Watercolor Canvas

I have recently been playing with watercolor paint. One early realization is how to be patient with the paint as it bleeds and dances with water on the canvas, filling up space on its own accord and in its own rhythm. When my impulsivity gets the best of me I muddy things up and clutter what was a beautiful balance of color and space. If I let the paint and water take its natural course, it goes where it is meant to go with its own form of intelligence and intention. The same applies for life. I have spent the better part of the last two years clearing out the muddied waters of my canvas, the overlapping colors and frequencies that no longer serve me, that I was too impatient to sit with and see they were no longer dancing according to my natural rhythms, if they ever did. Creating space is a beautiful gift of quiet and peace, but you may first notice the engines of the ego revving up, desiring up the newfound emptiness as quickly as possible. Just as my hand gets antsy to fill the page with new splashes of color, so does my thinking mind attempt to fill what was once occupied by racing thoughts, regrets of the past, and projections of the future. To dance with this in-between space, the space we call the “Now” and the only space that truly exists, is to see a natural rhythm to your life hidden beneath the mind’s attempts at escaping it. Though it can be challenging to sit in this empty space, it is a vital part of the creative process as well as the healing path. This is where true inspiration hits, in the present. This is also where confusion and doubt surface when you do not allow the thinking mind to make sense of your life in every moment. The irony is that the mind cannot are sense of your life because life can only be experienced directly in the now. What you and I come to see and believe is the concept and structure for our lives is merely muddied water covering up the delicate colors of who we are in this moment.

I have been practicing presence in my life more than ever before, aided by all that I have stripped away recently, and in doing so I have spent a lot of time alone. I have danced in the fire of my aloneness and my comparisons to the busy lives of others, while also noticing what begins to happen when I settle down into a more natural rhythm. An aliveness grows in moment-to-moment experience that was previously dulled or deadened by all attempts to fill the space. The space of life. The thinking mind has a strong pull, just like the desire to paint the canvas. For me, the journey continues to be one of faith that the canvas will be filled in no time, in fact it is quiet easy to fill your canvas, or your life, in an instant. To do so with truly aligned colors, people, and opportunities is a different practice altogether. Lay down the brush. Leave the painting. Walk around. Breathe. Get quiet. Wait for the next stroke to feel inspired, then act without hesitation. This is the way.

I always struggled to truly play as a child and this connects to a trauma lineage on my mother’s side. Her and I both experienced growing weary with the idea of play, as if it were an exhausting thought to feel impassioned about something. My child brain could not seem to allow for the freedom of inspiration to emerge and instead had to always be controlling the show with its doubts, fears, and compulsions. What looked like play was in reality an imprisoned compulsion playing out with my toys, attempting to resolve some inner conflict that could only be done so with exacting measures. Finishing play with my toys was more like relief after a hard day’s work rather than a spiritually uplifting endeavor. I seemed to be wired for either work or fatigue, not knowing how to engage my energy creatively. After school days, I would often come home and fall asleep, and when playing sports I never seemed to have as much stamina as others and always suffered from anxiety. I struggled to come alive. I did discover music as an access point to spiritual connection, but quickly found drugs to be a shortcut and spent much of my young adulthood abusing this shortcut to appear like play but ultimately leave me worse for the wear. It was also telling that while playing therapeutically with the young children I worked with at the clinic, my fatigue symptoms would activate and nearly debilitate me in sessions. My body was telling a story of my trauma that I had not been listening to, one of conditioned fear around true freedom of expression. For those who struggle with fatigue, recognize that if you do not truly know how to play, you do not truly know how to rest either. So the body is always “on,” always activated, always scanning for danger and threat. We are all invited to awaken the freedom of being within, a natural life source of energy more powerful than all external stimulants.

As I step into true play for the first time, I can feel the deep impatience that arises in my bodymind, the projections of how “effortful” or “wasteful” it will be, when really these are all illusions created by the ego. The mind is threatened by stepping into such a free-flowing and creative space, possibly thinking it has nothing to offer or it will not be good enough or simply nothing will arise. And yet, other parts of me are deeply creative, loving and yearning for music and writing and dance. I previously took mind altering substances to allow this space inside me to open, though I have now been graced with the experience of what is possible to heal and open within the self, to connect to the natural rhythm within. At times, my mind may say “nothing is happening,” and yet in this practice I am discovering how to live a truly inspired life. If I can learn, or re-learn, to play, I can inject this ecstatic joy into all areas of my life - relationships, service, writing, creating etc. Much has been written about the typical response to trauma being one in which individuals are unable to play, particularly traumatized children. It is a classic example of the nervous system’s attempts to keep you safe and out of perceived dangerous waters. Creativity is the opposite of control, it is letting the water run and trusting it wherever it goes. So we learn to be like water, as Bruce Lee famously said. I invite you to join me in this practice. See your life like a watercolor painting. Add some splashes here and there and then let it run, let it take its natural course and guide your way. You do not have it alone, in fact you cannot. Your life is a co-creation with all that is, with Nature, with Spirit. Practice surrendering to this dance and teach your mind and body that all is well in the flow.