Category: Uncategorized

Don’t let doing it “the right way” blind you from seeing your Creativity

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 4 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 4: The Mindfulness of Mistakes, EL states, “Mistakes, if we are attentive to them, can help us tune in to the present and allow us more mindfully to pursue our desires rather than our rigid plans. Mistakes are signals that we went off our predetermined course, but they can present us with choices we may not otherwise have recognized.”

To illustrate this, she describes how she was painting in the hospital when she was nursing a broken ankle, and a nurse watched her paint so many times that she invited the nurse to try painting with her.

Rather than tell the nurse “how to paint,” she invited the nurse to explore it for herself.

And she went even further. She encouraged her to make mistakes by telling her, “The fun doesn’t begin until making your first error,” and periodically asking the nurse, “Did you make a mistake yet?”

When the nurse finally did, EL asked her to incorporate the “mistake” into the work, rather than try to “fix” it. The nurse did so, and everyone liked it, including the other nurses who put it on display.

In EL’s own experience, she discovered that a “mistake” she’d made in her own painting — not loading the brush with enough paint — created a background effect that held her interest. One she was able to incorporate into the final, rather than washing it out and starting all over. It made the painting better as a result.

Likewise, in a series of scientific studies, participants who were told to incorporate their “mistakes” into their final drawings all ended up pleased with their work. And, the testing showed viewers enjoyed the artwork that incorporated “mistakes” more than the works without them.

The True Nature of Mistakes

These stories and studies show that, contrary to popular belief, mistakes may very well hold the key to a deeper form of creativity.

One that asks our brains to find novel ways to repurpose what arises, instead of adhering to set criteria or a fixed plan.

I can now see: What the Planning Mind sees as trash can very well be the Creative Mind’s treasure.

As EL puts it, “Mistakes, like all evaluations, are context-dependent. In one context a mistake is an error, while in another it can help us turn a surprise advantage.”

And, ironically, by incorporating mistakes into our final work, others may appreciate our work even more.

Making Mistakes encourages Mindfulness

Ultimately, a mistake forces us to be aware of the present moment, to notice how what we have done or thought differed from our original plan, and to generate a creative solution to make use of it.

Plus, there’s an emotional payoff.

“The looser our plan, the more room for creating something new, which is a far more rewarding activity.”

And guess what?

The “problem of how to cope with mistakes” automatically evaporates.

The Bottom Line: Don’t let doing it “the right way” blind you from seeing your Creativity

In the end, the mistakes we fear so much are precisely what makes our Creative Work more enjoyable for us to create & for others to enjoy.

Like a hand-made rug can hold more value to us than a machine-crafted one.

And, doesn’t your Inner Creative find it delightfully relaxing, to see how mistakes can be transformed into interesting solutions?

I can feel my “Type A” mind relaxing its vice-grip on the creative process, like I’m giving it permission to enjoy the process.

And I’m starting to see how my first inclination — to “fix” the mistake, to try again, to “do it right” — is precisely the kind of thinking that may be limiting me.

I can now ask: Why not try a more playful approach, and see what happens if I loosen my grip?

It helps me to realize, not everything has to be perfect to be valuable. Like a kintsugi vase, the golden cracks are what make it so beautiful.

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ Do you agree?

⭐️ Do you view mistakes as something you always “need to fix”?

⭐️ Or do you see them as just an unexpected detour that you’re open to exploring further?

⭐️ Do you invite yourself to be open to the process as it evolves, like EL did, when she asked, “Did you make your first mistake yet?”

⭐️ Have you ever tried incorporating a mistake into your final work, like a forcing function to make it work for you, instead of against you?

⭐️ Perhaps it’s the mistake that makes the human heart shine through our creative work.

🧠🎨The Perfectly Imperfect Creative in Me🎨🧠

🧠🎨honors & respects the Perfectly Imperfect Creative in You,🎨🧠

Marisa

👭 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.

👭 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.

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

Subscribe now

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

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

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.

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 the Tyranny of Evaluation break you!

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 3 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 3, EL goes right for the jugular by attacking our biggest enemy: Evaluation.

I love how she refers to it, too, in such a menacing way, by calling it “The Tyranny of Evaluation.” Because it really can be a tyrant over us.

When left unchecked, our fear of being judged by others can lock us in a perpetual cage of dis-ease.

Interestingly, part of this is brought on, not only by our tendency to compare ourselves with others, and our work product with theirs, but also to the limited nature of language.

As she puts it, “[I]f we look very closely, we find that while there may be similarities, there really aren’t many common properties that run through your unique experiences and mine.”

Does that matter? More than we might think.

Mindlessness can make us assume that everyone’s opinions are objective and reasonable.

Take a Moment to Imagine, Mindfully

We all say, “I got ready for work today,” but imagine the marked differences hidden in the details:

While one person may rise naturally with the sun, meditate for ten minutes, and amble, ever so gently, to make a cup of tea and slowly drink it while journaling, followed by a nice hot shower…

Another person may stir only after the alarm’s been blaring for a good 5 minutes, then hit the snooze button three times before rushing out the door, with half a bagel hanging from their mouth, their hair barely combed, and mismatched socks.

Now imagine both people express their opinion about your creative work, that took you two months to complete, a piece you created with all your heart.

Knowing what you now know — the usually-hidden details in how they usually “got ready in the morning” — would you blindly accept whatever assessment they made of your work?

What if the Barely-Combed Bedhead said, “I don’t think you put in much effort. It lacks realism, like you rushed through it.”

Haha, projection much?! 🤣 How ridiculously laughable their judgment is, knowing what we now know about the hidden details behind Bedhead’s highly-subjective viewpoint?

Clearly, we shouldn’t blindly accept Bedhead’s opinion, or put it on the same level as the Zen-like Morning Master, who “loved the vitality in your work.” Unlike Bedhead, Zen took their time examining the color choices you made, and the flourish in each of your strokes. THAT’s the assessment that we ought to focus on.

And yet…our mind often doesn’t. We’re often Not-Mindful that other people’s opinions are all subjective. Making it that much easier for us to fall into the trap of assuming that the two opinions are both equally valid.

This is how Mindlessness can cause us unnecessary doubt and self-recrimination, and it can completely alter what we create, simply to appease an audience we needn’t obsess over anyway.

We shouldn’t ignore other people’s opinions. But we shouldn’t allow them to define us, either.

Instead, Let’s Value What We Mindfully Create

Isn’t it better then, to create what we want to create because we are making Mindful choices that make sense to us?

And rest assured that, even when our art doesn’t appeal to everyone, it still has value because we created it Mindfully?

Now, let’s apply that Mindful awareness to our own analysis & judgments.

In EL’s example, both she and another person painted the same friend, Rhoda, and noticed that the two paintings were clearly different in style, even though they represented the same person.

As EL put it, if she allowed herself to get caught up in the desire to compare her work with the other painter’s, and if she believed her painting to be superior, she would “fail to engage the other painting.”

Importantly, she explores this not only from the perspective that “comparison is bad,” but in a deeper way, by acknowledging that judging her work as better is a loss to her because, she says, “I rob myself of an opportunity to see Rhoda in a new light, through the eyes of this other person.”

The Bottom Line:

To be successful Creatives, we must stop mindlessly believing that other people’s opinions are always right. As if other people’s opinions were actually objective. They’re not! They are subjective and not necessarily accurate assessments about the quality of our work or true reflections about us as individuals.

Ultimately, EL states “The tyranny of evaluation holds over us is the most important roadblock we need to overcome to achieve a personal renaissance.”

I agree, wholeheartedly. I find, whenever I’ve cared too much about other people’s opinions, a “personal renaissance” is unlikely because I’ve elevated their opinion over mine. It makes me disconnect from myself. And I need distance and solitude to recenter and reconnect with my own wants and needs.

I imagine People Pleasers must run into this predicament more often than most. Possibly to the point that they no longer understand or may even become unable to sense their own wishes and desires.

Perhaps this is the biggest homework assignment we can have in our life: Learning to listen to ourselves, to observe what is true for us.

It’s the difference between Reacting and Responding.

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️ Remember a time in your life when someone judged something you created. Did you believe that it was a fair and objective assessment?

⭐️ Did the person making the assessment have experience or expertise in that area?

⭐️ How was the assessment based on the subjective opinion of that person?

⭐️ Did their opinion cause you to change what you did, afterward?

⭐️ Did you lean into the same choices or make different ones?

⭐️ Did their opinion help you to trust your creativity less or more?

⭐️ Can you remember a time when your own subjective opinion made it harder for you to see the value inherent in another person’s work?

⭐️ Might there be beauty in something that’s not stereotypically “beautiful”?

🧠🎨The Mindful Creative in Me🎨🧠

🧠🎨honors & respects the Mindful Creative in You,🎨🧠

Marisa

👭 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.

👭 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.

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

Subscribe now

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

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

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Ironically, it’s our imperfections that make our authenticity shine through.

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 2 of BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity by Dr. Ellen J. Langer.

In Chapter 2: Becoming Authentic, EL says Mindfulness is important because it allows us to truly experience and, therefore, enjoy our lives.

When we act Mindlessly, we succumb to a zombie-like adherence to rules that shuts off our creativity & ability to remain present with others.

Often because we feel stressed, anxious, and unnecessarily worried about appearing incompetent.

What’s the solution?

Adopt a Beginner’s Mindset

When we allow ourselves to be Beginners, and we give ourselves enough grace to have little to low expectations of ourselves to “do it right,” we become far more capable than we might be otherwise, because we’re able to “plunge in, letting the task, not problematic self-talk, lead us.”

In other words, we adopt a willingness to abandon the ego, and this is what results in better performance.

For example, when EL had to take time off from tennis to heal an injury, she came back performing better than she expected, simply because she got out of her head and focused on simply hitting the ball. The difference? Less pressure to perform or compete a certain way.

Abandoning Our Ego Allows Our Authenticity to Shine Through

Interestingly, abandoning the ego is often what enhances one’s authenticity; and that authenticity plays a large role in the external success of our creative pursuits, as well.

Like authors who write personal prose are apt to do. When they allow us to read about their lives and describe what happens to them, including their unfiltered thoughts, we empathize with them because we can drop much more deeply into the predicaments that they face.

We are given a peek behind their private curtain. We are able to see what’s happening to them and what they’re thinking, as if it’s happening in real time, like we are gaining the same insights at the exact same time they are.

Such “realness” can only be conveyed when one is Mindful and able to convey that Mindfulness in one’s art, in a way that feels unfiltered. This authenticity becomes visible because “There is no pretense, no public to impress.” Through words alone we, as readers, can sense the author’s honest experience, because it is mindfully conveyed.

Problem is: Our Educational System trains us to be Mindless!

“Practicing until perfect,” and practicing via rote memorization that focuses too much on repetition is, in effect, teaching us to be Mindless.

It encourages us to focus too much on the external “Rules Rolebook,” and can result in outcomes that appear “fake.”

In the case of music, EL cites a study showing that it ultimately leads to stifled performances that aren’t as enjoyable to play and are less enjoyable for audiences to listen to.

And, in the case of EL’s painting practice, when she painted a woman in three variations, by the time she painted it for the third time, she noted she’d enjoyed painting it less and less. As she described it, “Knowing just where I needed to go and going there, rather than discovering some new place along the way, meant that I was painting less mindfully than before.” And that Mindlessness showed, not only in her own experience of it, but also in how her friend reacted to it. “Somehow,” EL says, “my diminished interest in the painting was present on the canvas and visible to others.”

Instead of hiding the truth of who we are — by painting over our imperfections — we need to realize that…

Authenticity is the Secret Ingredient for Our Creative Work & Our Entire LIFE!

A life that’s well-lived needs to be authentic not only to ourselves, but in community with others.

Mindlessness impacts others’ perceptions about us.

When we are inattentive, when we are mindlessly going through the motions, and when we just don’t seem to “be here” when we are with others, we appear to be inauthentic, and she cites various scientific studies to demonstrate this effect.

One study demonstrates how children can sense authenticity when adults who are Mindful interact with them, compared to adults who merely pretend to care. And, quite sadly, the kids who encountered the Mindlessly fake adults scored lower in self-esteem.

Something similar happens among adults: Mindful adults appear to be more charismatic and genuine.

I certainly sense when someone’s mind or attention is elsewhere when I am talking to them. Don’t you?

It makes sense. When we see people who aren’t really engaged, they appear to have “checked out.”

Problem is: When we’re anxious, “checking out” by mindlessly following scripts is often what we do.

This brings about precisely what we wish to avoid: Making a bad impression!

As EL puts it, “in situations that make us nervous, we turn to stereotypical behavior for fear of being disapproved of, yet mindlessly following the script…causes the very problem we seek to prevent.”

There’s a social cost to Mindlessness, then.

Not only are we less stimulated ourselves, but we do little to engage or impress others when we follow the script too closely and fall into fake stereotypes.

We look fake. And other people can tell.

And, it seems…

The same can be said for the Animal Kingdom, too.

EL’s animal studies are fascinating. And a funny illustration to show how her Mindfulness — her consistent suspicion that her dog was aware of her moods, etc. — caused her to develop a series of experiments to test if dogs, sea lions, and dolphins preferred Mindful humans over Mindless ones. They found, “It appears that animals such as those we tested are in some way aware of human mindfulness.” And the human participants (like her and the animals’ regular caretakers) did report similar observations to support the belief that even animals pick up on our attentiveness or lack thereof.

Bottom line:

Life is more interesting — and we are more interesting to others — when we are Mindful.

Mindfulness is the “It” Factor for a life well-lived, both as we experience it internally and as others perceive it externally.

When we create Mindfully, no matter how unskilled or skilled we are, if we do the art in a way that is “mindfully engaged,” the outcome can be a positive experience, no matter how much or how little it is recognized by others, because we experience it with all of our senses, curiosity, and engaged interest.

And, most times, when art is made mindfully, it captures others’ attention because our authenticity in the making of it shines through.

So…

Let’s Celebrate the Irony & Embrace Our Imperfection!

As EL states, “[T]he outcomes we seek are more likely to come to our imperfect selves.”

So, let’s remember, there are many benefits to Mindfulness:

• For our creative practice
• For our relationships.
• For a life well-lived!

Now, take a Mindful Minute, to ask yourself:

⭐️Are YOU ready, to join me, to begin being more Mindful in our everyday life?

⭐️ For our journaling this week, let’s do a simple exercise over dinner with a friend or family member.

⭐️ Without changing anything, go about your meal the same as usual and notice the following:

⭐️ Are phones present?

⭐️ Was there any conversation?

⭐️ Have each diner rate the conversation on a scale of 1–10, 1 being non-existent, to 10 being highly engaging.

⭐️ On a scale of 1–10, notice how connected you feel to the other diners.

⭐️ Does any part of you want to transform your dining experience?

⭐️ In what ways could you and/or others improve it?

⭐️ How could you take one step — just one — to make it better this week?

⭐️Are YOU ready, to join me, to begin being more Mindful in our Creative Practice?

⭐️ Last week, I invited you to make a list of potential Creative Practices you might want to try. Are you ready to do it — little by little?

⭐️ How might you do it Mindfully? Without the ego? Without the need to do it perfectly?

🧠🎨The Imperfect, Authentic Me🎨🧠

🧠🎨honors & respects the Imperfect, Authentic You,🎨🧠

Marisa

👭 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.

👭 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.

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

Subscribe now

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

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

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

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?

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.

👭 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.

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

Subscribe now

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

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

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Let’s COMMIT to loving our Authentic Self!

Our MENTALITY Creates Our REALITY!

Not the other way around.

Today, I need that reminder more than usual, so I’ll say it again:

“My Mentality creates My Reality!”

I try to remind myself of this fact, especially on difficult days.

Today’s a Difficult Day because I woke up with a horrendous migraine.

I told myself, “I could push harder to make this post.”

Yup, my initial inclination was to force myself to GO HARD!

Then, I thought, “I could soften, instead.”

I could take the time to remember: I AM HUMAN.

And, sometimes, “Being Human is HARD!”

It feels vulnerable to think.

Even more vulnerable to say it out loud.

But it’s the truth.

I need help.

I need to reach out across the Universe, to find “My People,” other humans who can resonate with my current suffering, who are open to receiving my message today:

• I am not perfect.
• I am suffering.
• But, I am still here…trying.

I am writing this, in the hope that my imperfect Self can still create something of value for you.

In the hope that maybe a part of you is suffering, too.

Not that I want you to suffer. No, never that.

I just want to touch your human heart.

To seek a simple truth:

Are you in any way like me?

Maybe not.

Certainly, not identical.

But, do you understand — even a little — what it feels like to be suffering?

In my body, as in my mind, I feel this tension between what I feel — this pain — and what I wish I could do, how I wish I could be, in this moment.

It’s a roadblock, preventing me from walking the path I feel I “should” be walking.

There’s this urge to “do more.” To “be more.”

To fight against “what is,” because “what is” is beyond inconvenient.

The pain in my head and neck’s unbearable.

And, worse, as usual for all my migraines, the ruminating thoughts and feeling of being alone are overwhelming.

I have a solution: To remember I am not alone.

We are not alone. Never.

We all suffer in a myriad of ways.

But we can all encourage each other to love ourselves, always.

To be kinder to ourselves in all the moments that matter.

Especially in the midst of our inescapable imperfection.

We don’t have to be perfect to be loved.

We are worthy as we are.

As individuals and as a community.

Which brings me to why I decided to show up today…

Despite the pain & rumination, there’s something I am excited & happy about!

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…

Dr. Ellen J. Langer’s book — ON BECOMING AN ARTIST: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity!

Dr. Langer’s the very first female to be tenured in Psychology at Harvard, and her research focuses on the power of Mind-Body Unity (rather than duality).

Many of her experiments and studies are world-famous, and here she’s talking about how to apply the practice of Mindfulness & the science of Mind-Body Unity to Creativity.

The book’s jam-packed with science but, what I love even more, is her attitude. She’s not dogmatic whatsoever. She’s the opposite. She teaches us how mindlessly we often live our lives, and demonstrates how we can stop assuming we know and allow our creative curiosity to guide us instead.

I can’t wait to launch into our deep-dive, starting next week!

As always, I will be including Journaling Prompts so we can go inward and explore ways to put Dr. Langer’s insights into living practice.

Not in the stuffy way you might expect.

Not by following the so-called “rules.”

But by actively questioning the rules. Flying by the seat of our pants. And experimenting to see what suits us as individuals.

This is an intuitive approach that’s inspired by Dr. Langer herself. For, as you’ll see in this book, amidst plenty of scientific explanations, she takes us on her own adventure with painting.

And, trust me, it’s not some paint-by-numbers exercise.

It’s all about not having preconceived notions about how art’s “supposed to be.”

Instead, it’s all about using our mindful creativity to find what actually works for us — not because society’s told us so, but because it feels right for us to grow and thrive as unique individuals.

I anticipate it’s going to strengthen our resolve to be creative as a lifelong method for enriching our lives, to BREAK FREE of Our Needless Suffering!

Now, let’s take a Mindful Minute, to imagine who we could be if we were open to play, no matter our age.

How much better would our lives be because of it?

How connected would we feel to the child that’s still there, living inside of us?

How healthy could our minds, bodies, and spirits be if we prioritized our self-love for once?

Our days needn’t be dreary, focused on “the grind” or on “making it.”

Together, we can break free of society’s tendency to lull us like lemmings off a cliff.

We can live our lives in a mindful, creative way, & become who we CHOOSE to be, instead.

Please join us next week,

when we begin our deep-dive into

our new Book Club selection:

📚ON BECOMING AN ARTIST📚

📚by Dr. Ellen J. Langer📚

🧠🎨The Mindful Artist in me🎨🧠

🧠🎨honors & respects the Mindful Artist in you,🎨🧠

Marisa

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you BREAK FREE?

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.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

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.

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

Subscribe now

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

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

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

What if you could live in peace, right NOW?

In Chapter 12: Deep Green Self, Deep Green Earth, MB describes how our brains are working “as if the Milky Way entered into some cosmic dance,” performed by our “human neocortex — a surprisingly meager structure, only about the thickness of four credit cards stacked up.”

It sounds magical & awe-inspiring, to realize something so small can have such a profound effect on our lives.

How we choose to mindlessly use our mind, or conscientiously direct our attention to use it wisely drastically changes how it feels to live our lives.

When our Monkey Minds run amok, our Inner Critic can get the best of us, especially when our brains become Left-Hemisphere-dominant and Anxiety Spirals are allowed to spin us away from our Authentic Self. Life can feel bleak, and our limited perspective can trap us inside a cage that’s often not of our conscious choosing.

Lucky for us, in Chapter 12 — the last Chapter of BEYOND ANXIETY — MB reminds us of all the lessons we’ve learned in Chapters 1 to 11 to wrest control away from the fear centers of our brain, to calm our anxieties — like the 6 “Amygdala-Whispering” Skills we learned in Chapter 2, linked below.

Are YOU an Amygdala-Whisperer? Read full story

Perhaps that’s why I enjoy the calming effect I feel whenever I ponder MB’s “Deep Green Self.”

Let’s Become One with Our DEEP GREEN Self

When our nervous system’s in a “Deep Green” state, we not only feel safe in our bodies, but also in our minds. We feel secure enough in ourselves to explore new perspectives.

We can use our curiosity to find the right ecosystem for us to grow and thrive.

I realize now that my creating the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵 is my own attempt to find an “ecosystem” to support my Creativity with likeminded Creatives, who understand the “messy middle” — that most difficult of phases when our old Self no longer suits us, but we are not yet embodied in who we know we are MEANT to be.

No matter how difficult the journey, no matter where we are walking on our respective paths, the simple act of sharing our messy middle has helped me to see that when we find “our people” and we group together in the mutually-beneficial “social cells” that MB describes, we can experience joy and inspiration, create our own self-healing constellations, and grow as individuals and as a community.

That sense of community is precisely what I’ve found here on Substack. I feel blessed to have found my way here, after spending so many years knowing zero Creatives in “real life.”

Being Creative has truly been the best way I have found to stop anxiety, lift depression, and BREAK FREE!

And I remain devoted as ever to My Mission:

To encourage others to be who they choose to be.

To explore their unique creativity.

To allow themselves to experience living life as their Authentic Self.

May we all enjoy a mind, body, and spirit at peace, in flow, where a Deep Green state is the new normal for all of us.

Yes, the “Deep Green Earth” that MB envisions really would be a beautiful sight to see.

📚 Please join us next week, 📚

📚 when we announce our new Book Club pick! 📚

🌿 The Deep Green Creative in me 🌿

🌿 honors & respects the Deep Green Creative in you, 🌿

Marisa

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you BREAK FREE?

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.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

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.

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

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

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

What if you could live in a blissful state of awe, free from the misery of anxiety & depression? Let’s adopt an Open Mindset, relax our urge to control, & allow our Creativity to create happiness NOW.

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 11 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 11: Don’t Know Mind, MB invites us to continue opening our mind to the magic of possibility. When we let go of our certainties — in the rigid beliefs that are mostly based on the Role Rulebook that Society’s indoctrinated us to believe — we open to a more expansive view of ourselves and the Universe in which we live.

She begins by telling us that, due to the process of cell regeneration, every part of our body’s only ever 7 years old.

Yet, we feel this strong pull to remain the same when our body’s are literally not. It reminds us that our physiology’s open to becoming something new, and invites our minds to do the same.

That’s the Door to Freedom.

Doesn’t it feel freeing, to realize there’s no real requirement to maintain a rigidly consistent identity with our past?

If we want to, we can change who we are by choosing who we wish to become. We only have to adopt an Open Mindset to allow ourselves to explore new ways of thinking.

Reflect on that.

Really think about it.

If you’re anything like me, just imagining the possibility for purposeful reinvention allows me to see it, that Door to Freedom that’s slowly opening.

Can you see it, too?

It’s ajar, urging you to meditate on this wondrous possibility, to ask yourself…

What if we could live in a blissful state of awe, free from the pain of anxiety & depression that makes us miserable?

As MB’s drilled permanently into our heads by now, the SOLUTION — the way we can walk through the Door — to bask in the joy of a Creative, Purpose-Driven Life of our choosing is NOT found in the Roles Rulebook that Society’s indoctrinated us to follow.

And, no matter how hard Society tries to get us to apply its rules so rigidly, a deeper, wiser part inside of us whispers — and, if we’re lucky, eventually YELLS —

The TRUTH: Society’s Rulebook Doesn’t Have All the Answers — not always — and certainly not always when it applies to the special & unique YOU.

How can we BREAK FREE from the vice of Society’s grip on us?

It starts in our mind. Our thoughts. And our ever-present ability to think critically.

When we do, we can realize…

The REALITY: No one can claim absolute certainty.

Even among scientists, the debate between Materialism and Quantum Physics rages on:

Does consciousness stem from matter? Or, is consciousness foundational, and we merely tune into it, like a radio dialing into different frequencies?

Does Creativity arise from us, and us alone? Or, can we partner with the Universe in a dance of Co-Creation, as many successful writers & artists say they believe?

No one knows the definitive answer. And that’s ok.

It’s hopeful, even.

Because we can be Creative Cosmonauts.

We can be Creative Cosmonauts when we’re brave enough to open to the brilliance of our always-evolving, infinitely-creative neuroplasticity.

We can break free of the societal ties that bind us.

Who knows where we can go when we count down & blast off!

Let’s explore the Freedom that can be found when our tank’s fueled by an Open & Creative “Don’t Know Mind”:

Take a Mindful Minute to Meditate on the following ways in which MB invites us to expand our understanding of ourselves, based on how we think the Universe works.

But first, a NOTE:

There are MANY examples that MB provides in this Chapter. The ones I’ve included below are just a few.

If you’ve been following along every week, but you have not gotten the book, I highly recommend that you buy it for the examples she describes in Chapter 11.

Why? Well, whenever I read & take the extra time to do a deep-dive to study any book, there’s always a point where I get super excited reading it, like, “YES! THIS part made buying the book 💯% worth it!”

Because it’s blown my mind. It’s broadened my perspective to the point that I’m thankful. I literally thank the Universe for bringing the book to me at this precise time.

I felt this ecstatic thankfulness many times as I read this BEYOND ANXIETY book — and I’ve read all but 1 of MB’s books!

And, I have to say, Chapter 11 really helped me to not only see, but FEEL, my mind opening to a newfound sense of awe, possibility, and wonder.

So, if you’re on the fence about actually buying the book, don’t be! There are so many examples in this Chapter that will broaden your mind, and allow you to experience the FEELING of Freedom — not because YOU KNOW, but precisely because YOU DO NOT KNOW.

I think that’s so rare these days. Usually, we’re rewarded when we have all the answers. When we follow Society’s Rulebook. When we meet external metrics that Society — and, let’s face it, our peers, colleagues, friends, and families — use to measure our “success.”

This is different.

It’s allowing yourself to NOT-Know, on purpose.

And feeling a strange giddiness because you DON’T know.

At least it did for me.

⭐️ I’d love to hear if it did for you, too.

⭐️ Did you feel a growing sense of wonder & awe? Like a child, learning something new, opening to the beauty of limitless possibility?

On to the few examples I’m sampling:

⭐️ As you meditate on each, close your eyes, witness your reaction, and describe the following, in your journaling:

• Do you feel the urge to reject the statement?
• What happens if you open to the possibility that it’s true?
• Which feels better in your body: the urge to reject? Or, the willingness to soften to the possibilities inherent in a more Open Mindset?

SAMPLE #1 to Embrace NOT-Knowing:

When Harvard’s Daniel Goldman and Richard Davidson used MRI machines to peer into the heads of…Tibetan monks [who had spent thousands of hours meditating as part of their spiritual practice], they saw brains that looked much younger, and much more wired for happiness, than the brains of most other people. The effect was strong in monks who’d spent more time meditating, which means the men weren’t just born with happy brains; they had transformed their own neurology through spiritual practice. These practices were not about learning dogmatic beliefs but about letting go of the dogmatic need for certainty.

⭐️ This #1 may not shock your modern day sensibilities. But what about these awesome truths that are the exact definition of “awesome” because they’re truly awe-inspiring:

SAMPLE #2 to Embrace NOT-Knowing:

Esref Armagan is a Turkish artist. He was born with one eye, which is the size of a lentil and totally nonfunctional. His other eye is completely absent. Armagan has literally never seen anything. Yet he paints recognizable portraits and realistic landscapes that feature birds in the air and linear perspective. Armagan has been studied by researchers from multiple universities, including Harvard. They verified that no one is assisting him in any way as he paints these realistic images.

🫢😍🥳This one blows my mind. I had never heard it, anywhere.

Combined with another example she gives about twins whose lives were insanely identical — despite their living apart for 39 years — are the mind-bending, eye-opening examples that are so astonishing and evoke such a sense of mystery in me…

I’ve never been so happy to not-know. 🤣

I’m inspired to be a Creative Cosmonaut,

aren’t you?

Are YOU as ready as I am, to BREAK FREE &

• Adopt an Open Mind?

• Allow your thoughts to drift away from Certainty & Control, so you can…

• Feel a sense of awe, inspiration, & wonder?

• Welcome opportunities to be surprised?

• Explore the Path NOT Taken, no matter how winding your journey might be, only to discover it leads to a Creative, Purpose-Driven Life beyond what you might expect?

• Where you’re astronomically successful — not only wealthy in money, but more importantly, wealthy in creative practice & spirit?

• And you’re FREE to be the boss of your own destiny?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you BREAK FREE?

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.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to feel wonder, joy, and hope when we do NOT know and go exploring instead.

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

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

The Creative Cosmonaut in me honors & respects the Creative Cosmonaut in each of you.

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

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.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

What if life didn’t have to be so hard?

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 BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 9: Breaking Your Role Rules, Minding Your Mission, MB invites us to imagine who you might be if you “abandon anxiety as your basic role motivation and imagine who you might be if you follow your sense of curiosity, creativity, and connection.”

She gives many examples of people who’ve dared to break the mold that society’s tried to force them into, and paints a beautiful picture of the creative & professional freedom that they found on the other side.

It’s so inspiring, because even she had to go through it.

Despite becoming a Professor.

Despite her Harvard pedigree.

Despite all of her impressive accomplishments.

Was it enough — to meet society’s expectations? No!

She was miserable. Trapped in Anxiety Spirals so severe that her body forced her to stop. She became bedridden with fibromyalgia. Her days were filled with non-stop fatigue and pain.

But, as she put it:

[T]he “Harvard academic” role made me an anxious mess. When I decided to leave it and follow my curiosity into joy, I finally felt “on purpose.”

It wasn’t easy, though. She says,

I still cringe at the label “life coach,” which didn’t exist when I was growing up, or even when I was getting my doctorate. “Life coaching” is way outside the role rules of academia; it’s the kind of title that makes traditional scholars want to take you out back and shoot you in the leg.

Ouch.

But, she became a life coach ANYWAY. Because it was RIGHT for her.

And it’s led her down an enviable path, where she works with Creative friends, coaches Creatives like us, and actually enjoys her work, full of writing, artwork, and in-person safari adventures surrounded by the nature and wildlife that she’s loved since she was a child, on a regular basis, at the Londolozi Nature Reserve in South Africa.

Talk about assembling your very own, highly personalized Sanity Quilt Life!

It’s PROOF!

We, too, can live life in rhythm with who we are & who we’re MEANT to become.

We can live in a state of JOY & FLOW if we follow Our “Innate Creative Genius.”

When you follow your “Innate Creative Genius,” you stop dreading the passage of time like you’re watching paint dry, and start pining for more time to enjoy your passions.

A creative life isn’t easy. It’ll take plenty of hard work.

But, it will feel like FUN.

Just Imagine:

What might happen if you reconnect with your passions and indulge in your curiosity?

You, too, could step into the mysterious flow of Creativity and find you’re on the path to finding your life’s Purpose.

But, how?

(1) Beware the Detours

Hidden in the brush, danger lurks.

Beware the times you back away.

Beware the limits you randomly put on yourself.

Notice when anxiety’s pushing your Left Hemisphere into overdrive.

Soothe your Inner Creature.

Not to accomplish some miraculous feat of inestimable Creative Nirvana, but…

(2) Take One TEENY, TINY Step

Sometimes it’s not the grand resolution that works.

Many times, all it takes is the teeny, tiniest step to calm your nerves.

To gain some movement.

Then momentum.

And, when anxiety stops pushing your Left Hemisphere to strive and grind, you can finally…

(3) Allow your CURIOSITY to PULL, rather than push, you into a Creativity Spiral that naturally carries you toward your life’s Purpose.

“Hallelujah!” you’ll get to yell from the rooftops, head up, chest out, and full of pride.

When you enjoy your very own Eureka Moment!

When you’ve found what your Creative Genius would LOVE for you to do with your life!

Then what? Do you just keep walking?

Of course, you’ll want to. You may even run.

But, like all great Quests, obstacles will impede your path.

As you continue on your Creative Journey, just remember:

(4) You have to stay “On Mission.”

Beware the “No,” when our Left-Hemisphere Dominated Society tries to drag you down, screaming lies like, “It can’t be done!”

Take, for example, the biggest of all lies: “You need more money.”

Ask yourself, “Is that ABSOLUTELY True — in all cases, each and every time?”

Sure, we all have to make a living to survive, but therein lies the trap.

When we’re too focused on making money, we shut the door to possibility.

If we wait for more money before we’re willing to leap, we never will. Instead…

(5) We have to give our Right-Hemisphere enough space & freedom to rally our Creative Genius, to come up with creative alternatives to solve our predicament.

We can start simply.

We can develop our interests — without the unnecessary pressure of making money at it.

We can use our CURIOSITY to our advantage, to regulate our emotions and ease our Nervous System out of panic mode. Just…

(6) Be willing to SIMPLY SEE what develops & ENJOY the process.

And remember, when Passion Hits, Magic Happens!

Our typical hum-drum social roles can shatter.

Our identities can be transformed.

Deep Play can become Our Purpose!

I can fully attest to that.

Because I found my way there.

But, my journey was rough. Like MB’s.

Mine was a saga of depression, anxiety, and self-doubt.

My Inner Critics — the wraiths of my discontent — made my mind & body succumb to so much dis-ease that I suffered from relentless rumination & unending migraines.

I reached an impasse, too.

At the time, I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me.

Because it went straight to my Identity. It threatened how I saw myself. The role I thought I was supposed to play. It was what I still consider to be…

My Own Existential Crisis

Read about it here👇

Break Free: How You Spen Your Time Dictates Who You Are

Read full story

Or watch my Storytime Video here👇

It hurt. But now, I’m GRATEFUL for it!

It was the only way I could learn: my PAIN could be my Purpose.

And it serves a purpose still, because it’s now MY MISSION to encourage others to do the Creative Work we dream of doing, no matter how much time has passed. No matter what anyone else says.

Like me…

YOUR PAIN Can Be the Fuel that Helps You to BREAK FREE, to Break The Mold Society Assigns to You.

When you hit your lowest point, it can be a forcing function that makes you find a way out.

The pain pressures you to discover what’s really true for YOU.

Not because of some role you’re forced to adhere to.

But how you respond to it.

How you come to question it.

How you begin to rail against it.

In this way, you redefine the role you believe you are MEANT to embody.

You finally see you’re not meant to be caged in the limited role that society dictates.

Are YOU Ready to BREAK FREE, too?

Or, are you too afraid to stop caring about what other people think?

BEWARE: Your Approval-Seeking Behavior is a Red Flag

As MB says, “Approval seeking is an anxiety based behavior favored by a left-hemisphere belief that there is only one way to live.”

So pay particular attention anytime you find yourself afraid to color outside the lines.

Notice when your creative inclinations are rebuffed or ridiculed.

That’s how you know you’ve found the edge of what society deems “right.”

DARE to question it.

On the other side may just be your freedom.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our journaling this week, let’s do the exercise MB provides at the end of the Chapter, to imagine what it would feel like to go slightly outside of our current role by completing this sentence:

“Today, I could break my role rules by _____.”

⭐️ How do you feel about the prospect of actually doing it? What if you broke the rules, just a little?

⭐️ Experiment. As MB says, try it:

“Do what you want. Break the rules. You will probably feel very anxious about this. Just breathe, calm your creature, and stay the course.”

⭐️ Journal to reflect on what happens. How do you feel, now that you’ve had this taste of freedom?

Are YOU as ready as I am to

let your Creative Genius BREAK FREE?

To embrace your Curiosity & Intuition,

and let go of society’s oppressive role rules?

We just have to remember:

Freedom’s found when we choose to define our own Identity & create our own Sanity-Quilt Life.

Joy can steer you. Drawing you closer to who you are meant to be,

pulling you like a magnet, from your past ho-hum Role

to a much brighter, happier, saner, & more peaceful existence!

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you BREAK FREE?

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.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

The FREE Creative in me honors & respects the FREE Creative in each of you.

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

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

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

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

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

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) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

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

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!