about just that and in the meantime here's the link to interviews with Eric about The Van Gogh Blues recently released in paperback, click Read the Schedule (this is a pdf file best opened in IE not Firefox). In the series interviews Eric talk very specifically about creative people and the special kinds of depression they commonly experience. Dr. Eric Maisel is the author of more than thirty books include Coaching the Artist Within, Fearless Creating, A Writer's Paris, The Van Gogh Blues, The Creativity Book, Performance Anxiety, Ten Zen Seconds, and many others. He's San Francisco-based creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches, a California licensed marriage and family therapist and a national certified counselor, who these days provides only creativity coaching and not any therapy or counseling. He has been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years and has been writing for thirty-five years. He holds undergraduate degrees in philosophy and psychology, Master's degrees in counseling and creative writing, and a doctorate in counseling psychology.

The Van Gogh Blues and "How Purpose Heals Depression" podcast with Dr. Eric Maisel

2008-01-05T11:39:00.000-06:00

Hello, everyone. I have some lovely, inspirational opportunities for you all as we begin our sojourn in 2008, providing gentle and insightful ways to heal and successfully manage the recurrent depression most creative people experience. Incidentally this material can be used by anybody not only those who identify as creative people.

Opportunity number one is to sit back today, tune in and listen to Dr. Eric Maisel's podcast Your Purpose-Centered Life, where he's currently chatting about “How Purpose Heals Depression,” a nine-part series directly related to his book, The Van Gogh Blues which has just appeared in paperback from New World Library. Here's the URL if the direct link doesn't work for you: http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts /214-purpose-centered-life. Many of you are already familiar with the work of Eric Maisel, Ph.D., author of more than thirty books, recognized expert in the area of creativity, psychologist, creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches.

I hope you'll check back here at the Cafe for my interview with Dr. Eric Maisel on Friday, February 15 as part of his virtual book tour chatting about The Van Gogh Blues. The book tour runs from January 14 through February 23 with daily interviews, each one with a little different focus. Next week I'll post the full book tour schedule.

Pick up a copy of the book for yourself or an artist in your life.

New Year & the other 364 special days

2008-01-01T19:40:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year to all. We had plans to celebrate and greet the New Year with friends but from the wee hours of December 31st until the wee hours of this morning I sick with nasty bout of stomach 'flu. My only New Year's goals are 'be well, be gentle, be wise.'

I have a special fondness for the New Year's celebrations but my my life has also taught me that it is "just another day" in the most positive sense, meaning that this perspective on things is intended to bring all the other "not-New Year" days up to that higher level rather than downgrading "new year's day" in any way. With first light every day our slate is wiped clean and we're handed a new day to use in whatever way we're able to and choose to from the situation and circumstances in which we find ourselves. That's not to say our conditions are easy or simple or the way we wish them to be.

For a goal-oriented gal like myself the beauty in this is that it provides me with a way to stay in today, this 24 hours; to measure myself and my accomplishments in smaller segments. With this lifeway I can usually stay in today, knowing that again at first light tomorrow I can change or grow or choose more boldly or more in line with my values. Yesterday is gone, the new day is wide open for choices and values.

Traditionally, many folks use the twelve month calendar and January 1st as the marker for measuring accomplishments in the year past and setting goals for the year ahead. Honestly, when I need something broader or bigger than "one day at a time" I'd sooner choose a segment of time chosen by my heart, not the calendar - after all isn't the calendar only meant to help us get to appointments on the correct date? Or more importantly how to gather at the same time to celebrate birthdays, marriages, passages? I don't believe calendar time is the best measure for who or where we are in our lives. I'd rather choose to measure increments of my life by the cycles of the moon or the seasons - like this: what did I accomplish in the Fall, when the leaves on the trees were turning gold and red? Listening to my heart or spirit or wiser self I can ask, what were the most meaningful accomplishments I remember from when the sumac was blazing scarlet? Marking time this way connects me to the Earth, all living things and the cycle of life outside calendar time.

A peaceful and balanced 2008 to us all.

Coming Home - Studios and Sacred Spaces

2007-12-23T12:41:00.000-06:00

I am first and foremost a painter. I also write and have facilitated Circles for workshops and community storytelling. My current art studio is located in a building across the street from my home. It's my third studio space and each studio has represented a journey and a story.

First creative space

Let's call the kitchen table my first studio space. I'm four years old. This would be considered external creative space. Internally at four years old my creative space was the world of animals and plants, the extravagant colors of the universe. Before that I don't remember awareness of active creative work space although I have a vivid memory of being pre-verbal and feeling an awesome rage because I couldn't reach colored pencils laying on a table in sight but out of reach. I couldn't yet form words to ask for them and those colored crayons might as well have been on another planet. As an older child I remember a few memorable occasions when my dear Mom, who passed away this year and now is keeping time and playing with gusto on a full size violin in the spirit world, drew special additions on masterpiece artwork I brought home from school. She would sometimes add fake eyelashes and big saucy lips to the people and animals in my drawings and I'm sure she had no idea how dismayed I was. I'm reminded that we don't know what children are thinking unless we ask. I also realize these events were partly responsible for my transition from drawing to doing more writing - a more secluded and safer venue.

Second sacred space

My second real studio was free space in the basement of an fine apartment building on the best street in town. A friend was the building manager and offered me a one-room basement apartment that was used only for storage. I could have it rent-free if I cleaned it up and did I want it? Did I? I'm reminded of the girl who's given a large pile of horse manure and is thrilled, saying, "there has to be a pony in here somewhere." Only a pony-loving-artist could have looked in those rooms and seen a pony. It was pretty much full of old carpet, furniture, unrecognizable tubs of things, more grubby stuff and judging by the fixtures and wallpaper it hadn't been lived in for probably 20 years. It was terrifying to look at - filthy, smelly, paint peeling, ceiling falling in, no running water, bath and sink full of dirt and plaster. I was able to get water to the kitchen sink and from there buckets of water to fashion a flush toilet. All I could see was it's charming character and potential. I was in love.

As I loved this charming pony-studio so in turn it loved me. Beneath the manure were appalachian freckles, an arabian profile, great form, and a lovely personality. As I nurtured every inch of it into a "studio" it strengthened my creative personality. I hauled out trash six times my body weight, I got filthy, sweaty and determinedly happier day after day. The transformation took a couple of months of physically tough labor. As a path was cleared I painted the walls white, scrubbed stone and metal, floors, put bars on the windows so I'd feel safe at night, and loved it back to life...like the proverbial magic lantern, rubbed and rubbed, eventually it glowed. A year or so down the road the building was sold and my friend no longer managed it, so I vacuumed and dusted the common areas once a week for the new owner instead of paying rent. I also showed him the photographs of "before" and "after" which I think persuaded him I'd paid some dues for the space. Today I can drive by and see lights on in that apartment, somebody lives there now. I created not only a studio space for myself but dredged it back to the land of the living so that when I left it became a home. I'm guessing they don't need a bucket to flush.

Third sacred space

But back to our original story. So now we're up to studio number three. The third studio in our story was on the 7th floor of a beloved, grubby old shoe factory which provided studios for 200 artists and homes for more than a few of them. A thriving, true artist community in downtown. My first space there was rented from a master painter who became my friend and mentor. Then I rented a small space kitty corner, looking over towards the Minnesota River. On a clear day I could see the trees lining the River, great cloud views by day and stars by night. A glorious studio experience. Sadly for our whole community, the building was sold for renovation as "artist lofts" and the prices were too high for the artists currently living and working there so we were tossed like feathers to the four winds... It was a dreadful break-up, emotionally wrenching for a community that provided creative, emotional and day to day support for each other. Sadder still more than a few of the artists expected to become homeless.

I started casting around for a different studio space. Around this time a 'For Rent' signed appeared in a shop window across the street from my home. Some weeks passed and I called to make an appointment to see the space knowing most likely I couldn't afford the rent. No harm in looking I told myself, it will help me start the process and I was curious. Yes, the rent was higher than I was paying at the shoe factory and, no, I couldn't afford it. During our conversation the building owner mentioned it would be great to have an artist in the building. I'd never had anyone see me as an specially attractive tenant just because I was an artist! She was a creative person herself and thought a painter would be a wonderful addition for the building. Much as I tried to think of ways to make it work by sharing the space and rent, it was just too expensive. So, oh well, too bad, I couldn't rent the space. Two weeks later that 'For Rent' sign was still in the window. I called the owner and couldn't even really say why but I learned she'd been meaning to call me for a few days because she'd decided she wanted to rent the space to me if we could work something out. We did just that. We worked out an arrangement that worked for us both. It's worth checking out "impossible" possibilities. You just never know how things might work out. So make the effort and then let go of the outcome. It won't always work out but sometimes it will.

Fourth sacred space - ugly ducks and swans

At this point in my life and in my work with creative clients, I'm interested to learn more about the creative space internally - how to support creative people as they empower and honor their creative spirit. As an artist this is my own life's work too. If we're attentive I believe it is an ever-evolving and deepening process. The evolution of artists and their creative spaces, externally and internally, are unique and there's no guide book. Artists face challenges most other folks do not. Some challenges artists face are so daunting that the artist feels they must give up her or his creative work altogether. Sometimes letting go of creative work is essential to lead a happier or healthier life and then it's certainly a reasonable choice.

We all need to take a break from time to time. Long term abandonment of creative work is a different kettle of fish altogether. When giving up creative work feels like a tragedy, then giving it up is not necessarily a good choice or perhaps shouldn't be the only choice. My rule of thumb is this: if events or experiences have halted your creative spirit or you're no longer able to summon the courage to do creative work, you're wounded and the wound is worthy of healing. Your healing journey is important. Your creative work is important, no matter if it is a hobby or your life's work. You are important. You deserve to take time to seek out ways for healing to occur, so you can be more freely creative again-or for the first time. I believe that like ugly ducks turning into beautiful swans, the tremendous energy bound up in challenges and experiences can be transformed into powerful fuel for creative work. Creative work that is unique and only you can do. The energy can be transmuted and channeled into your craft, your heart's work. I am not saying this is ever easy to accomplish-it's not uncommon for creative people to seek some professional help to facilitate that transformation. For some folks that help might be to seek help from a creativity coach, movement therapist, psychological counselor, massage and energy worker, pastoral counselor, hypnotists.

I know creative people wounded by catastrophic events around their creative work, too much toxic criticism, exhaustion or burn-out and they weren't able to return to their creative work. Sometimes the event or events occurred within recent years or even years ago in their youth but have surfaced again. When an artists gets halted, to the extent they must abandon the work they love, that's a tragedy-for the individual creative person and, honestly, for civilization because artists are the spirit and measure of a civilization.

Losing an artist from our community is like losing a part of our collective frontal lobe. So what can you do? If you're an artist, take care of yourself every way that you possibly can. If you don't consider yourself to be an artist and don't want to be one, you can help by finding an artist in your own community whose work you like, an artist right there where you live, and support the heck out of her or him: share and buy their work, be friendly, promote them, talk about them and about their work, be a patron in small ways or large. This isn't a benefit only to your family and the artist, it's a gift to humanity.

Where is the fourth sacred space? For me at this time it is within, that sacred space where the desire to create art is planted.

Coming in 2008 - interview with Eric Maisel author and creativity expert

2007-10-11T06:10:00.000-05:00

Thinking about buying a 2008 calendar? Here's a heads-up about an inspiring opportunity coming to the Creative Circle Cafe in early 2008. You'll want to put this on your calendar, Babe!

I'm very pleased to tell you that Dr. Eric Maisel, renowned author and creativity expert, will visit the Creative Circle Cafe again in February 2008 as part of his whirlwind international book tour celebrating a new edition of his book, The Van Gogh Blues. Eric will respond to questions and share insights about the concepts explained in the book. It's a privilege to have Eric visit with us again to explore deep questions about meaning-making, creativity and the unique depression that can trouble creative people.

Weekly interviews with Eric from his book tour will be posted and are sure to offer support, ideas and nourishment for your creative spirit. I hope you'll join us. I will post links to all the book tour sites here at the Cafe blog so check back if you feel like it for more news about this and other opportunities to support your creative life and work. From the book The Van Gogh Blues by Dr. Eric Maisel, "Meaning is our territory, and casualties on the battlefield of meaning are our subjects. Depression in creative people is essentially a meaning problem and must be handled by a meaning expert: you. Right now you may not consider yourself a meaning expert or even understand the phrase. But as you read along, you will come to understand what a meaning expert is, what she does, and why you must become one."

Drop me an email if you like, about this or any other topic in your creative life.

Low key and soft values on a rainy Saturday

2007-08-18T15:18:00.001-05:00

Light and dark. Aspects of painting and life itself; values get a lot of discussion in both art and life as well. Well, I need plenty of good lighting in my studio today, as the rain falls and clouds keep the sun cloistered. The colors in the land and sky are soft and the values are darker. I'm not keen to go out and paint in weather like this! I admire those who do. Rain water running up my coat sleeve just isn't appealing in spite of how pretty and soft everything looks in this weather.

As I think about the creative goals I have this summer I invite you to think back on what you decided to accomplish in your creative life over the summer months. How's that going for you? Are your nurturing the things you truly value? We make our plans, god willing and the creek don't rise. We can all be waylaid by all that life brings along which we didn't plan so, all that aside, have you made steps toward your creative goals? Have you set down some goals with clarity which you feel are probably essential as you move towards your big goals and dreams? Have you deliberately and courageously named two or three supporters who you trust and believe will be open-minded, positive and able to support your work towards your goals and dreams? Have you asked for their support? Have you written to the galleries that handle work like yours? There's a lot of work that gets done behind the scenes. It's as important as our hands-on creative work.

I hope you feel pleased with the progress you're making. It's easy to belittle the progress we make. Somehow, we rewrite history so tasks look bigger when they're ahead and smaller when they're in the past! I hope you're being reasonably patient with yourself and others. All great artists trip over their feet from time to time, not to mention all the other debris there is to trip on on the Highway of Life. Persistence with a good dollop of kindness wins the day. Focus on working from love not fear, and keep moving forward. Celebrate every accomplishment, small and large - your own and those of people you care about. And help each other have fun along the way!

Now, where did I put my summer 'to do' list?

Ten Seconds for Art, Heart, Anxiety and PTSD

2007-04-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

Today I'm excited to share an interview with one of my favorite people, Dr. Eric Maisel , respected author and internationally recognized expert on creativity. His new book called Ten Zen Seconds describes a centering technique which takes just a few seconds to implement. Occasionally we leaern about a technique or tool which can last a lifetime, supporting and enriching our growth through the triumphs and tragedies of life, and the most precious are usually simple, elegant and powerful. I believe this centering technique is definitely in that realm. Eric's book includes wonderful personal anecdotes from lots of folks using this technique in many different situations. There's lots of room for awe and self-discovery. I've been waiting to ask Eric if this centering technique could alleviate or heal symptoms of severe anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), too.

Pamela Yates: Hi Eric! I'm so glad you could join us today.

Eric Maisel: Thanks for having me!

PY: What is Ten Zen Seconds all about? Can you give us a thumbnail sketch?

EM: It’s actually a very simple but powerful technique for reducing your stress, getting yourself centered, and reminding yourself about how you want to live your life. It can even serve as a complete cognitive, emotional, and existential self-help program built on the single idea of “dropping a useful thought into a deep breath.”

PY: How does the technique work?

EM: You use a deep breath, five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale, as a container for important thoughts that aim you in the right direction in life—I describe twelve of these thoughts in the book—and you begin to employ this breathing-and-thinking technique that I call incanting as the primary way to keep yourself on track.

PY: Where did this idea come from and how did your background contribute?

EM: It comes from two primary sources, cognitive and positive psychology from the West and breath awareness and mindfulness techniques from the East. I’d been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years as a therapist and creativity coach and wanted to find a quick, simple technique that would help them deal with the challenges they regularly face—resistance to creating, performance anxiety, negative self-talk about a lack of talent or a lack of connections, stress over a boring day job or competing in the art marketplace, and so on.

Because I have a background in both Western and Eastern ideas, it began to dawn on me that deep breathing, which is one of the best ways to reduce stress and alter thinking, could be used as a cognitive tool if I found just the right phrases to accompany the deep breathing. This started me on a hunt for the most effective phrases that I could find and eventually I landed on twelve of them that I called incantations, each of which serves a different and important purpose.

PY: How did you decide on the important ideas or phrases you selected?

EM: First, I tried to figure out what are the most important tasks that we face as human beings, then I came up with what I hoped were resonant phrases, each of which needed to fit well into a deep breath, then, most importantly—which moved this from the theoretical to the empirical—I tested the phrases out on hundreds of folks who agreed to use them and report back on their experiences. That was great fun and eye-opening!

People used these phrases to center themselves before a dental appointment or surgery, to get ready to have a difficult conversation with a teenage child, to bring joy back to their performing career, to carve out time for creative work in an over-busy day—in hundreds of ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. I think that’s what makes the book rich and special: that, as useful as the method and the incantations are, hearing from real people about how they’ve used them “seals the deal.” I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.

PY: Which phrases did you settle on?

EM: The following twelve. I think that folks will intuitively get the point of each one (though some of the incantations, like “I expect nothing,” tend to need a little explaining). Naturally each incantation is explained in detail in the book and there are lots of personal reports, so readers get a good sense of how different people interpret and make use of the incantations. Here are the twelve (the parentheses show how the phrase gets “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:

1. (I am completely) (stopping)
2. (I expect) (nothing)
3. (I am) (doing my work)
4. (I trust) (my resources)
5. (I feel) (supported)
6. (I embrace) (this moment)
7. (I am free) (of the past)
8. (I make) (my meaning)
9. (I am open) (to joy)
10. (I am equal) (to this challenge)
11. (I am) (taking action)
12. (I return) (with strength)

A small note: the third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.

PY: Can you use the incantations and this method for any special purposes?

EM: As I mentioned, folks are coming up with all kinds of special uses. One that I especially like is the idea of “book-ending” a period of work, say your morning writing stint or painting stint, by using “I am completely stopping” to ready yourself, center yourself, and stop your mind chatter, and then using “I return with strength” when you’re done so that you return to “the rest of life” with energy and power. Usually we aren’t this mindful in demarcating our activities—and life feels very different when we do.

PY: I wonder how your techniques might apply specifically to visual artists?

EM: There is one special way: because we have so much visual data in our lives already, almost to the point of visual assault, it can prove hard for a visual artist to feel like it is meaningful to add “more visual data” into a universe already replete with imagery. This is a “meaning problem,” that is, an existential problem, which can rise to the level of meaning crisis, precipitated by the doubt that more imagery—or more imagery of a certain sort, like landscape or portrait—is still meaningful to produce.

This is where incantation 8, “I make my meaning,” can prove really useful. When an artist reminds herself that she is the sole arbiter of meaning in her life and that she can “stand behind” her decision to produce her particular imagery just by deciding to take that stand, she shores up any meaning leaks and can get on with her work. The combination of incantation 8, “I make my meaning,” and incantation 10, “I am equal to this challenge,” an incantation that acknowledges how challenging visual representation can be, is a powerful combination in a visual artist’s “cognitive toolbox.”

PY: Eric, this is a question close to my heart. How can sufferers of PTSD and other severe anxiety disorders who want to lessen or even eliminate their prescription medications make use of your Ten Zen Seconds methods?

EM: It can be terribly hard for sufferers of severe anxiety disorders to handle their anxiety without medication. One of the important shifts for anxiety sufferers whose anxiety is related to specific traumas, as is the case with those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, is arriving at a place of remembering the trauma without having to relive the trauma. That is, you want to be able to have a certain kind of thought (a memory) without having a certain kind of feeling (a whole-body experience of the trauma happening again).

Therefore you can use the name-you-work incantation, incantation 3, to name as your work “I can remember without re-experiencing,” “I can remembering without reliving,” or some similar phrase that, coupled with the healing power of a deep breath, starts to separate the memory from the emotional charge, so that you don’t have to live in fear of your own memory. Coupling this incantation with “I feel supported” and/or “I am free of the past” produces a short, half-minute-long personalized centering mantra that targets the effects of PSTD.

PY: Is there a way to experience this process in “real time.”

EM: By trying it out! But my web master Ron Wheatley has also designed a slide show at the Ten Zen Seconds site (http://www.tenzenseconds.com) that you can use to learn and experience the incantations. The slides that name the twelve incantations are beautiful images provided by the painter Ruth Yasharpour and each slide stays in place for ten seconds. So you can attune your breathing to the slide and really practice the method. The slide show is available at http://www.tenzenseconds.com/test_photo_slide.html

PY: How can people learn more about Ten Zen Seconds?

EM: The book is the best resource. You can get it at Amazon by visiting:

http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Zen-Seconds-Eric-Maisel/dp/1402208537/sr=1-25/qid=1167239458/ref=sr_1_25/102-5337867-2282549?ie=UTF8&s=books

Or you can ask for it at your local bookstore. The Ten Zen Seconds website is also an excellent resource: in addition to the slide show that I mentioned, there is a bulletin board where folks can chat, audio interviews that I’ve done discussing the Ten Zen Second techniques, and more. It’s also quite a gorgeous site, so you may want to visit it just for the aesthetic experience! I would also recommend that folks check out my main site, http://www.ericmaisel.com, especially if they’re interested in creativity coaching or the artist’s life.

PY: I know you're always engaged in new creative work so please tell us what else are you up to?

Plenty! I have a new book out called Creativity for Life, which is roughly my fifteenth book in the creativity field and which people seem to like a lot. I also have a third new book out, in addition to Ten Zen Seconds and Creativity for Life, called Everyday You, which is a beautiful coffee table book about maintaining daily mindfulness. I’m working on two books for 2008, one called A Writer’s Space and a second called Creative Recovery, about using your innate creativity to help in recovering from addiction.

And I’m keep up with the many other things I do: my monthly column for Art Calendar Magazine, my regular segment for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, the trainings that I offer in creativity coaching, and my work with individual clients. I am happily busy! But my main focus for the year is on getting the word out about Ten Zen Seconds, because I really believe that it’s something special.

PY: Eric, it's been so good having you join us here at the Creative Circle Cafe. We'd love to have you back again any time you feel like chatting with us again. Thank you.

EM: Thank you for having me here today!

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Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is the author of more than thirty books. He holds Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology, Master's degrees in Creative Writing and Counseling, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology. He is a California licensed marriage and family therapist, a creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches, a columnist for Art Calendar Magazine, provides regular segments for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, and teaches Ten Zen Second techniques through lectures, workshops, and teleseminars. He lives in San Francisco.

Dr. Maisel is widely regarded as America's foremost creativity coach and has taught thousands of creative and performing artists how to incorporate Ten Zen Second mindfulness techniques into their creativity practice.
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Hope for people experiencing anxiety and PTSD

2007-04-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

Today was a day of filing and desk work in my studio and as I tidied my studio desk and drawing area I was thoughtful about the questions I will be asking Dr. Eric Maisel during my interview with him next Friday when we discuss his new book, Ten Zen Seconds. Eric Maisel is a thoughtful, creative and helpful expert in the area of creativity and he's been engaged in this work for more than two decades. His style of helpful, compassionate insight and motivation has empowered many people in a good way - including those called to do creative work as painters, writers, musicians, sculptors, weavers, potters, playwrights, you name it. His books, workshops, talks, web and blog provide creative and inspiring resources for just about anyone.

I was invited to choose a focus area for the interview - a question or two in an area of special interest. I'm interested in how the centering technique in Eric's new book Ten Zen Seconds can be applied to alleviate or eliminate symptoms of anxiety and post traumatic stress. And, along with a thoughtful and careful approach with a medical professional if you're taking prescription medication, possibly even allow some folks to re-evaluate how they treat the condition. Clearly that's not the goal of the centering technique. I've experienced the symptoms of severe anxiety and PTSD, and having experienced a great amount of healing I know that even small positive changes can feel immensely empowering and hopeful. When I share my stories I'm always surprised by the incredible number of women and men challenged by these conditions.

I've been aware of Eric Maisel's work as a creativity expert for many years and I'm very excited to share this interview with you. I hope one or many of you will find a way to experience reduced symptoms or a new freedom from anxiety or PTSD. Anything is possible.

Drop in again on Friday, April 20, to catch that interview with Eric.

The Eagle feather reminds us to strive towards wisdom and courage, one day at a time.

The Fragrance of the Earth

2007-04-08T16:00:00.000-05:00

There's a morning each Spring when I awake and as I'm just coming awake, thinking or saying a morning prayer, going about my usual morning habits and human rituals I'll become aware of the unfrozen Earth in a special way. It's more unconscious than conscious to begin with, a sense that I'm noticing something just outside my field of vision. Sure, I might have noticed the ground beginning to soften a bit beneath my feet or noticed less chill in the air but what is especially precious is the moment when my body senses the fragrance of the Earth. I've talked about this to my friends and we marvel at the tantalizing and startling awareness and senses we have within ourselves. There's a deeply resonant connection that is remade each year at this time. It is now that the first Thunder comes to wake the plants and trees. And us. Mother Earth and the Grandfathers and Grandmothers awake us to Spring time!

What does this mean? What can it mean to creative people? Every person finds their own answers. I believe it's important and helpful to find some answer which connects us to these powers and presences in Creation. So I wish you a good journey this Spring, listening and learning as I myself will be trying as best I can to slow down and experience the Oneness, smelling the fragrance of the Earth newly melted and moist finally, after the cold and ice. Earth's fragrance as our living Mother and Grandmother in the Circle of Life, nurturing us as we rediscover our natural place on the Hoop.

In arid lands like the area where I was born there is a special sacred smell that comes when rain comes to the dry Earth. I know my life moves too fast at times and I'm so busy that I often miss these fragrances. They can be a reminder to me to slow down, to remember what I notice when I'm attentive to Creation and the Hoop of life, all around us, all the time. As creative people we can find peace and good energy from balancing our senses and being attentive to the Dance.

On Friday, April 20 I will have the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Eric Maisel about his new book, Ten Zen Seconds. I've seen a pre-publishing copy and I feel absolutely sure that many of us will blossom and expand our creative energy and creative productivity from the practice he's going to teach us about. I can't wait! The focus for part of my conversation with Eric will be how practice of Ten Zen Seconds can help people who are challenged by issues of PTSD, severe anxiety and recovery from addiction. These are serious, challenging and important topics - it is Spring, the time of Mother Earth's re-awaking and renewal and it is the perfect time for this discussion!

Enjoy the fragrance of the Earth!

Audacious balance, creativity and Ten Zen Seconds

2007-03-25T19:42:00.001-06:00

If we look around we'll find there's a whole bunch of successful, producing artists who maintain a healthy balance of tender-hearted compassion and resilient toughness. They've learned to keep their hearts open to the mystery while recognizing and letting go of apathy and materialism.

Artists and others can decide to learn and practice this sort of healthy balance, first, by being aware it's possible and then by learning about and modeling the behavior - using awareness, practice, patience and maturity. There's lots of thoughtful books and guides about how to practice letting go, becoming mature people, honoring the sacred self and some suggested reading is included below. A great new book just released by author Dr. Eric Maisel called Ten Zen Seconds provides guidance on how to increase your sense of balance by following a simple, effective method of mindfulness practice. I'm excited by the opportunity to interview Eric Maisel about his new book on Friday, April 20. We'll chat about the methods described in his new book and the benefits specifically for artists and other creative people. I'll be asking questions about this practice can benefit my clients with the issues they frequently deal with in their creative work. Until now, no one has married the best of Eastern and Western thought into a simple technique that produces breakthrough results with only a few seconds’ effort. I invite you to check back with us for that interview on Friday, April 20.

Audacious balance allows artists to commit to big, audacious dreams and goals that are meaningful to them without feeling overly exposed, vulnerable or emotionally adrift. Balance provides safety in the sometimes harsh world of the arts and arts criticism. Maintaining healthy balance requires a sense of community. Community is vital for most of us. We are tribal people, all of us. Even in times when we're isolated or alone for a time, a person can hold within themselves a strong sense of community. Communities are extended family and friends, neighbors, patrons, specialized communities for the arts, as well as authentic virtual communities via the internet. The measure of a supportive community is its ability to offer the artist compassion, acceptance and respect for the artist and her work. If an artist doesn't feel part of a supportive community, deciding to find a meaningful one is a worthwhile goal. It's not so important how often the connection is made in the external physical world, as it is to feel strongly connected. Another measure of community is the self-trust it nurtures for the artist in her or his creative work.

Two complex steps in the process of building healthy balance are, first, to decide that compassion and justice matter and, second, that you and your creative work matter. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Applying healthy balance means being able to handle success and rejection while continuing to nurture and develop your creative work with focus and clarity. Healthy balance allows the artist to observe the changing whims of buyers and the marketplace while feeling in charge of deciding to allow or disallow these things to influence their creative work.

Artists are the carriers of important dreams for all people. Artists want to share their creative work because it's natural to want to share the special gift given to each one of by the Creator. So, it's only natural to honor our audacious dreams, give voice to mighty goals while maintaining a soft, gentle and protective watch over ourselves as we walk our creative path. We will stumble because we are human but hopefully we get refreshed and re-choose to embrace and celebrate the creative process. Artists hold a special place in society. They are the storytellers, visionaries, historians, prophets. They can choose to see with the eyes of the heart even though the depth of that vision can be challenging because they'll feel and sense things in ways other people don't.

The challenge for the artist is to honor all this while remaining humble and awed by the starlight which illuminates our path.

*****

A word about the suggested reading list. If a book appears to be directed to a specific target group, please try to ignore that fact because each of these books can offer something important. Creative people of all ages and backgrounds often say that they doubt themselves, their creative work, their wisdom and perceptions. I hope the books listed here bring you strong, affirming teachings written in many different ways to bring good things to many people. Have fun - be curious - enjoy!

(1) Ten Zen Seconds by Dr. Eric Maisel
(2) Fearless Creating by Dr. Eric Maisel
(3) The Sacred Tree - Reflections on Native American Spirituality published in Canada by Four Worlds Development Press, Four Worlds Development Project, University of Lethbridge; in the USA by Lotus Light, Wilmot, Wisconsin. (ISBN 0-941524-58-2 Library of Congress #89-63193)
(4) The Lakota Way, Stories and Lessons for Living by Joseph M. Marshall III.
(5) No Word For Time, The Way of the Algonquin People by Evan T. Pritchard.
(6) The Compassionate Rebel, interviews and stories written and compiled by Burt F. Berlowe, Rebecca A. Janke, and Julie D. Penshorn. Growing Communities for Peace. web: www.peacemaker.org.
(7) Alcoholics Anonymous by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
(8) 12 Steps to Self-Parenting for Adult Children of Alcoholics by Philip Oliver-Diaz and Patricia A. O'Gorman.
(9) Wounded Warriors - A Time For Healing as told to Doyle Arbogast.

Freedom to break rules

2007-03-18T22:42:00.000-06:00

When Grandmother Moon was last approaching her fullness, the peak of her cycle, I made a note in my sketchbook to acknowledge her on this blog.
Her strong soft light keeps the trees aglow at night. I haven't painted a Full Moon image recently, however, I am reminded of two New Moon paintings I sold this year. This image is one of them or view it on my web site where I intend to write a story about the process involved in creating this texturally rich painting, as well as stories about Grandmother Moon.

These New Moon paintings were both full of creative freedom and rule-breaking. I took very deliberate steps to break rules about the "right" way to create a finished watercolor painting. It's considered purely awful in traditional watercolor company to despoil the surface of the paper support. It's true that in a traditional watercolor, scuffed paper could ruin the whole painting. But to achieve the result I envisioned for my painting, I needed to dig deep and work that surface, rough it up until I could sense the depth of inky sky, mystery, darkness and black holes up there in the great big beyond. (Incidentally you need a robust and burly watercolor paper that's tough enough for this kind of manipulation. A 200lb rag paper or heavier and a type that won't fall apart on you. Be prepared to experiment and throw a few cuttings away.) Artists have to break rules to get our creative work done. We earn the right to do that as creators and artists. If we get our hands crusty with the medium we work with, we then earned the right to break the rules. Don't let anybody tell you different. Guidelines are better than rules. Guidelines are exactly that - guides to a certain practice for a reason. A rule is a rigid thing. When it tramples the creative spirit and dampens creative drive, it's a poor rule. It's true that rules are made for a reason and can be valid and important but to follow a rule just because someone said "you can't do that, it ain't right" is a poor reason on it's own. As an artist, think for yourself, make your own rules. It's the only way to deepen your creative freedom and to express your unique creative voice.

Happy creating, see you at the Cafe!

Abstraction and "authenticity muscle"

2007-02-04T22:42:00.000-06:00

Did you ever stop to think about how much of life comes to us via abstraction? I was thinking about this today as my artist's bio passed in front of my eyes and I caught sight of the words "figurative abstract." So I started thinking about abstraction and how our worldview is partly drawn from emotional, spiritual, mental abstraction. The personal smoke and mirrors we use, often unconsciously. When I consider what it means to create meaningful work as a painter (I spend a lot of time working and thinking around this topic in my creative work and as a creativity coach with my clients) it seems to me that much of our worldview is (an) abstraction. Today I just want to suggest that perhaps if we aren't alert to this, if we don't accept this awareness of abstractions which are alive and well in daily life, we're condemned to think in linear terms about almost everything. We will think everything is flat, black and white, linear and know-able.

I'm not an intellectual so please feel free to poke holes in my theory but it seems to me that acknowledging the abstraction in life, in our sacred personal day-by-day life, frees us from believing that everything is visible with our physical eyes. If we are alert to being romanced by abstractions, alert to being enticed away from authentic living by distractions, we will exercise our "authenticity muscle" and be free to embrace and see with the eyes of the heart while living in a mostly linear world (cell phones, television, computer, bills). If we choose carefully which abstractions we apply and accept as part of our worldview then we are free to embrace and enrich our lives by deliberately tuning into mystical, sacred, creative action. I hope you will be deliberate about selecting abstractions today and celebrate your mystical, sacred, creative Self.

I wish you all a good week and challenge you to embrace and exercise your "authenticity muscle!"

Blessings,
Pamela

Roiling creativity

2007-01-12T13:02:00.000-06:00

Creativity is an everyday occurrence. It's happening all around us. We're enfolded every moment in the roiling wash of a blossoming universe. Being actively engaged in the creative process of our lives, influences the way we listen to and hear others, as well as how we reveal ourselves. Listen to your heart.

Step 1: Engage
Ste[ 2: Create
Step 3: Repeat !

Floorboards

2006-12-10T14:14:00.000-06:00

What is that quote about "the longest journey begins with a single step"? This is particularly meaningful in my musings today about my work as a creativity coach and the challenges artists face in their work. Oftentimes the hardest step is either the first one out of bed onto the floorboards or else it is taking the steps necessary to go from point A (where the artist is now) to point B (the artists workspace - studio - desk - piano - kitchen table - a workshop - whatever).

There's no avoiding make the journey from A to B if we intend to be active, producing artists.

If you get stuck moving from A to B and you can see that this continues to diminish the quality of your creative work, your self esteem as well as your productivity then it is your job as a professional to target this behavior for serious but compassionate remedial work. It will be worth your time and effort to do as a gift for yourself and for your creative work.

Moving from A to B is fertile ground because it's the physical, emotional and spiritual move into your creative space, but unless we actually arrive at B ready to do our creative work, then we may find we're unable to move towards the next sacred creative place where our work requires us to go. Give yourself the gift of enlightenment about the journey from A to B. My post Recommended Reading List #1 provides resources that if applied with love, determination and regular practice will lift from your creative shoulders the weight of being barred from arriving at your creative work-space and the work itself. I hope you'll find something helpful in this suggested reading. There are good creativity coaching who can help, too, if you're interested in other tools for creative development.

Happy journeys from A to B and beyond!

Limited edition prints

2006-10-27T00:34:00.000-05:00

There's always more waiting to happen in our creative lives. If we listen to our hearts and follow that voice, our creative movement will be meaningful and important to us. A source of joy in my creative life is the announcement of a new Limited Edition print of the painting, Honoring the Horse Nation. The drum represents a drum group who are singing an honoring song for the Horse Nation and the white horse represents all horses. The drum beat is the heart beat of Mother Earth. This archival quality reproduction is the same size as the original watercolor painting. For more information click my Home Page link on the main page of this blog.

Create!

Nurturing dreams

2006-10-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Saturday, August 19, 2006) I had the great privilege of attending the graduation ceremony for my husband, Richard Watson, who had completed school to become a licensed massage therapist and therapeutic bodyworker. The group of adults in the graduation ceremony had all recently completed their programs and are now officially joining the ranks of professional massage therapists and bodyworkers. We heard stories from some graduating students and from teachers and faculty. I was very moved and inspired by their intent to serve others, to help people heal themselves, and provide compassion and guidance to others on that journey. Some of these graduating students had experienced a good deal of hardship and performed amazing feats of self-discipline to achieve this dream of graduating from their bodywork program. Many of them cared for their families, communities and others while continuing with school. Some of them had to overcome their own negative self-talk, as well as allaying the doubts and fears of other people. But they made it through. They held fast to their dream and they kept moving forward, one class at a time. What a wonderful reminder of the many such kind and good people amongst us.

As an artist and creativity coach for other artists, I've learned this negative self-talk habit is a common trait amongst artists - as well as in the larger community. Not to say that other people don't experience this habit but, research and anecdotal experiences indicate it's especially common in artists and actively creative people. Many of my artist colleagues and friends express a real need for reminders of the grace and kindness in the world because they consciously give attention to areas that are difficult or challenging to think about, as they determine where the inspiration for their next work should be.

Well, yesterday's graduation ceremony was one of those times when, unbidden, an unexpected depth of grace and beauty slipped into my life and I was fully awake to the beauty of it. Thank you to my husband, Richard, and all those graduates for that. What a gift!

Nurture your dreams!