How We Live ...

One of my favorite authors and bloggers, Patti Digh, tweets, "Seems we can choose to be in 1 of these 3 phases: Reacting against, responding to, or creating new (being generative). Which are you most?" Definitely food for thought ...

I think I do pretty good most of the time with not reacting against, although I do have my buttons, just like everyone else! Thanks to Jai Pausch and her recently deceased husband Randy, I'm learning that "it is what it is." This has helped me tremendously in my efforts to not react against so much of the time. Never one to worry too much, I worry even less these days. As I type this, however, I can think of one issue that I need to stop reacting against and just let go of. I need to take a deep breath, step back, remember that what will be, will be, and move on. The decision is being made by the powers that be and now I need to work to support it fully.

 

As an artist, I love creating new -- or being generative -- whether it is new ideas, or solutions, or producing actual works of art. I am especially thrilled to come up with a new idea these days, now that I'm on so much medication and my thought processes are a bit muddled. 

I'd have to say that I spend most of my time responding to. The alarm goes off; I get out of bed. The cats are hungry; I feed them. There are sales at the Gallery; I record them and make the bank deposit. Unfortunately, I do much of this without deliberate thought or conscious choice on my part. I'm just responding to my environment. 

That is about to change, however! Come Thursday, 15 January, I'm embarking on Season Two of the 100 Day Reality Challenge. For 100 days, I'm going to make a concerted effort to live more consciously and deliberately. I haven't fine-tuned my intentions yet for this Challenge, but I'm working on them. I'm working on it backwards: I know what my practices will be, I just don't know what the intentions are that those practices represent! My practices will include morning pages, gratitudes, daily exercise, and following a new Secret teaching-a-day book that I recently got. 

Last season, I took on too many practices and the first day that I didn't do them all, I fell off the practice-wagon and couldn't get back on it. I just became overwhelmed by all that I took on. I'm not going to make that mistake again this season, so I'm keeping it light. I may do more on any given day, but I'm not going to push myself or hold myself accountable for anything other than those four practices. 

As I said, this starts Thursday and lasts 100 days -- Wish me luck!

Co-Creating Your Reality

I know I usually blog about art stuff, but this is something else that excites me, the idea of creating my own reality. Through a post on Yahoo! Group, I ran across the website, Co-Creating Our Reality and the idea of a 100 Day Reality Challenge. The idea behind the 100 day challenge is that for 100 days, you focus on your goals and intentions by declaring a commitment to them. If you want to, you can declare certain practices to follow throughout the 100 days of your challenge. Then you blog or video blog on the site so that others can follow your progress and process and support you as you go.

The site encourages the use of the Law of Attraction, the Law of Deliberate Creation, Universal Laws and Principles, but I think it's a good site for encouragement in general goal setting and tending.

CCOR is a social network built on the Ning platform, so there are opportunities to make friends, leave comments for others and comment on blog and video blog posts. There are also discussion groups that you can join to boost your participation and encourage your progress.

I've set my challenge to start on June 28. I picked that date so that it will end on October 5, the date that my Featured Artist show opens. I really need to set some goals about making art, framing art, planning my reception and generally being creative! I haven't set my intentions and goals yet, but I'll certainly set them before June 28.

If you decide to stop by the site, look me up. I'd love it if you'd join me in the challenge!