Intermission Meditation

Delivering a work of art every day calls for untroubled seas and windless days. Running a family with a tween and a one year old while your husband lies sick in bed and your house is to be made ready for sale is not exactly my definition of a Calm Sea of Creation Possibilities. However, this does not mean we cannot hack the situation in a creative way!

In order to survive this stormy weather and keep my creative juices running, there’s only one thing I need: me-di-ta-tion. So I thought I would share with you my favorite meditation for creativity! It’s actually a meditation I created for anything that calls for some spaciousness in the mind. You can take a moment to sit down or even better, go out for a stroll in nature while you do this exercise. It’s so simple you can even do it while you do your dishes or try to sing your youngest one to sleep. I guess what I’m trying to say is: you can do this meditation anytime, anywhere and for any purpose 😀

Just start out with some deep breaths, it doesn’t matter if your eyes are open or closed, just do what feels comfortable at the moment. Then do a little check-in: how is your body feeling? Where is it feeling comfortable and where is it feeling rather uncomfortable or tense? There’s no judgment here, you’re only taking mental notes: oh look, there’s some tension, oh right, that’s pain, oh look that feels at ease or relaxed or… Next, do a check-in of your environment using your senses: what are the sounds, the smells, the sight if your eyes are open and what can you feel? Your feet touching the ground, your clothes touching your skin, the weight of your body on the earth. Now evoke in your mind the spaciousness of a blue sky, the sun is shining, it’s warm, birds are chirping and the sky is just endlessly blue and bright. Feel what that mental image does to your mind and body, there might be a smile on your face, you might feel your shoulders lowering just a little bit and you feel your mind opening up and stepping out of that tunnel of one thought after the other. Once you have that image and that feeling, just bask in it. The spaciousness, the freedom, the brightness, the relaxed feeling of a poolside holiday. Now take some minutes to let your mind gently go back-and-forth between it’s usual thoughts and this vision of a wide blue sky. Meditation is not about not thinking or not feeling or being completely still, it’s about gently commuting between places of movement and places of stillness. And by gently I mean both “without judgment” and “in a slow soft way”. No need to jump up and beat yourself up when you realize you wandered off in thought, just smile and slowly walk back to your mental paradise of blue sky and sunshine.

It’s amazing how this feeling of spaciousness puts everything in a different light: your one-year-old screaming for food while you’re driving, your tween telling endless stories of friends and teachers and -God help me- My little pony or Pokémon, your realtor going through all the paperwork for the house sale, explaining all the details twice, etc etc.

This said, I still found a minute or two to do some sewing for the Girl Fort. And together with Norah, we did an awesome brainstorm for her birthday party which will be a Detective Mystery Party! Once we had the theme, the ideas just came pouring out, for the invitations, the costumes, the decor, the plot, etc. One thing is sure: we will have a lotta fun creating 😉

Thanks for being around and see you soon!