Announcing the New Book for our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT!

Let’s tap into the Power of DOING

🍵☕️Join our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT to study our new Book Club Pick (REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease) in our Monday book club, share YOUR “MESSY MIDDLE” by posting your Work In Progress (“WIP”) every Wednesday, and join our Notes & Posts BOOST every Friday!☕️🍵

YASSS! It’s time for us to announce the new Book Club selection!

🥁 Drum roll, please…🥁

The new book for our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵 is…

REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease by Nick Ortner, Jessica Ortner, and Alex Ortner!

Why this book?

As I’ve studied books like the ones we’ve selected for my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, I’ve incorporated them into the THINK portion of my VICTUS Method, to Think-Do-&-Be my way to who I’m meant to be.

Each of them have forced me to not only Think, but Re-Think, to question who I am and who I want to be.

  • In THE ARTIST’S WAY: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy, Julia Cameron taught me to give myself the gift of Morning Pages, to take the time to journal, to reflect upon what I am feeling and thinking each and every day, so I can center my Creative Self and pinpoint the pathways to my progress.
  • In BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose, Dr. Martha Beck taught me to consider how my thoughts and actions have fit neatly into society’s “Roles Rulebook” and — while that’s been fulfilling and fruitful in many ways — her words have encouraged me to be brave enough to question, “Is that trajectory aligned with who I am now & who I want to be in the future?”
  • And, in ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity, Dr. Ellen J. Langer reminded me to be careful, to make sure I am not living my life in a mindless way that fails to question what I am doing with my life, because our lives are precious. We are all given a limited amount of time on this Earth and when we live our lives mindlessly, without stopping to question what we are doing and why, we can miss out on all of the wonderful opportunities that we have available to us in the present moment, to listen mindfully to our inner compass.

All of these ways to THINK have one thing in common:

They show us Better Ways of Being.

And invite us to question…

“Am I living my life in a way that allows me to live up to my fullest potential?”

Not only in terms of our profession, but who we are as people, holistically.

For me, it means asking…

“Am I allowing myself to be the Creative I wish to be?”

The desire to take my Creative Work seriously feels like a quiet yearning that’s been building inside of me for years.

And what a journey it’s been. I tried to deny that part of me, suffered tremendously as a result, and found some semblance of peace since I started publishing my creative writing.

From the outside looking in, it might look like an easy transition. I’ve been writing my science fiction books for years. I am about to release the second book in my series, THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES. And I have been publishing my VICTUS Mindset & Meditation: Synergy of Science & Self newsletter every week, for over a year now. I certainly see myself as a Creative Writer now.

📚🎉📚

In fact — for a Limited Time only — you can download

the 1st Book of The Obsidian Chronicles

(OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus)

to read in the Kindle App or your preferred .epub Reader!

Click here to Download it for FREE!

Plus, checkout more Freebies in the Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Young Adult genres.

📚🎉📚

But there are other aspects to my Creative Self — like the musician in me — that I cannot see as clearly.

I know I love to sing and play piano. Music enlivens and invigorates me, in a way that feels deeply rooted. Like it centers my soul. At the same time that it challenges me.

But, I do not see myself as a “Musician.”

And that makes me pause. It makes me wonder, “Why not?”

Perhaps it’s because of my history, abandoning piano lessons as a child.

It’s made me regret and lament what could have been.

Intellectually, I understand.

Most likely, it’s because working in music was never proposed as a professional possibility for me. Being a Musician was allowed for other people. But not for me.

Just like being an Artist wasn’t on the table, either.

But…

Emotionally, I don’t understand.

No matter how many years pass, my Inner Child’s questioned, “Why?”

“Why not?”

Psst…“If they can, YOU can.”

That’s what’s been whispering in my ear lately.

Because I’ve been busy Thinking and Re-Thinking…All. These. Years.

Problem is:

Thinking — without Action — doesn’t have the power to bring peace.

It’s knowledge without wisdom.

It’s the mind, paralyzed.

It’s potential, moving in circles.

Always on standby.

Never embodied.

Not lived.

It’s the DOING that needs to be done.

Not later.

Now.

It’s time to move onto the next step in the VICTUS Method: DO.

Which is precisely why my goal with this Book Club Pick is to focus on the DOING.

To tap my way there.

As I tap the keys on my piano…

I will tap my way to wholeness.

To my greatest most authentic, Creative Self.

That’s precisely what the Emotional Freedom Technique (“EFT”) of Tapping can help us to do, one round of tapping at a time.

By tapping our body’s meridian endpoints with our fingers, while thinking about anything that’s holding us back, we can combine elements of Psychotherapy with Energy Medicine to release our limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones.

It seems woo-woo.

But, it’s not.

It’s backed by science.

As Dr. Peta Stapleton of Bond University states, “Tapping on acupoints sends activating or deactivating signals to brain areas that have been aroused by the phrases we say.”

The tapping generates electrical signals — a form of “piezoelectricity” (electricity generated by pressure) — along the same meridian points that are utilized in ancient Eastern medicine (acupuncture). Studies have shown that these “acupoints” have less electrical resistance & therefore greater electrical conductivity than adjacent parts of the body, allowing the electrical signals we generate to travel through the collagen in our bodies.

And, remarkably, double-blind studies comparing actual acupuncture needles with non-penetrating finger-tapping produced similar clinical improvements.

What’s more, when we pair this manual tapping stimulation with a negative thought or emotion, the electrical tapping signals help us to deactivate the fight-flight-freeze-fawn-flop activation in our amygdala, and allow us to activate the rest-and-digest calmness of our parasympathetic nervous system.

Intrigued?

I was.

So, I tried it during one of my worst migraines, when the pain was so debilitating I had to sequester myself in a dark room, to close my eyes and try not to puke while struggling with the worst part — the ruminating thoughts that kept looping me in a perpetual state of anxiety.

And I took my experiment seriously:

I skipped the migraine medicine.

And gave a few rounds of tapping a try.

Miraculously, the pain began to subside. The “prodrome” symptoms were less severe than my usual. And the anxiety that felt like an 8 dropped down to a 3 in fifteen minutes.

That’s faster than my migraine medicine.

Most remarkably, after a while, I found it hard to trigger my anxiety, no matter what I was thinking. I even spoke some of the looping thoughts out-loud.

Nada.

Zilch.

The tapping worked…like magic!

And, before doing this, I was truly skeptical. It sounded too good to be true.

But I’ve done it with my last few migraines and I can see how promising it is.

For dealing with both the physical and emotional pain. And, even better, it works…FAST. Faster than I ever thought possible.

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself —

Are YOU ready to launch an EFT Experiment with me?

Stepping into a new Creative YOU can bring up a lot of feelings — like self-doubt, uncertainty, the dreaded Imposter Syndrome, the heinous Inner Critic, and — of course — REGRET!

But, what if we had this tool in our arsenal?

⭐️ What if EFT is the pathway to freeing the Creative Self in YOU?

⭐️ EFT may be precisely what we need to embrace our “Messy Middle,” as we do “the DO.”

Because we deserve it.

And we deserve to do it in a well-regulated way, too.

So…

I hope you’ll join me, starting next week, when we begin our deep-dive into REWIRED!

Because our past is NOT “the way it has to be.”

⭐️ Let’s EFT-our-way to proclaiming this wholeheartedly:

  • ♥️ “I deserve to explore Better Ways of Being.”
  • ♥️ “I am ready to champion my Creative Self.”
  • ♥️ “No matter what I’m feeling, I can love & accept myself.”

And get ready!

  • Choose a creative activity to pursue alongside me. Not necessarily the same creative practice as I’m choosing (music). But, the creative practice that YOU choose.
  • Together, we will experiment and PLAY.

And, to make it extra fun, I’m going to couple it with something BIG that I’m about to LAUNCH, so we can…

EFT-our-way-to-Freedom this Independence Day!

🧠🎨 The EFT-Healing Creative in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 the EFT-Healing Creative in Each of You, 🎨🧠

Marisa

Subscribe now

READ THE SYNOPSIS

If you enjoy reading it, please consider leaving me a rating & review on Amazon & Goodreads! It’s the the easiest way to support Indie Authors like me.

Your kind contribution can be the greatly-appreciated rocket fuel that inspires me to keep living according to My Motto: Vita est pro victus! which meansLife is for Living — Truly Living!” Not as some shell of who we should be. But as our truest, most Authentic Self.

That’s MY MISSION in life: to encourage myself & others to BREAK FREE, to Be Our Truest, Most Authentic Self!

Join me! Together, we can be who we CHOOSE to be. Who we’re MEANT to be:

Happy & Healthy ♾️ Creating a life we LOVE ♾️ Full of Hope, Passion, & Purpose

© Marisa Victus

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you experience your own Creative Renaissance?

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to be at peace.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys, to be the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

We can find solutions, together! Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) You’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

ONWARDS & UPWARDS: To Mindful Creativity & Beyond!

Don’t let your Overthinking Mind stop you from DOING Playful Creative Work

🍵☕️Join our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT to study ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer in our Monday book club, share YOUR “MESSY MIDDLE” by posting your Work In Progress (“WIP”) every Wednesday, and join our Notes & Posts BOOST every Friday!☕️🍵

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is the final Epilogue to close-out BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In the Epilogue, EL lays out the 3 main lessons she’s learned about the benefits of becoming an Artist:

  1. Having a Creative Practice allows you to experience the sheer joy of creating — something you can only experience if you do it — with the additional benefit we gain from practicing creativity in a mindful way.
  2. Engaging in a Creative Practice is like looking into a Mirror of the Self, one that allows us to examine what’s really behind the choices we make and the feelings we feel.
  3. Sharing (or Not Sharing) our Creative Practice with Others is like looking in a Two-Way Mirror, one that allows us to understand our creativity and how it intersects with others, including not only how others might perceive our work, but how open to (or closed off from) others we are willing to be, when deciding what to share (or hold privately).

My MINDFUL Reflection:

These 3 wrap the book up nicely, don’t you think?

Practicing my creative writing, making art, and studying music are all so enjoyable for the sheer joy of it, but this book’s reminded me that they’re distinct opportunities for mindful reflection, as well.

They remind me to be intentional, to practice Mindfulness, to see each of my Creative Practices in a much deeper, soulful way.

Elevating our creative work to that lofty status is a great way for us to practice self-care. It’s self-love. It’s fantastic motivation for us to keep going…

ONWARDS & UPWARDS!

I can’t wait to announce the next pick for our

STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT next week!

Here’s a clue:

It’s a science-backed, holistic way to get our brains AND bodies involved,

to boost our Mindset

so we can THINK the thoughts that power us up,

to DO what we gotta do,

to BE who we choose to be!

Until then…

I hope you’re looking forward to a fantastic summer, full of Creativity!

I’m dedicating my summer to lots of DOING for my Creative Practices.

And lots of swimming! It’s really helping with my breath-work, and I love to float around, looking up at the sky. Reminds me of my childhood, when I had ample time to watch the clouds passing by.

What about you?

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ What’s your chosen Creative Practice for the summer?

⭐️ Do you want to join me & set the intention to devote more time to your Creative Practice this summer?

⭐️ What might happen if you promise to PLAY for at least 10 minutes per day?

🧠🎨 The Summer-Loving Creative in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 the Summer-Loving Creative in Each of You, 🎨🧠

Marisa

Subscribe now

READ THE SYNOPSIS

If you enjoy reading it, please consider leaving me a rating & review on Amazon & Goodreads! It’s the the easiest way to support Indie Authors like me.

Your kind contribution can be the greatly-appreciated rocket fuel that inspires me to keep living according to My Motto: Vita est pro victus! which meansLife is for Living — Truly Living!” Not as some shell of who we should be. But as our truest, most Authentic Self.

That’s MY MISSION in life: to encourage myself & others to BREAK FREE, to Be Our Truest, Most Authentic Self!

Join me! Together, we can be who we CHOOSE to be. Who we’re MEANT to be:

Happy & Healthy ♾️ Creating a life we LOVE ♾️ Full of Hope, Passion, & Purpose

© Marisa Victus

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you experience your own Creative Renaissance?

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to be at peace.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys, to be the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

We can find solutions, together! Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) You’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

The Ultimate MINDFUL CHOICE: To Embrace Uncertainty

Don’t let your Predictive Mind suck all the joy out of your Creative Practice.

🍵☕️Join our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT to study ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer in our Monday book club, share YOUR “MESSY MIDDLE” by posting your Work In Progress (“WIP”) every Wednesday, and join our Notes & Posts BOOST every Friday!☕️🍵

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 10 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 10: The Mindful Choice, EL reminds us that even Pablo Picasso has said, “I don’t know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more than I decide beforehand what colors I am going to use.”

My MINDFUL Reflection:

I find this to be such a refreshing way to approach our creative work, don’t you?

It’s also hard for me to do. Too often, I approach things from this urge that I “need to know” how it’s done first. So I can do it “the right way.”

That tendency makes me wonder how many opportunities I have missed, to learn through exploration.

I am not alone in that tendency. But we get it wrong when we think we’re bad for not knowing. As EL states, “The problem is not not knowing; the problem is thinking we should know.”

And, she suggests the problem’s worse the more important we believe the outcome will be for us.

Instead, she reminds us that we can’t know. Not before we try and see for ourselves.

Most of all, she emphasizes, creativity is supposed to be fun.

Enter…

CHOICES: Where Focus Meets Fun

EL takes a unique perspective on Creativity: she sees it as the perfect opportunity to question whatever options are presented to us, to exercise our personal power.

As she puts it, “Any form of creative engagement almost by definition can encourage us to question the choices we are given….”

And, for all those Creatives who feel they have to learn how to do it “the right way” (like me), she reminds us that we don’t want to mindlessly accept anything, because “Certainty breeds mindlessness. Uncertainty, then, is a friend rather than something to be avoided or feared.”

Being Mindful means we recognize we hold the power to make a choice.

And there’s a bonus: the more choices we make (and mindfully notice we’re making), the more confident we can become in our decision-making ability; and the less stress we will place on ourselves to always “make the right choice,” because we know we’ll make many additional choices in the near future.

My MINDFUL Conclusion: It Pays to Play

What’s another way to express our ability to make a choice, and another choice, and another choice?

In a relaxed and free-flowing way?

It’s PLAY.

The same way a Kindergartner confidently grabs different colored crayons, to draw and design a picture however s/he sees fit.

Without requiring any instruction in advance.

Without enrolling in any course.

Without straining or stressing out about how others will perceive their artwork.

And they don’t stop at creating 1 piece of art. Or 2, or 3, or 4….

They just keep going.

Tilting their heads from side to side.

Considering how their drawing makes them feel. Does it feel right to them?

Not caring if it’s drawn in the right proportions. Or with the right depth perspective.

Technically, it’s NOT “correct.”

Unless its drawn by a savant, it’s usually more “surreal” than realistic.

But, isn’t that why it’s so magical?

MAGIC’s captured, not only in the drawing itself, but in the way the child smiles, from the inside out.

That’s the MAGIC I want to rediscover & capture in my Creative Practice (music).

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ Think of your chosen Creative Practice.

⭐️ Do you tend to plan out what you “should” do, based on how others have done it before?

⭐️ On a scale of 1–10 how open minded are you, to embrace not-knowing?

⭐️ What might happen if you focused less on Certainty and more on the Magic that Uncertainty brings?

⭐️ Are you like me? Let’s not let our Predictive Mind suck all the joy out of our Creativity.

🧠🎨 The Uncertain, Free-Flowing Creative in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 the Uncertain, Free-Flowing Creative in Each of You, 🎨🧠

Marisa

Subscribe now

READ THE SYNOPSIS

If you enjoy reading it, please consider leaving me a rating & review on Amazon & Goodreads! It’s the the easiest way to support Indie Authors like me.

Your kind contribution can be the greatly-appreciated rocket fuel that inspires me to keep living according to My Motto: Vita est pro victus! which meansLife is for Living — Truly Living!” Not as some shell of who we should be. But as our truest, most Authentic Self.

That’s MY MISSION in life: to encourage myself & others to BREAK FREE, to Be Our Truest, Most Authentic Self!

Join me! Together, we can be who we CHOOSE to be. Who we’re MEANT to be:

Happy & Healthy ♾️ Creating a life we LOVE ♾️ Full of Hope, Passion, & Purpose

© Marisa Victus

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you experience your own Creative Renaissance?

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to be at peace.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys, to be the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

We can find solutions, together! Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) You’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

[SINGING] A Song for MINDFUL ENGAGEMENT: The Secret to Enjoying Anything

How Mindful Music can increase our enjoyment.

🍵☕️Join our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT to study ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer in our Monday book club, share YOUR “MESSY MIDDLE” by posting your Work In Progress (“WIP”) every Wednesday, and join our Notes & Posts BOOST every Friday!☕️🍵

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 9 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 9: From Reference to Preference, EL describes how we often go through our lives so mindlessly that we fail to engage with the world around us.

To illustrate this, EL shares many funny stories. Like the time she visited an art museum with a friend, and the museum hadn’t finished putting up all the exhibitions. A set of curtains hid one of the unfinished sections. Much to their amusement, a couple entered the building, saw the curtains, thought the curtains were the art, and “proceeded to wax eloquently on the ‘art’ they saw before them.” EL and her friend couldn’t help but laugh. But then, she realized, “I think the joke was on us. That couple clearly enjoyed looking at the curtains; we had barely considered them. They mindfully engaged the curtains and created a work of art for themselves, which they enjoyed greatly.”

My MINDFUL Conclusion:

On the one hand, lack of attention is sometimes necessary so we can focus on the priorities in our lives. After all, if we paid equal attention to everything, we’d be far from efficient or effective.

But, on the other hand, when we fail to engage with what’s in front of us, we lose. There are many missed opportunities. If we mindfully engaged with whatever’s in front of us, we could enjoy our lives so much more.

My MINDLESS Mistake & My MINDFUL Plan to Correct It:

Last week, I shared how, when I was a kid, I’d mistakenly assumed the best way for me to study piano was to learn it the way most people study it: by focusing on traditional Classical music. And, when my teacher didn’t encourage me to explore my preferred styles, like pop, I ultimately quit the piano. Leaving me to lament what could’ve been.

I realize now, this is exactly what EL means when she says “[W]e all exhibit a strong tendency to mindlessly take the world as it is given to us, and in so doing, we give up much more control than we realize.”

The Solution?

“We can…learn to choose our passions actively, to become mindfully attentive to them and totally involved in them. In such complete engagement lies a real benefit of mindfulness — we become attracted to that which we engage. Whether it is a painting or even our own appearance, mindful exposure to something increases our enjoyment of it. In essence, the more we see it mindfully, the more we like it.”

My Plan:

To apply this Mindset to renewing the vitality of my piano practice.

But, I won’t be limiting it to practicing scales or learning new pieces.

Instead, I intend to practice piano with the Mindful intention:

🙏 To heal myself.

🙏 To forgive myself for not knowing better when I was a kid.

🙏 For giving up too easily on what I wanted at the time.

🙏 To celebrate my willingness to right that wrong, so many years later.

🤔 My Hypothesis

I wonder, how will this Mindful intention to heal myself, to forgive myself and let go of my regret change the tone of my practice?

I hypothesize that it’ll feel strange to approach the piano bench with this Mindset in mind.

I am so used to focusing on mastering the technical aspects of music.

What might happen if I focus on the internal, emotional experience of it, instead?

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ Think of your chosen Creative Practice.

⭐️ Do you tend to over-focus on mastering the technique?

⭐️ What might happen if you focused on noticing your internal, emotional experience instead?

I hope that you will join me. Because we can all heal when we embrace our “Messy Middle.”

Because we deserve it.

And we deserve to do it in a well-regulated way, too.

Because our Nervous Systems don’t need to be traumatized to grow.

In that spirit, I’ve recorded the attached song for you & for me.

To remind ourselves, we are FREE.

To feel good.

To embrace our Creativity & live our life wholeheartedly.

CLICK to PLAY

🧠🎨 The Singing Creative in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 the Singing Creative in Each of You, 🎨🧠

Marisa