|
The first three months of VisionQuest were definitely transformative. In my previous posts I have shared many triumphs and trials both personally and professionally. My primary intention for joining VisionQuest was growth and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I had no idea what tests December would have in store for me.
The seeds of courage, strength, love, power and faith had already been planted, but was I grounded enough to keep the bottom from dropping out? Was it possible for me to choose love over fear regardless of the circumstance? Did I understand the power of creativity well enough to be able to use it during a time of crisis? The answers to these questions are all the same, Yes. The first week of December, our family would lose our main source of income as well as our very utilized health insurance. In the past I would've been hysterical, depressed, wrought with anxiety, afraid to look beyond today, but I'm not the person that I was even six months ago. Instead, I was very quickly able to see the blessings and opportunities before us as a family. My husband lost a job that was making him miserable and destroying our marriage. That is not cause for distress. It is a time for celebration, gratitude and mindful intention. As the holidays progressed, my husband and I took turns keeping each other fully present. We talked about all of the possibilities before us. He got to spend time with the kids that he hadn't been able to for a long time. We played. We painted. We finished Christmas shopping knowing that, somehow, the money would appear and by Christmas he had a job offer. To live is to be tested and the most important realization that has come to me during the four months of VisionQuest is that my philosophy, spirituality and creativity inseparable. They are deeply rooted in my soul. The art that is my life and the art that I create come from the same source. I am the artist of my life and I can create whatever I intend. I can choose to be fearless. I can choose love.
0 Comments
November was supposed to be the month of the deep dive where we uncover all of the emotions beneath the surface. This was not a new concept for me. In fact, my most constant focus for the past five years has been deep psychological and spiritual healing both with the help of a therapist and on my own. The internal work this month was going to be a piece of cake and my schedule was finally clear enough for me to get back into the studio and lose myself in the canvas.
I was ready and eager for the first half of the painting marathon, but did I just hear Whitney right? I have to paint 13 paintings all on the same canvas? I have to paint over my previous paintings never to see them again?! That's when the anxiety kicked in. I loved my first painting and couldn't let it go. This was going to be harder than I thought, but I also understood the need for detachment. I decided that while I completely trust Whitney, this was my vision quest and I could grow without the need for anything to be too painful. I would give myself permission to keep any painting that really spoke to me and I was off painting. I painted each of the prompts with the new freedom that Whitney intended. Most were silly and fun and I learned a lot about her technique. None of them turned into the masterpieces that I had feared and I learned to snap a quick picture with my phone for the sake of documentation before releasing them to become the next painting. During this process I would share my progress with my therapist each week and I begin to notice her cringe every time I used the word "detach". She explained that as a counselor she focuses daily on helping people attach to other people and emotions to heal, so why was my detachment so liberating? It wasn't until the end of December that I fully understood my own relationship with attachment. My 16-year-old daughter would serve as my mirror. Fiercely loyal, once Isabelle knows you she is connected to you forever. She gets this quality from me and I always viewed it as admirable. However, upon further investigation, I realized that there are times when it can keep us from being our higher selves. When we attach to our history we limit our ability to change and grow. Have you ever thought about an old friend that you've lost touch with for one reason or another? At first, the memories make you smile, but as you continue to focus on them a painful sense of loss and emptiness appears. Reliving painful experiences from our past can also bring back the pain just as intensely as when the situation occurred. By practicing objective detachment I am now able to surround both memories with love and quickly release them, which I find to be much healthier. The metaphors, clichés and symbolism pertaining to fire are plentiful. In fact, nearly every one that comes to mind was applicable to my life during the month of October. By acknowledging the burning desire in my belly to manifest my inner vision, Whitney lit a fire under my ass in September. However, by October my life had become a raging house fire and those most important to me all appeared to be trapped inside.
My daughters were both struggling with unfamiliar situations. My husband almost took a job that would've resulted in his being home two days a month. My mother had major surgery involving an orange sized mass and a long list of potential complications. How was I going to save all of them without losing myself? Businesswise, things were moving along well. Sales were stable, but new leads and opportunities were flying in. I longed to be able to just live every moment in my vision. I was finding more and more ways to welcome abundance. I started teaching in my home, turned one offer at the art school into three contracts, and picked up two coaching clients. In hindsight, I am a little surprised at how easily I seem to have abandoned my old patterns. With everything that was going on with my family, my business would not have been a priority in the past. The fire that surrounded me somehow transformed into the fire that would save me. My old patterns of self-sacrifice weren't going to work this time. The solution was for me to take a deep breath and stay true to myself. Be my whole authentic self every day, hold on to my vision, and do the best that I could in each situation while maintaining my boundaries and maybe even setting some new ones. Make friends with the fire and let it burn away what no longer serves me. I can't say that I handled every situation perfectly. But, all in all, I am proud of how I've made it through and excited to continue the journey. The fall is always a crazy time for me. School starts, it is craft fair season, the days get shorter and the to-do lists get longer. There is a sense of urgency to grow and collect what I can before the world sleeps for the winter. My energy seems to drop in time with the thermometer. Work harder, work faster. Hurry up, get it done. It would've made so much more sense to start my vision quest in January. But Whitney is here now and if I want my life to be different, I need to be open to change. I have known for many years that we learn more from the challenges in life than we do from the joyous times. So, I stood in my rawness and dared karma to bring it on. I had no money to pay her, but set up an automatic withdrawal. I would learn as much as I could in as short a time as possible. It made sense to my left brain as well as my right.
Whitney challenged me from day one and pushed me to do what I had longed to do for some time. Reach out to the people that I already have who believe in me. Believe in myself. See my own potential. How could she know that they wouldn't say, "no"? The theme for the month of September was Air and Whitney's challenges were the winds of change. I began to understand my need to create in ways that could be explained neurologically which substantiated what I had known spiritually. I was prioritizing for my right brain. I was sharing and creating. I felt liberated, free, worthy. The first three weeks of September I was able to laugh to myself when life threw me curveballs. I could take a deep breath and greet opposition with love. I had done more, grown more and felt more than I had in a very long time. The wind was beneath my wings. Sometimes, though, when a swirling breeze gets moving too fast it can become a tornado and as October 1 grew closer I found myself smack dab in the middle of a vortex. My left brained, OCD, raging control freak was in major rebellion. My family was in the middle of a financial hemorrhage and I was supposed to take a personal retreat day?! My soul begged me to just stop and be still. I knew that, more than anything, I needed to be quiet, to create, to spend time inside myself with the divine. I would love to tell you that I listened to my inner call and that life went back to beautiful, but unfortunately I cannot. I gave myself 45 minutes to meditate and play my crystal bowls and then I took a shower and gave away my power. I returned to the hustle and multitasked my way into total overwhelm. Balance is out there, I've experienced it more this month than ever. Just because I'm not where I thought I would be does not mean I am off track. Major steps have been taken and that is enough. I am enough. |
AuthorCarrie Siegfried-Haase is a self-taught artist, mother, teacher, rainbow warrior and Certified Creatively Fit Coach. ArchivesCategories |
RSS Feed