Category Archives for Mental Health

Discovering James Radcliffe Through Love

Yesterday I wrote about growing in my understanding of love. As I was uploading my post, I was on a video call with a cousin that lives overseas. He was miffed that I hadn’t shared my blog with him. I had to tell him that this blog is “a space to empty my thoughts and feelings where I don’t have to explain myself to anyone”, worry about judgement, and I receive support in a way that’s different from the people who know me personally who try to tailor things based on what they think I need. I also had to ensure him that not sharing my blog with him doesn’t mean I love him any less – he is after all at the top of my list of favourite British cousins.

Today as I looked through the feedback I received from readers, one piqued my curiosity and I’m glad I clicked through to his site. That reader is James Radcliffe. The first thing I read when I reached his site is this, “I write for all kinds of reasons. One of the big ones is: Writing about something lets me know how I feel about it; and why.” That statement captures the exact reason I write, but have never been able to articulate so precisely. It’s the reason I started this blog when the frustration of living under the cloud of pain medications and not being able to write poetry became unbearable. I’ve written poetry for so long that when I look through my writing I can tell you exactly where I was (figuratively and literally), what I was living through, and what I was feeling. My poetry is a chronology of my life and this blog has restarted its flow.

In addition to his words, James’ site also gave me another lovely surprise: his music. A few months ago when I started looking for ways to cope better with my illness and chronic pain I kept bumping into ‘Tibetan Healing Sounds’ and ‘Tibetan Singing Bowl Meditation Chakra Healing’ videos. I find the sounds and tones in the recordings very calming. Those sounds and tones are present in James Radcliffe’s music. I wrote this while listening to his latest album and the calm I feel is wonderful.

I have to believe that it’s no coincidence that writing about love and opening myself led me to discover James Radcliffe and I am happy to have found him. Take a listen and if you enjoy it support his work.

 

James Radcliffe – Present : Reflections [Deluxe]

Gratitude and Creativity: A Small Backpedal

I have to make a small backpedal from an earlier post where I expressed upset about spending time online looking at other people’s creative work instead of creating my own. What I didn’t acknowledge in the post is I do that sometimes because my body and my brain can’t cope or process any other information when I’m feeling pain. I also do it because I’m trying to learn new things, new ways of expressing myself creatively, since I don’t currently have the freedom to go out and explore the world on my own terms.

The proof that I’m learning – even when I don’t immediately open my journal and grab my pencils, coloured pencils, coloured markers, or paints – is that each time I create something new I’m incorporating a technique that piqued my interest enough for me to learn it and show it off. Surprisingly, sometimes looking through the work of others helps to resurface pleasant memories from when I learned, and used to do, similar things when I was young. I loved art classes, but stopped taking them when I got to high school because I had to focus on subjects deemed more serious. Looking through the work of others is reconnecting me to my creative self and it feels good.

This morning, as if to affirm that these thoughts and feelings are true, I found a video online that has one simple message from artist Nina Paley that “all creative work builds on what came before”. It put a smile on my face and it’s exactly what I needed to bring light to this grey stormy day.

 

Nina Paley – All Creative Work Is Derivative

Zentangles, Intention and Anxiety

Intentions are an interesting thing. We can have good intentions toward others and have the actions we take result in catastrophic outcomes. On the other hand, we may not apply conscious intentions to a situation and tremendously improve our own lives or the life of another. Personally, I tend to act with good intentions as I go about my life, but we all know the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Why am I prattling on about intentions today? It’s because I had the intention to do something for myself – that by all accounts has positive benefits – but I never got around to it. More accurately, I couldn’t make myself do it.

A few weeks back, I got my hands on a copy of the book ‘One Zentangle a Day: A 6-week Course in Creative Drawing for Relaxation, Inspiration, and Fun’ – isn’t that a mouthful – so I could teach myself more about the Zentangle practice and expand the range of patterns I can draw. For some inexplicable reason I couldn’t get started, even though I woke every day with the intention that it would be the first day of my ‘formal’ practice. Then each day the hours would pass without me reading any of the pages or working through any of the exercises. I noticed that I was feeling anxiety and pressure about doing something that is supposed to be relaxing and meditative.

Today the anxiety and self-inflicted pressure fell away. I didn’t intend to start day one of the 6-week course. I didn’t open the book at all. Instead, I used another Zentangle resource that places no time constraint on ‘getting it done’. I turned to ‘Zentangle 1: Basics’, another instructional Zentangle book that teaches you the basics about the practice. That being said, what I’m trying to express has nothing to do with either of the books. I’ve read glowing reviews about the 6-week course, which is why I got it. What this is about is the block I somehow created with my intention.


I can’t figure out how I managed to turn something meant to be fun and good for me into a source of anxiety. I’m also wondering how many times in the past when I felt anxiety it was in response to my resistance about an intention I set for myself. Is it possible that I’ve been creating my own psychological fear and pain, and not actually responding to external things? Is it possible that my intuition has been waving red flags that I ignored and chose instead to push through my fear or discomfort because I felt committed to situations I conjured with my intentions?

I don’t know if any of this makes any sense. I don’t know how drawing lines and shapes on paper has brought me to this place. I don’t know why trying to do something within a fixed time parameter is causing me such discomfort when I have always depended on having structure in my life to cope with everything. More importantly, have I been living my life with the best intentions for those around me and lesser intentions for myself? Or, was this simply a case of deciding to work on Zentangles using the less structured resource while having empty time to fill because my internet connection was lost for most of the day?

 

The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony (Cruel Intentions Ending)