Let’s BREAK FREE of our Hum Drum, Mindless Existence!
In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 1 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.
In Chapter 1: A Life of Mindful Creativity, EL introduces us to her concept of Mindfulness.
As a lifelong meditator, I initially expected her concept of Mindfulness to be introspective — and it is — but I was pleasantly surprised to see that…
This MINDFULNESS has a subtly subversive element to it.
In that way, EL’s similar to Dr. Martha Beck.
As MB most elegantly described in our last Book Club book (BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose), MB believes that society has indoctrinated us to follow society’s “Rules Rolebook”; and she warns us to not fall prey to that urge to blindly follow the rules, lest we live lives where we’re less than we are meant to be.
EL does the same straight out of the gate.
As a perfect example, EL questions how we might behave if we arrived alone to a banquet of food, a buffet of dishes laid out before us on a table. If no one else were around:
- Would we need an invitation to sample what intrigued us?
- Would we place whatever we wished on our plates and eat until we were completely satisfied?
- Would we try whatever dishes we were curious to try, no matter what it might be?
- In whatever combinations we wanted?
Contrast that with how we would behave if other people were present, and it becomes obviously apparent how the simple presence of other people potentially observing (and judging) us can change everything: how we’d act, behave, think, (and, yes, judge ourselves).
We all have this fear of being assessed & judged.
That results in lives not fully lived.
Repressed emotions.
Acts never mastered.
Many times, never even tried.
Removing that fear of judgment can reveal what was actually present inside of us:
The essential truth of who we are.
Let’s Discover Our “Creative Renaissance”
What if there were another, better way to live our life?
When we remove what clutters — other people’s judgments, society’s instructions, educational indoctrination, whatever it may be — and we are willing to examine and follow our curiosity instead, we can discover liberation: a “Creative Renaissance.”
Our lives can become fuller by simply being.
Observing what we think, do, and feel without the clutter of others’ input or influence.
Rules can matter. In many cases, they do.
But…
I’m intrigued to explore the benefits of unlearning.
To discover what it’s like to simply be who we are, before society intrudes.
And it doesn’t take much.
To Discover Mindlessness, Look to the Seemingly Mundane
In many examples, she describes how Mindfulness has helped her to see how subtly haphazard rules impact us and become the source of our potential suffering, for no good reason other than our Mindlessness, our unquestioning acceptance that “that’s just the way it is.”
Like how EL visited a friend who’d set the table by placing the fork on the right side of the plate. As a polite guest, she made no mention of it. But — mentally and emotionally — it was quite the opposite!
She found herself focused on it. Thinking, “The fork belongs on the left!”
Realizing, this capital r Rule originated not from some serious life-or-death reason, but from the simple act of her mother teaching her how to set the table when she was young.
Mindfulness made her question, Doesn’t it make more sense to place forks on the right, when most people are right-handed?
And yet the Rule had lodged itself in her mind, and that affected her emotionally:
She couldn’t help but feel discomfort, this non-sensical dis-ease that her friend had done something “wrong” by putting the fork on the right when “it belongs on the left”!
Ha! 😆 How funny!
But…
Often, it’s this Mindless lack of questioning, this default lack of observation, that can lead to negative consequences.
Some are serious. Like another example she uses: pumping the breaks to avoid an accident. When most modern cars have anti-lock breaking systems, so we should break hard instead. Or we really will crash.
Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:
⭐️Are YOU ready, to join me?
Let’s run our very own Creative Experiment!
As we study each of the Chapters throughout this book, Let’s ask ourselves, in what ways are we being Mindless?
⭐️ What are we losing when we are Mindless?
⭐️ What might we gain if we practiced Mindfulness instead?
⭐️ Might we be doing ourselves a disservice when we think we cannot be Creative because “we don’t know how”?
⭐️ When there’s an unwritten Rulebook hidden in our psyche, but controlling us just the same?
⭐️ In what ways are we denying ourselves the opportunity to grow simply because we have a Limiting Belief buried somewhere inside of us, one we fail to see simply because we are Mindlessly forgetting to look & question our assumptions?
⭐️ What might happen if we allow ourselves to PLAY?
⭐️ If we explore our Creativity, could we be surprised by our own Personal Renaissance?
EL reminds us there’s much to be gained when we stop living Mindlessly and start embracing Mindfulness.
And, she emphasizes…
Starting a Creative practice is a perfect opportunity to encourage our Mindfulness to grow.
Not by “following the rules,” but by abandoning them.
YASSS!
Let’s BREAK FREE of the “Rules Rolebook” that Dr. Martha Beck encouraged us to let go, and follow EL’s example — to stop living Mindlessly and use our Mindfulness to be the Creatives we are meant to be!
These two viewpoints are like two threads weaving together. It’s a pleasant surprise to see how they complement one another, like a beautiful bow tying our last Book Club selection to this Book Club pick!
See Our Magical Universe, inviting us to embrace this Synchronicity!
To welcome Creative Magic into our lives and weave our very own masterpiece.
Together, let’s unlearn what we think we know, and unearth our Truest, most Authentic Self!
I’m excited to see where this Journey will take us, aren’t you?
Let’s embark on this adventure, to create a LIFE that’s full of joy, peace, & flow!
To welcome the uncertainty of not-knowing.
To see Mindfulness as an act, not only of being aware and noticing thoughts and emotions as they pass, but also as a means by which we can see who we are if we drop the mask of performance and perfectionism. To let go of that ever-present pressure to “do it the right way,” and instead allow our curiosity to encourage us to do it “our way.”
It’s an opportunity to examine our true nature:
- To detach from our desire to control.
- To flex our intuition.
- To see where our Limiting Beliefs are and from where they might originate.
- To gain personal power when we relinquish the urge to control outcomes.
- To find enlightened detachment.
Yes, that’s my hypothesis:
We can find peace when we stop living Mindlessly & embrace Mindfulness with our innate Creativity!
For our Journaling this week, imagine:
⭐️ How amazing it would feel to reconnect with the child that’s still living inside of us, the one who never cared who was watching?
⭐️ How healthy our minds, bodies, and spirits can be when we adopt a Creative Practice, and honor it as an act of self-love?
⭐️ Make a list of potential Creative Practices you might want to try. Then, get ready to do it. Little by little. Starting next week.
Please join us next week, when we do a deep-dive into Chapter 2 of
📚ON BECOMING AN ARTIST by Dr. Ellen J. Langer📚
🧠🎨The Creative Renaissance in me🎨🧠
🧠🎨honors & respects the Creative Renaissance growing inside each & every one of you,🎨🧠
Marisa
👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you experience your own Creative Renaissance?
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👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try.
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 don’t have to find solutions alone.
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