Month: July 2026

Remembering there’s POWER in the Littlest Shift

In our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 1 of REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease by Nick, Jessica, & Alex Ortner.

In Chapter 1, Nick describes his first experience of putting tapping to the test, when he had terrible neck pain that wouldn’t subside after days of trying everything: painkillers, hot showers, etc. Suddenly, he remembered seeing EFT at an event and, though he was highly skeptical, he decided to give it a try.

Thinking it was “brilliantly simple or completely nonsense,” he was amazed to see that after only 10 minutes of tapping the meridian acupoints on his face, head, and collarbone, his neck pain dissolved to nothing.

It worked so well, he convinced his sister, Jessica, to try it. The same tapping helped her to process her emotions and alleviate her symptoms from being sick and congested for days.

Inspired by this newfound freedom from their pain & suffering, they combined their efforts to raise EFT awareness. Along with their brother Alex and their parents (their Engineering Dad & Therapist Mom), the entire Ortner clan joined forces to bring EFT to the greater public.

In a documentary called The Tapping Solution, they showed how EFT was capable of helping people with a myriad of different physical, mental, and emotional illnesses and ailments to activate the self-healing process that’s present inside all of our bodies. In less than a week, the entire group learned the simple self-directed EFT tapping process for the first time, then took turns discussing their unique challenges. Each person reported substantial progress, and they were able to maintain it, too.

The documentary was made years ago, but, having watched it, I can see how EFT is able to help our bodies, brains, and spirit to process and release the daily stressors in our lives and the physical pain in our bodies.

And, it’s been a powerful tool for handling serious trauma as well: the Ortners were able to bring this healing modality to help the grieving in their hometown of Newtown, CT, after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

MY MINDFUL REFLECTION

My experience applying EFT to a few of my migraines with anxiety has opened my eyes to its power.

The documentary also helped to open my mind to the possibility that EFT can handle a wide range of issues, whether they’re smaller, like the daily upsets and stress we all go through; or whether they’re larger, like PTSD-level trauma or recurring emotional or physical pain.

Dr. Peta Stapleton’s research shows it’s scientifically supported.

But, I have to admit, a part of me remains skeptical.

The Skeptic in me asks, “Is it really possible, for simple tapping to give this level of peace?”

Upon deeper reflection, I’m starting to realize why a part of me remains skeptical:

I have this lingering Limiting Belief: That true “Emotional Freedom” — or self-improvement in general — has to be hard.

Intellectually, I know it doesn’t.

But, emotionally, I know my experience of gaining emotional freedom has been slow and incremental.

So, the speed with which EFT works is hard for me to fathom.

The Ortners’ EFT stories challenge me to question…

“What if self-improvement and freedom from difficult emotions really could be that EASY?!”

Other modalities like Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) have been proven to be effective and also rely on a similar concept: calming our nervous system with bilateral stimulation.

Might EFT be just as capable of rapid & long-lasting relief?

Merely posing this question is helping me to crack the door of my already Open Mind even further.

What if EFT is precisely what we need, to widen the space in which our subconscious can guide us from the threshold of possibility into a hallway of open-minded practice, to potentially another Room entirely, one in which our minds can develop a felt sense of TRUST in our bodies’ ability to self-heal?

What if we can strengthen our ability to handle any emotion that comes, by acknowledging it and repeating the calming refrain, “Even though I feel x, I completely love & accept myself”?

Ultimately, I see my desire to go on this EFT journey with you, as an invitation for us to practice greater self-love, to cultivate acceptance and understanding inside ourselves.

And it reminds me that…

Some of the mightiest, most powerful personal transformations can happen in the Littlest Shifts.

As I say in this Poetry Video, featuring a poem that I wrote, the Littlest Shifts have worked wonders for me, and I wish the same for you:

It reminds me, we can always find joy in life’s subtleties…yes, even in the smallest tap.

Now, Take a Mindful Moment, to ask yourself:

⭐️ What do you think?

⭐️ Do you have any prior experience with EFT?

⭐️ Have you ever watched the Ortners’ “Tapping Solution” documentary?

⭐️ Which story inspired you most?

⭐️ Might EFT be the Littlest Shift that your nervous system needs?

🧠🎨 The Littlest Shift in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors, respects, & 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 is ready to EFT-tap along with 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 The Littlest Shift in Each of You, 🎨🧠

Marisa

STAY TUNED!

Coming up, I have a surprise for you inside our 🥳 🔗 Mindful VICTUS Playscape! 🔗 🥳 on Skool, so join if you haven’t already!

🥁 Let’s Play! 🥁

Join us inside The Mindful VICTUS Playscape

A Private, Members-Only Safe Space,

where Music helps us to heal & come alive!

🥳 🎉 🔗 Mindful VICTUS Playscape! 🔗 🎉 🥳

☝️Click to join on Skool.com☝️

I strongly believe that we are stronger together. That’s why I’m encouraging us to “do the DO” as a community, in a safe & private space for members-only, where we can embrace Becoming in all of its messy glory. So, let’s BREAK FREE, together!

Simply join The Mindful VICTUS Playscape to step into a 🏡Creative Home🏡 that’s sometimes cozy, sometimes crazy, and always creative!

We’ll be using the science-backed Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to TAP into the power of MUSIC to regulate our Nervous System.

In The Mindful VICTUS Playscape, our motto is

Vita est pro victus!

which means

“Life is for LIVING — Truly Living!”

Not as some shell of who we should be. But as our truest, most Authentic Self.

Here, we PLAY our way to success, using The VICTUS Method: the science-backed practice for us to THINK+DO+BE who we’re meant to be, by cultivating MINDFUL Creativity in Music, Art, Fitness, & Somatic Exercises to experience peace, joy, & flow.

Together, we will deactivate the Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn-or-Flop response of our Sympathetic Nervous System; and activate the Rest-&-Digest response of our Parasympathetic Nervous System, so we can all see how wonderful it feels to experience safety in our body, mind, and heart. 💜 Relax into our “Messy Middle” 💜 Celebrate our Becoming 💜 Champion our Highest Self 💜 Honor our Inner Child; and, remember that, when we are Mindful, we have the power to CHOOSE what’s best for us: To drop the mask 💜 Abandon perfectionism

💜 & PLAY! 💜

Let’s co-create the world we wish to live in, so we can all LIVE our lives, wholeheartedly.

Inside The Mindful VICTUS Playscape,

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 ♾️

Are YOU ready to use EFT to step into the new Creative YOU, in a well-regulated way with me?

Then join The Mindful VICTUS Playscape so we can

EFT-our-way-to-Freedom this day & every day!

I’ll never promise perfection. Only Authenticity.

As I tap the keys on my piano…

so we can EFT-Tap our way to wholeness.

Together, we’ll…

Like/Comment/Share our creative work, so ALL of us can grow as Creatives.

⭐️ Until we can all proclaim this wholeheartedly:

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

See you inside!

• 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.
• P.S. No worries if you don’t have a Creative Practice yet. I’m planning fun ways to listen-to-learn piano, by going back to basics, so beginners will be right on time!

📚🎉📚

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 genres.

📚🎉📚

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.

READ THE SYNOPSIS

👭 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…

(3) If you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public, SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

(4) JOIN our private, members-only community in The Mindful VICTUS Playscape, where we come together to Share our creative work • Celebrate our “Messy Middle” • Silence our Inner Critic • Elevate our State • Experience safety in our body by regulating our nervous system • Motivate ourselves with creative carrots, not punishing sticks • Entrain our brains to adopt unstoppable self-belief • Practice loving ourselves • Stop taking ourselves so seriously • Lower our stress • ENJOY a Life that’s full of abundance & creativity!

Announcing The Mindful VICTUS Playscape: Our private Skool to BREAK FREE & BE FREE this Independence Day!

Join us in The Mindful VICTUS Playscape!

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is the Introduction of REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease by Nick, Jessica, & Alex Ortner.

But before we dive into that…

🥁 … Drum Roll please … 🥁

It’s finally time to announce our new

Private, Members-Only

🥳 🎉 🔗 Mindful VICTUS Playscape! 🔗 🎉 🥳

☝️Click to join on Skool.com☝️

It’s the safe place for us to

BREAK FREE & BE FREE

to be who we are meant to be!

🥁Why join The Mindful VICTUS Playscape?🥁

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

• THE ARTIST’S WAY: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy by Julia Cameron
• BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose, by Dr. Martha Beck
• ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer

But, the more these teachers have inspired us to Think & Re-Think, to question who we are and who we want to be…

The more I realize how important it is for us to get out of our head, drop into our heart, and MOVE…

To the next step in the VICTUS Method: DO.

Because thinking — without action — doesn’t have the power to bring us peace.

It’s knowledge without wisdom.

It’s the mind, paralyzed.

It’s potential, moving in circles.

Always on standby.

Never embodied.

Not lived.

YES, it’s the DOING that needs to be done.

We need “to do, the DO.” Not later. Now.

But, anything worth doing asks us to go beyond our comfort zone.

Uncomfortable emotions — like regret & the imposter syndrome — can keep us stuck.

MY MINDFUL REFLECTION:

Q: How can we bridge the divide between Thinking vs. Doing?

A: We need to bring SYNERGY to what we THINK + DO.

By getting not just our minds, but our bodies, involved.

That’s why I chose the Ortners’ Book — REWIRED: The Breakthrough Tapping Method to Stop Overthinking, Calm Your Body, and Finally Feel at Ease — for our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵

So we’re not only reading about Better Ways of Being, but also doing the DO: tapping our way to becoming the Creatives we are meant to be.

We all deserve to experience peace, joy, and freedom.

And, because I strongly believe that we are stronger together, I’m encouraging us to “do the DO” as a community, in a safe & private space for Creatives to embrace Becoming in all of its messy glory: 🥳🎉The Mindful VICTUS Playscape! 🎉 🥳

Let’s BREAK FREE, together.

I hope you’ll join me on this Journey of Becoming & tap your way to success.

Together, we can apply the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) with an open mind.

As the Ortners make clear in the Introduction to REWIRED:

You don’t have to be who you’ve always been.

You don’t have to feel how you’ve always felt.

You don’t have to do what you’ve always done.

And it doesn’t have to take years of therapy to gain peace in the present moment.

In fact, the Ortners begin the book with an amazing story, about a mom who’s with her family at the airport. The intercom’s calling for all passengers to board. And she’s just about to abandon their trip to London. She’s panicking. Frozen with fear. She has aerophobia.

But, she’s not alone.

A stranger sees her suffering.

And, instead of staying silent, she invites her to listen & tap along to the Ortners’ guided recording for the fear-of-flying.

It works so well, she boards the plane after 10 minutes of tapping.

😳 TEN MINUTES!

Ten minutes to BREAK FREE of the mental loop that’s kept her imprisoned for years.

Not by being someone she’s not.

Not by suppressing the fear and anxiety she has.

But, by acknowledging her emotions.

By recognizing, “Yes, I’m afraid and anxious.”

And taking back control with tapping.

She taps on her meridian acupoints…

Repeating, again and again, “Even though I’m anxious and afraid to fly, I love and accept myself.”

She taps until the fear and anxiety dissipates.

Tapping the acupressure points scrambles the message of ALARM coursing through her Nervous System…

Sending a message of CALM to her Nervous System instead.

Her fear and anxiety fade away like smoke.

Tapping’s the water that’s cooled her body down.

The ten-alarm siren’s silenced.

It’s a somatic experience that’s felt…inside her body, her mind, her heart…

Until she’s able to look up and say, “I think I can do this.”

As the Ortners tell it, “the once-terrified woman boards the plane first. She gives the kind stranger a thumbs-up as she passes in the aisle. Everyone goes to London, and no one is left behind.”

All from tapping.

Transforming such a strong phobia, with real concrete action to overcome it, this fast!?

I’m intrigued & hopeful!

Because I’ve already researched the science behind why tapping works, and I had promising results with EFT during a few migraines with anxiety, so — on a scale of 1 (highly skeptical) to 10 (true believer) — I’m already a 7.

Plus, I know for a fact that whenever I’ve adopted a somatic practice that involves my body — like my daily cold showers and yoga practice — it always works to shift my mental & emotional State.

I’m all for using absolutely anything in our arsenal to help motivate us.

And you know what else fuels my State, faster than anything else?

🎉🎵MUSIC🎵🎉

In the Mindful VICTUS Playscape, we’ll be using the power of MUSIC to elevate our State!

Why MUSIC?

There’s something so magical about music.

No matter who you are…

No matter how different we might be…

We are unified in our love for music.

Music can bridge any divide. Between us. And inside us.

The lyrics…the crescendos and decrescendos…the universal understanding it imparts in us.

The moment music meets our ears, it connects us and holds space for what was, what is, what could be, and what may never be.

Every emotion’s captured in its cadence, in its heartfelt expression.

Music touches our heart, enlivens our spirit, gives us the energy to dance with our highs, and supports us in our lowest of lows.

And it has a miraculous impact upon our internal State.

Where we might tremble in fear or uncertainty, it can embolden us. It can strengthen our resolve.

When heartbreak comes for us, it can support us in our sorrow.

When we want to shrink in shame, it lifts the mask behind which we hide and whispers, “It’s okay. I see you.”

When we think no one else is like us, it allows us to see ourselves in others.

We experience our shared humanity, through our senses.

It’s visceral.

It’s primal.

Like the beating of our hearts, it’s an ancient language of frequencies, tones, and notes embedded into our evolutionary DNA.

The MINDFUL VICTUS PLAYSCAPE is…

A safe place for members-only. Click HERE to join The Mindful VICTUS Playscape.

• Where we can TAP into the power of MUSIC to regulate our Nervous System, to:
• deactivate the Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn-or-Flop response of our Sympathetic Nervous System, and
• activate the Rest-&-Digest response of our Parasympathetic Nervous System, so we can all…
• Feel safe;
• Relax into our “Messy Middle”;
• Celebrate our Becoming;
• Champion our Highest Self;
• Honor our Inner Child (like how I’m healing the pain of abandoning piano lessons when I was a kid); and,
• Remember that, when we are Mindful, we have the power to CHOOSE what’s best for us.

What is best for us?

• To drop the mask,
• Abandon perfectionism, and
• PLAY!

Let’s co-create the world we wish to live in, so we can all LIVE our lives, wholeheartedly.

That’s why…

In The Mindful VICTUS Playscape, our motto is

Vita est pro victus!

which means “Life is for LIVING — Truly Living!”

Not as some shell of who we should be. But as our truest, most Authentic Self.

Here, we PLAY our way to success, using The VICTUS Method: the science-backed practice for us to THINK+DO+BE who we’re meant to be, by cultivating MINDFUL Creativity in Music, Art, Fitness, & Somatic Exercises to experience peace, joy, & flow.

Together, we’ll

• Silence our Inner Critic

• Elevate our State

• Experience safety in our body by regulating our nervous system

• Motivate ourselves with creative carrots, not punishing sticks

• Entrain our brains to adopt unstoppable self-belief

• Practice loving ourselves

• Stop taking ourselves so seriously

• Lower our stress

• ENJOY a Life that’s full of abundance & creativity!

Inside The Mindful VICTUS Playscape,

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 ♾️

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

Are YOU ready to use EFT to step into the new Creative YOU, in a well-regulated way with me?

Then join The Mindful VICTUS Playscape so we can

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

I’ll never promise perfection. Only Authenticity.

As I tap the keys on my piano…

so we can EFT-Tap our way to wholeness.

Together, we’ll…

Like/Comment/Share our creative work, so ALL of us can grow as Creatives.

⭐️ Until we can all proclaim this wholeheartedly:

♥️ “I deserve to explore Better Ways of Being.”

♥️ “I champion my Creative Self.”

♥️ “No matter what I’m feeling, I can love & accept myself.”

See you inside!

• 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.
• P.S. No worries if you don’t have a Creative Practice yet. I’m planning fun ways to listen-to-learn piano, by going back to basics, so beginners will be right on time!

🧠🎨 The Mindful VICTUS Playscape in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 The Mindful VICTUS Playscape in Each of You, 🎨🧠

Marisa

Subscribe now

📚🎉📚

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 genres.

📚🎉📚

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.

READ THE SYNOPSIS

👭 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…

(3) If you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public, SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

(4) JOIN our private, members-only community in The Mindful VICTUS Playscape, where we come together to Share our creative work • Celebrate our “Messy Middle” • Silence our Inner Critic • Elevate our State • Experience safety in our body by regulating our nervous system • Motivate ourselves with creative carrots, not punishing sticks • Entrain our brains to adopt unstoppable self-belief • Practice loving ourselves • Stop taking ourselves so seriously • Lower our stress • ENJOY a Life that’s full of abundance & creativity!

Let’s tap into the Power of DOING

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 means “Life 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!

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

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 means “Life 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!

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

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 means “Life 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!

How Mindful Music can increase our enjoyment.

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.

🧠🎨 The Singing Creative in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

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

Marisa

How Thinking “I Know” Keeps Us Trapped

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 8 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 8: The Blindness of Knowing, EL tells us that Gertrude Stein’s wrong when she says “a rose is a rose is a rose.”

To the contrary, EL says, a rose is not a rose is not a rose.

My MINDFUL Conclusion: Generalizations are necessary for us to process our environment, to succeed in our lives, but distinctions matter.

As EL warns, when “[w]e distinguish a rose by observing how it is like the other flowers we call roses, we mindlessly react to it much the same way each time.”

And she cites scientific studies to demonstrate that that apparent “sameness” — that blindness to differences — has real-world consequences.

Like engaging less when getting to know other people. Because we assume other people are pretty much all “the same.”

And, sadly, we can make the same wrong assumption about ourselves, too.

For example…

My MINDLESS Mistake: I mistakenly assumed the best way for me to study piano was to learn it the way most people study it:

The rote memorization of notes.

The mechanical practicing of scales.

Building finger strength and dexterity with drills like Hanon.

And, especially, the focus on traditional Classical music.

Like the saying goes, “A rose is a rose is a rose.”

I assumed I am like all other roses.

So I did all of the above.

Problem was: my Classically-minded piano teacher only chose pieces SHE wanted to play.

She never ventured to discover what kind of music intrigued me as her student: music I could sing to, musical scores in films, pop music, even some blues or jazz.

This may not have deterred other kids.

But, it deterred me.

As a child, I held onto this False Evidence Appearing Real (F.E.A.R.), that there were no other acceptable ways to study piano.

In my naïveté, I simply accepted, “This is the way it is.”

As if there were no other Ways of Being.

And, yet, I knew that other options existed. I’d go to the music store and buy musical scores for Disney’s Beauty & the Beast. Or buy songbooks for Sarah McLachlan or Jewel or Fiona Apple.

I even put myself out there and asked my piano teacher if I could choose one of these works to practice next.

She allowed me to. But then never asked if I wanted to choose another one.

She saw the excitement in my eyes, my eagerness to try this popular style of piano, and met it with a luke-warm reaction that felt, not quite like disappointment, but a subtle judgment that wilted me nonetheless.

Now, I Lament What Could Have Been

How different my piano practice could have been, had I been encouraged to play pop songs or even the majestic musical scores that are used as the thematic backdrops for cinematically-enlivening Video Games like Final Fantasy!

(By the way, I am not a gamer. I’ve never even played games like that. But, if you’re familiar with these highly-immersive games, you know: the scores used to accompany their storylines are amazing!)

They’re imbued with a sense of magic, discovery, longing, and love. You don’t have to play these games to hear and feel the adventure embodied in their music.

Now, it saddens me to realize, looking back, that my piano teacher never saw me as a student who only needed a spark of inspiration to keep going.

She never asked what kind of music might excite me.

And, though her eyes were open and able to see what did enliven my musicianship, she did not welcome it into my usual repertoire.

And, though I was young, I sensed that.

Not as an overt rejection. She never said anything that was out-right mean.

But, it hurt nonetheless.

Because it gave me the sense that I lacked agency. That I merely played the role of a lower-case “student.”

She was the upper-case “Teacher,” and she determined not only the instruction, but the entire content.

To the point that my participation as an individual hardly mattered.

This is how I can understand and articulate it now, as an adult, looking back.

But, back then, as a child, it’s not how I saw it. I was used to going along with what the adults in my life directed me to do.

So, again, I thought, “This is just the way it is,” and I asked my mom if I could quit.

It wasn’t the first time I had asked to quit.

This time, she finally let me.

Sadly, there was no conversation to determine why I wanted to quit.

There was no further inquiry, to determine how I might want to keep studying piano.

In that regard, I don’t blame my mother for that. She’s not a musician. She doesn’t play the piano or any other instrument.

She didn’t know the conflict I was feeling inside.

But, was she interested in exploring what I wanted?

Because of the way I was raised, I was used to the idea that what sparked my Creativity could never be my career.

So, I “knew” I would never be a professional musician.

Singing pop songs like Taylor Swift was never presented as a potential future for me.

Even though I had performed and sung with a band before. Even though I was praised for it.

I always knew (because I was led to believe), that music could never be the focal point of any career for me.

So, when I was faced with a piano teacher like I had, and I felt music could never be an acceptable path in my future, I slipped into a sort of learned helplessness.

I gave up.

Now is the time to correct that wrong.

Now that I am older and wiser, and I’ve studied books like those 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.

I’ve learned to study & savor:

• Julia Cameron’s endlessly-motivating belief in our capacity to embrace and honor our Creative Self in her book, THE ARTIST’S WAY: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy.
• Dr. Martha Beck’s unapologetic argument in her book — BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose — that a part of us dies when we sacrifice the truth of who we are, to adhere to society’s “Roles Rulebook,” and we deserve to create and live the life we want instead.
• And, Dr. Ellen J. Langer’s warning in this book, ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity, that there are serious consequences to Mindlessly thinking “we know”; it leads to Mindlessly ignoring the details, especially when it comes to us as individuals, when we learn and adopt generalities that aren’t suited to us.

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

They’ve shown me far Better Ways of Being.

They’re proof that I need to RE-THINK what I thought I knew as a kid.

I needed to do that RE-THINKING, right now.

And, most of all…

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

But…

DOING’s The Hardest Part

It’s the most necessary part, too.

Because it’s not enough to THINK and RE-THINK.

Knowing is not the same as Doing.

And, like everyone else, I have to do all 3 — to Think and Do and Be — to become the person I am meant to be, the person I choose to be.

Yes, DOING is the only way we can heal all the broken parts inside of ourselves.

The forgotten parts.

The parts we push away and avoid.

Because it hurts too much to imagine…What if?

Are you like me?

I want more than anything to heal. To be at peace. To forgive.

Especially the tender Inner Child that got used to prioritizing “the way it is” because that’s what other people told me.

Because now I can clearly see that’s NOT “the way it has to be.”

There are other, Better Ways of Being.

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ Are there other, Better Ways of Being that you want to explore?

⭐️ Do YOU have an Inner Child who needs to heal?

⭐️ Are you ready to repeat after me, to proclaim this wholeheartedly?

• ♥️ “I deserve to explore Better Ways of Being.”
• ♥️ “I deserve to be happy.”
• ♥️ “I am ready to champion my Creative Self.”

I hope that you will join me. Because we’re about to get messy.

We’re going to embrace our “Messy Middle.”

We’re going to do “the DO.”

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.

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

Regret’s a big one for me. ’Cause I know: if I’d had the benefit of the musical scores I liked, with an enthusiastic teacher for that style, I never would’ve quit piano in the first place!

No matter what we’re feeling…

We Deserve to Honor Our Emotions & Take Better Care of Ourselves

Which is why I’ll be using the power of Music to help us do precisely that.

To entrain our brains to DO our way to the Creative Life we all deserve:

So, get ready:

• Choose a creative activity to pursue alongside me. Not necessarily the same creative practice as I’m choosing. 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 almost ready to LAUNCH.

So STAY TUNED!

🧠🎨 The Healing Creative in Me 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 honors & respects 🎨🧠

🧠🎨 the 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 means “Life 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!

Which Creative Practice did YOU choose? Let’s EXPERIMENT, Together!

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 7 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 7: The Myth of Talent, psychologists report that talent is “normally distributed throughout the population,” but EL says most of us think we fall in the “we don’t have it” bucket.

Problem is:

We often make false assumptions about the “Talented” people we admire.

Even world-famous artists like Picasso wouldn’t have had the confidence we assume he would’ve had.

I doubt he’d believe, “I’m the best,” without ever wavering or doubting himself. Instead, I bet he’d proclaim a willingness to try, to explore and see what happens.

Perhaps that’s the main difference between the Picasso he was able to become and us. And maybe, just maybe, we could become prolific Artists if we adopted the same exploratory Mindset, one that relies on curiosity instead of some mystical innate “Talent” that doesn’t actually exist.

Most times, “talent” is simply a set of skills that we can learn.

Indeed, as EL so aptly states, “The distance between those who do and those who don’t is not as great as it feels to those who want to but are afraid to.”

Sadly, those who are afraid to are often Mindlessly afraid.

When we’re truly mindful, we’d see the truth:

THE MINDFUL TRUTH #1: The “Talent” We Imagine Would Actually Be Boring

If the Talented were gifted beyond reproach, the way that we imagine them to be, to the point that they could “do no wrong,” where would the fun be in that?

If every sportsman knew with 100% certainty that s/he’d get a slam dunk or a hole in one, wouldn’t s/he get bored?

Where would the thrill be, if nothing could change, no matter the difference that might present itself, in various terrains or opponents on the field?

THE MINDFUL TRUTH #2: We actually want some level of uncertainty.

To see what each surprise evokes in us. To challenge our skills. To spur our creativity.

We want to explore the edge of our skills and be surprised when we make progress, perhaps more than we’d ever hoped to achieve.

THE MINDFUL TRUTH #3: Flow’s the Reward Along the Way

Even when we haven’t reached the finish line, there’s a reward along the way: that blissful state of Flow, when we become so engrossed in what we’re doing that we lose all sense of “Self.”

Our ego doesn’t get in the way anymore. We get to be FREE.

That, alone, is reason enough to get started, get going, and see where the path leads.

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ Last week, I asked, “Do YOU want to LET GO of Social Comparison?” and

⭐️ I invited you to JOIN ME IN AN EXPERIMENT:

To choose a creative activity to pursue alongside me.

Not necessarily the same creative practice as I’m choosing.

But, the creative practice that YOU choose.

One that would allow us to practice the empowering kind of Social Comparison that would allow us to not only THINK that Talent’s just a set of skills that can be developed, but to practice DOING it, Mindfully.

Let’s make the Mindful choice:

(1) to look at others for suggestions only — to show us that possibility and opportunity exists;

(2) to see Talent as a set of skills we can cultivate; and,

(3) to experiment with what it’s like to let go of perfectionism, drop the mask, release the urge to perform, and feel what it’s like to enjoy the creative process as it unfolds, no matter how imperfect our “Messy Middle” might be.

As I said before, I look forward to hearing which creative practice you choose.

But, before you do, I invited you to consider lowering the stakes.

So we don’t trigger our Sympathetic Nervous System to launch into a fight-flight-freeze-fawn-or-flop response.

Instead, we want to encourage our Parasympathetic Nervous System to stay engaged. Not to the point that we’re in “rest-or-digest,” but to the point that we’re relaxed enough to PLAY.

If we choose a creative endeavor that is too closely tied to our sense of identity, it will be that much harder for us to NOT engage in the undermining type of social comparison that we’re trying to avoid, because the stakes will be too high.

Instead, let’s choose a creative activity where if we succeed or fail, it will not trigger any type of over-identification with the Self.

⭐️ I’m excited to hear, which creative practice did you choose?

Personally, I choose MUSIC.

Why am I choosing this?

Because I LOVE music. I love to sing. I love to play piano. I love to dance or do martial arts, whatever, while listening to any tune.

But, I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to be turning into some type of Pop Superstar if I perform music, release it, or even post it for sale on a music distribution platform.

In other words, music is not insanely intertwined with my sense of Self. It is a big part of who I am, but not the entirety of who I am as a person. I love it and I am passionate about it, but it still allows me some wiggle room to stumble, fall, and even fail, and I will still survive with a strong sense of Self intact.

It will allow me to experiment and PLAY, and that’s the Mindset I encourage you to have when we start our experiments next week!

To make it extra fun, I’m going to couple it with something BIG that I’ve been planning for a while now…

So STAY TUNED!

🧠🎨The F.E.A.R.-Busting Creative in Me🎨🧠

🧠🎨honors & respects the F.E.A.R.-Busting Creative in 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 means “Life 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!