Reclaiming Space for Solitude & Joy

Art Journal collage: Creative Play 

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning...a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. ~ Joseph Campbell

Give yourself a day of doing nothing to balance the days of doing too much. Rest, with time alone or engage in joyful activity: your choice, what recharges your batteries?

Plan a home-spa day: give yourself a bubble bath, some foot care, breakfast in bed, curl up with cozy blankets and a novel

Get lost in flow....Learn a new musical instrument, or other form of self-expression. Play in the garden, swim laps in a pool, sketch in a notebook, do some collage, write in your journal.

If you and your inner self have been out of touch: make a date with yourself. Julia Cameron recommends a weekly artist date, a solo trip to a place that interests you – the art museum, fabric store, a lunch hour concert, the arboretum, taking photos of tiny things like snow crystals.  Cultivate your curiosity and your creativity.

Trade off with your partner or a friend: this Saturday afternoon I’ll be out from 1 – 4 pm, if you watch the kids - next Saturday it’s your turn.

Make a list of what you could do with stolen moments: tiny tidbits of time – walk to work, eat lunch outside on a bench, breathe deeply and check in with your body every hour or so, gaze out the window and daydream. The practice of doing nothing feeds your need to replenish, which is just as important as the to-do list.

Do one thing at a time. Don’t make the bed while brushing your teeth, check your voice mail while eating lunch or half listen to the kids while glancing at the news.

Take a half-hour walk with a friend and leave your cell phone at home. Focus on discovering something new in your surroundings you’ve never noticed. Read Hokusai Says poem. www.habitsforwellbeing.com/poem-hokusai-says-by-roger-keys/ 

Be silly. Grab a girlfriend or sister and run through the backyard sprinkler, have a pillow fight or a splash up with water balloons.

Tell three people you love that you love them –right now. Now is the best time to express your care for others.

Do one fun, spontaneous thing that makes you laugh – dance alone in your room, blast a CD during morning commute, eat a peach in public.

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness. ~ Scottish author George MacDonald

 (inspired by an article in O magazine)

FINDING C.A.L.M.: 5 TIPS FOR CREATIVE SELF-CARE at Mid-Life:

Mothering, mid-life transition and menopause – doesn’t sound like a fun mix, does it? It can be a stressful time, and you definitely need to take care of yourself, but you also have to have fun!

image found on Pinterest

Now that my kids have flown the coop, I’m rediscovering the hobbies and activities I used to love doing as a child, and exploring new ones. For instance, when I was in high school, I remember spending hours making Bristol board-sized collages . Yet I hadn’t done it in over forty years. Two years ago I discovered SoulCollage® (www.soulcollage.com), so much fun and a lot of self-discovery.  I also joined a Sweet Adelines chorus 8 years ago, and that led to singing with a barbershop quartet and lots of fun performances. I hadn’t been on a theatre stage since high school, but a recent musical theatre experience of ABBA songs made me feel happy and alive.

FIND YOUR INNER CALM through small daily creative and soulful practices at mid-life. Take classes, experiment, find out what you are passionate about – I bet you it’s something creative!

1.   Get Creative and Flow –doing any artistic or creative activity using your right brain is the #1 way to slow down and love your life: get in the FLOW. (Flow is when you lose track of time, and are totally absorbed by doing something you love). Try journaling, SoulCollage®, writing poems; tell your stories to your grandchildren, take up crocheting, gardening, floral arranging,  pottery classes, piano lessons. You’ll stay young longer.

2.   Listen to your Intuition: get in touch with your wise inner self; to cultivate this, allow more down time for getting in touch with your intuition. Journaling is a great way to do this. Or get out into the woods, take a walk, and breathe in the natural world around you. Pause and appreciate life.

3.   Love your body:  move your body every day; join a Zumba or Salsa class. Find out what foods make you calm, (greens or protein for example vs sugar and caffeine). Make friends with your emotions through a body scan and/or relaxation exercises (see link on side-bar for Musemother’s Relaxation CD). Listen to the small signals before they become bigger, i.e. don’t let minor health issues or emotional upsets get swept under the rug.

4.   Be Mindful: the best anti-stress medicine is to use your breath in Yoga, Tai-Chi, Chi Gong or Meditation for calming the parasympathetic nervous system. New neuroscience research shows that when we meditate, the areas of the brain associated with stress slow down and the parts associated with feelings of joy, peace and compassion become active. It’s another way to experience FLOW in the body… and it’s as simple as doing some alternate nostril breathing or yoga, or focusing on a centering breath technique. 

5.    Play with friends! Energize yourself. Are you a couch potato? the weather is nice, get outside, play soccer, walk in nature or go lawn bowling. Remember what you used to love doing –singing and dancing? Join a theatre club or chorus (sharing fun activities with others is a known endorphin booster).

Bonus tip: One more habit you can build in to feel better, is to change your negative self-talk and fears by working with affirmations. When you change your thoughts and words, you change your beliefs and core vibration. Here are a few samples to get you started:

Sample positive affirmations for well-being (make up your own, write them down and read out loud):

1.   I am centered, happy, and healthy.

2.   I am worthy and deserving of love.

3.   I fully embrace my personal power.

4.   Each part of my life is balanced with my need to rest and rejuvenate.

5.   I joyfully embrace my creativity.

Happy Creative Self-Care!

Musemother

CALM: Creative, Artistic, Loving, Mindful.

Creative, Playful Mood

Play:  I think my biggest challenge is to be playful. When my children were little, no problem. They climbed all over me, as I lay on the floor like a mother lion. We did finger painting together,spent time doodling with pencil crayons or felt pens, slid down waterslides, ran through the sprinkler, went to the local pool - you have no choice but to be playful with little kids around. But these days, at mid-life, my natural, serious side would rather sit in an armchair and read a good book. (Lately, Louise Penny's murder mysteries are captivating me. She's an international best selling Canadian writer living near Montreal, whose stories are set in the Eastern Townships and Montreal area).

But even a bookworm like me needs to get out of the house sometimes, and the further from my computer, the better. Say, down south for a vacation weekend, like this photo above, taken in Miami in January. I forgot to bring my straw hat with me, and the only available head cover (necessary protection from the strong sun) was this blue one. In this photo I am wearing my only other item of blue clothing.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to dress me and my younger sister in the same dresses, but different colours. Sue was always blue. I was in pink or red. It took me a very long time to be able to look at anything blue. it just wasn't my colour. Now, I see that as a form of playfulness - to see myself in blue.

Exercise is not something I normally associate with playfulness. Although I used to love down-hill skiing with the kids. Now, cross-country skiing has taken the place of downhill, since I broke my knee skiing over ten years ago. I don't skate much either. But Zumba has made exercise fun. That Latin music and those crazy quick salsa steps are so much fun, AND they get your heart beating. It makes it easier to segue into lifting weights or doing the plank when you spend 30 minutes dancing and laughing in a living room with friends.

What do you do for fun? Do you consider yourself a playful person, or a creative person? It's funny how our self-image can get stuck by a lifetime of habit. I will be 60 this year, and am just getting serious about playing.

Next week I'm going to be playing on some other blogs: doing a Book Blog Tour. Every day starting March 10 there will be a link on this blog to the host blog where I'll be giving you some tips on being Sensibly Selfish, Creative Self-Care, Mid-Life Moms and the Hot Flash Clash, and others.

Stay tuned and stay playful! (Winter is almost over.)

Musemother/Jenn
www.jenniferboire.com