CREATIVE JUICES ARTS & PAINTING FROM THE WILD HEART

ADDICTED TO TECHNIQUE: THE SAD AND SORRY TALE OF CREATIVITY GONE WRONG

When I am needing some cheap and easy stress reduction I take a couple of minutes  to visit a website/blog called www.cuteoverload.com. This site is filled with absolutely adorable photos and videos of all types of critters from doggies to donkeys doing whatever it is that animals do. But the thing that is really the whipped cream on the sundae at Cute Overload  is the written commentary that accompanies each of the animal pics. I've never been able to figure out who actually operates this site, but whoever it is obviously loves animals, and at the same time  is extremely witty and irreverent. One of the running gags on cute overload has to do with what the mysterious site owner calls "bag-hab". If you have ever spent much time around cats you have probably witnessed how some of them will go absolutely crazy playing with a large paper bag. Sometimes they will spend HOURS getting inside the bag and getting out of the bag, inside and out, again and again. It's pretty funny to think about how this could begin to resemble the behavior of an addict who just can't seem to get enough of that "bag high", hence the reference to some out-of-control kitties eventually needing to be carted off to "bag-hab." When I began to write this month's article I started to think about how even though people come to my intuitive painting classes because they want to be creatively free and not so enslaved by the need for perfection and control, there is still an extremely seductive pull for most people around the issue of technique . They want the sense of liberation that comes when you let your right brain lead the way , but can't seem to quite let go of the siren call of the promise of a beautiful painting. The need to feel like they have good or even great technique can be so compelling that it's not TOO much of a stretch to begin to see this desire as compulsive or addictive. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that many of the signs and symptoms of addict behavior are there such as looking furtively around the room salivating after someone else's perceived gorgeous technique, or sneaking in photos or pictures of images to copy, even though part of the practice of intuitive painting is to paint solely from your inner promptings.  So I started to wonder if maybe there needs to be a "technique-hab" program for those folks who are trying to break their dependence on the obsession with highly developed technique! One of the ways that I know the addiction is beginning to take hold is when I start to hear a lot of complaining from my students that has to do with how the painting is just not turning out the way that they want it to. They begin fixating on how it's not pretty enough, or it doesn't look like “real art” ( whatever that is supposed to mean), it's too primitive, or too stiff, or too childish. Something is always wrong or something could always be better.  The big secret is that all artists feel this way. Even people who have what appears to be flawless technique ( to the envious outside observer)  can't make something look the way they want it to hardly EVER. In fact, people who have had some art training usually suffer from the fiction of inadequacy even worse than people who have no training at all because now their expectations are that much higher. The truth about skill, technique and talent is that you already have all of them at your disposal when you paint. No matter what you may tell yourself, you DO have technique. You can't put a brush with paint on a piece of paper and not have some kind of technique. People convince themselves that they have none of those things when what is really going on is that they have a whole bunch of negative opinions about the level of skill that they already possess. What they are listening to is the voice of the  inner critic telling them that their natural self expression is just not quite up to snuff.  So much of what I see in my students is a self inflicted suffering. They constantly punish themselves with internal messages that tell them that their painting is just no good. And then they let themselves become identified with the painting. Since they fervently believe that their painting isn't any good, they make the leap into believing that THEY must not be any good.   Of course, this kind of thinking shows up in more places than just painting.  For example if you let yourself get identified with your job, and  your job is going well and you are making a lot of money then that must mean that you are OK. But if you get laid off , your self esteem takes an automatic nose dive into the nearest, deepest hole. Or having your positive OR negative feelings about your self be connected to your weight and the number on the scale or how many words you wrote today ( if you are a writer) is usually about as much fun as being on a rollercoaster ride when you've got a bad case of motion sickness. The problem with identifying with those external things is that they are constantly changing. Your weight, salary and word count all fluctuate and basing your sense of self esteem and self worth on those externals is just one more way to make yourself crazy.  So it is helpful from both a spiritual and a mental health perspective to identify with something that is more constant.  Your creativity and your connection to spirit is something that is always there. It doesn't go away. You go away from it .  When we are worrying about things like our lack of technical abilities we are approaching our creative process from the left side of the brain which is also the home of the judging mind otherwise known as the ego . And  the ego is pretty much always unhappy with everything that we do on general principals. If we have done it, there must be something wrong with it. I recently had an enlightening experience with one of my students that was a perfect example of this. She walked into my studio early for a class and saw a painting that I had left hanging up on one of the easels. She stopped and looked at the painting for a moment and then turned to me and said, "Now, that is a great painting. I would be really, really happy if only I could someday paint like that." I looked back at her feeling somewhat confused and said " Uh, Frances....that IS your painting!" We got a good laugh out of the  whole thing, but it made it shockingly clear how difficult it was for her to appreciate and acknowledge her own creative work as long as she knew it was hers!   According to Buddhist teaching the first noble truth is that life is suffering.  Now, when I think of the word suffering what comes to mind are usually pretty bad things, like being abused as a child,  going through round after round of chemotherapy, or losing someone you love . Suffering is intense and overwhelming and while there is a great deal of true suffering in the world, my day to day life, and the lives of most people that I know, only rarely reaches that level of crescendo that I would actually call suffering.  In a delightful book called Hard Core Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality author, spiritual teacher and former punk rock musician Brad Warner talks about how the actual meaning of the word that is usually translated as suffering is something along the lines of "unsatisfactory experience". In other words, we walk around feeling vaguely discontented most of the time. We are just never happy! And why are we never happy? Because we have lots of ideas about how our life is supposed to be. We imagine that a certain experience is going to give us a particular kind of satisfaction and fulfillment and when that doesn't happen ( and it never does) we think that something is wrong. And we just try again from a different angle "Well, maybe if I do it THIS way , I'll finally get it to work."  This is what is so great about the intuitive painting process. When you are painting with the intention of trying to remain at least SOMEWHAT conscious you are constantly being brought face to face with the fact that the ego is ALWAYS disappointed. It always wants things to be different or better than they are . It's stock in trade is disatisfaction. It is NEVER content or fulfilled. And you are constantly being forced to look at the truth that things just don't turn out the way that you want them to.  For example, you decide to draw a body based on this amazing dream that you had the night before where you saw a sleek figure, full of power and beauty, radiating brilliant golden light. So you pick up a paintbrush and you start to paint, filled with excitement about this glorious image that is soon to be born out of your brush. This fabulous being that once you paint it, is going to make you feel like you are a fabulous person. In that place of possibility, where you are still in the fantasy, everything is grand! And then you start moving the brush on the paper. And the sleek figure comes out kind of lumpy , and the brilliant golden light starts to drip down the page, and you find yourself getting very frustrated and angry because this darned painting is JUST NOT WORKING OUT. And that's when you start to think about maybe going to art school and learning some REAL technique, because only then will you be truly happy with your art.  We are so fervently attached to this particular little fiction. We so want to believe that it is somehow in our power  to control things so that we can get exactly what we want and then, and ONLY then can we finally be happy. We just don't get it. We don't want to believe that the only way that we can truly be happy is to allow ourselves to wholeheartedly accept things exactly the way that they are. And that includes your lumpy celestial being with drippy light rays! This approach to painting is about risking jumping into the raw, uninhibited and uncultivated experience of the creativity. And it's also about accepting, with mercy and compassion, wherever you are in any given moment. It's about embracing your less than perfect imagery and your current level of technique.  If you watch very young children paint, they don't fuss over every last thing that comes out of them. They create, they express and they move on. There is a  fluidity in their process which is something that we are trying to get back to here.  When you are feeling vexed and disgruntled by your painting process you may think that the problem is a lack of skill. But the real problem is that when you are preoccupied with the issue of technical mastery, it is a way to distance yourself from the transformative power of the naked and unvarnished creative process. It's scary to be identified with the energy of creativity itself just as it's scary to be identified with spirit. It's much safer and weirdly comfortable to see yourself as someone who is inadequate, or less than, or just not good enough, which is the only way that you CAN feel if you are identified with the fearful, judgmental self. And that is what we are all truly addicted to!!! So if you think that you can take that first step and admit that " I am a technique addict and my creative life has become unmanageable", if you are finally ready to take that trip to "technique-hab", let me know. I can help. And, believe me, your creative spirit will thank you for it! Copyright © Chris Zydel 2008

SCIENCE DISCOVERS SPIRIT THROUGH A STROKE OF INSIGHT!

by Chris Zydel, MA

A few weeks ago I came across an astonishing lecture that was given by a woman named Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD. also known as The Singin' Scientist. The talk she gave was titled My Stroke of Insight and she presented it at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference that is held yearly in Monterey California. TED describes itself as "an invitation only event where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration."

TED itself is a remarkable gathering where well known people from various disciplines get together and give twenty minute presentations on everything from quantum physics to political and social theory to global warming to cutting edge creativity.  The talks are inspirational, informative and often very entertaining. Their tagline is "Ideas worth spreading" and one of the ways that they support their commitment to the belief that change begins with great new ideas is by making some of the best presentations from the conference available via public videos.

Jill Bolton is a neuroanatomist or in plain english, a brain scientist. About 10 years ago she had a stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left hemisphere of her brain, leaving her unable to perform basic left brain functions such as walking, talking, reading or writing . She also had very little recall of her life prior to the stroke. Jill's talk at TED was about her experience of the stroke itself and her subsequent 8 year recovery, where she struggled to heal and regain her lost cognitive functions. Her story was incredibly moving and powerful  and was the most talked about event at a conference filled with amazing presentations.

One of the most astounding aspects of her report was that as a brain scientist she was intensely curious about what was happening to her and tried to remember and document the entire phenomenon. Because her left brain almost completely shut down she was in the position to experience herself and the world from an almost purely right brain perspective.

The tale she told was of a person who all of a sudden found herself in a land (which she affectionately calls La-La land) where her dominant experience was that of being filled with an incredible sense of peace, tranquility and bliss. She opened up into a sense of herself as pure consciousness, with no boundaries and a profound connection with everything and everyone around her. She talks about how she lost her sense of herself as solid and separate and became "a fluid". The constant brain chatter that accompanies our every waking moment was gone and she became silent inside her mind. She knew, in no uncertain terms, that we are all one. In other words, she was having a bona fide mystical experience.

I burst into tears at the end of the video. Partly it was because her story and the way that she told it was so profoundly moving. But on an even deeper level I think that my tears were tears of relief.  For a long time now there has been a very deep split in our western culture between the left brain and the right brain, between logic and feeling, intuitive knowing and scientific evidence.

And that split has come with an implicit hierarchy. The world of hard reality, facts, logic and objective knowledge is seen to be more valuable than the world of soul, spirit, emotion and intuition. The world of internal experience has been marginalized and trivialized, treated as if it were a second class citizen and often not even considered to be real. So here was a mainstream scientist giving a talk to a roomful of left brain intellectual types, and she was speaking my language! And the people in the audience were responding in an overwhelmingly positive way.

Her essential idea was that we are not just linear, rational,cognitive beings, but also beings of light and heart and spirit. We have two brains, the right and the left, the cognitive and the intuitive brain, the planning brain and the presence brain, the judging, fearful brain and the brain that knows that we are always safe and always loved, and that both these brains are essential to our survival and to who we are as human beings. Her message was that this right brained way of being in the world is very real and necessary if we are going to rise to the monumental challenges being presented to us in this 21st century.

We are living at a threshold time, a time of great transition where much of what we have known and trusted to be true is changing and morphing into something quite different and unfamiliar. This is not necessarily bad news, but it is stressful, and we need tools and techniques to help support us through this passage with some semblance of sanity and grace.There are no maps of this new terrain. More than ever we are going to be called upon to make it up as we go along, to create novel and original responses to rapidly unfolding and unfamiliar scenarios.

We are going to need unlimited access to our creativity and our intuition, two qualities that are uniquely suited for journeys into the unknown. We are also going to need a solid trust in spirit, whether it is trust in the human spirit or the Great Spirit. The old ways are no longer working. Something new needs to be born. And that new thing can only come out of a new way of being.

We are only operating with half of who we are. As we face the need to solve the problems of things like global warming, environmental devastation, over population, and a changing economic structure we need the complete set of all our capabilities. We can't afford to be half beings any longer.

We are a people who like to get things done. Whether it's losing 20 pounds, making a million dollars or finding a cure for cancer we thrill to that capability of focusing the will,  climbing the mountain, hauling our butts out of the ashes and ending up triumphant and successful.This is what we value in this 21st century western culture. Our gods are organization, focus, efficiency and manifestation. We admire and revere people who can make up their minds to do something and then actually do it. There is an Air Force motto that kind of says it all "The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer."

And we are terrified to let go of that sense of control, of efficacy, of potency, and sense of separateness for even the least little bit. Once we get that bit of personal power in our teeth we don't ever want to stop running headlong into the constantly expanding future.

But this is exactly what our creativity and the intuitive painting process is asking for us to do. It's asking for us to take that bit out of our teeth, just for a little while. To entertain the idea that there are times when it is necessary and skillful, appropriate even, to lay our burdens down and to let go of our need to be totally in control. Not " Just do it", but "Just let it be". That there is wisdom and healing and magic in being able to tap into that larger energy of presence and unconditional love.

Before we go rushing off to make something happen we need to learn how to get quiet inside, to reconnect with spirit and  to make contact with what Jill Bolton calls the peace channel.

We need to be able to set goals and take action, but we already know HOW to do that. That skill set is very highly developed. But we also need, more than ever, to learn how to surrender to our internal guidance and get a sense about the direction that we need to go in so that we can then put our highly developed manifesting skills to good use. We have a great deal of untapped genius lurking inside our hearts and our intuitive selves and it is time that we opened the door and claimed those treasures.

And that, as Jill Bolte Taylor says, is an idea worth spreading!

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2008

If you would like to see the video of her talk, and I highly recommend that you check it out, you can find it here: Jill Bolte Taylor

INTUITIVE PAINTING AND THE WILD RIDE OF RISK AND CHANGE

by Chris Zydel, MA

One of the places where my students will often find themselves getting stuck or stopped in the intuitive painting process is when they encounter the common fear of ruining a painting. One moment they will be happily painting away and then they get an internal directive to paint something that scares them. It could be anything. It could be the desire to paint the color yellow, or maybe they find that they can't seem to shake the idea that what wants to be painted now is a purple kangaroo, but whatever it is, in conjunction with this new impulse there arises a sudden, paralyzing and extremely convincing fear that bringing this next color or image into the painting is going to mess it up.

It's fascinating to me whenever this happens. For one thing, this fear is often pretty irrational. One of my students articulated it so clearly when she said " It's just so weird. It's not like I have any plans for this painting. I'm not going to take it home and frame it. So why am I so worried about ruining it?" At other times the painting has become too precious. The painter gets overly attached to the painting because they like what they have done or are pleased with how something has turned out, and get frozen by the desire to preserve this moment of satisfaction.

Generally the concern about ruining the painting comes up when the painter is contemplating doing something risky. Often they are drawn to try something they have never done before. They find themselves being infused with the spirit of holy experimentation and have arrived at a creative threshold where they are now ready to take a chance. This is a thrilling moment where the creative process is pushing, persuading and cajoling them with the promise of something new, something different, something that has never existed in the world before.

The impulse to "ruin" a painting often shows up at a point where the artist is unconsciously tired of playing it safe. There is some part of them that is ready to shake things up by venturing into hitherto unexplored territory. They know that what they are about to paint is going to radically change the feeling or direction of the painting, and some part of them is really ready for that change. And right at the same time the fearful, cautious, conservative, let's play it safe part of the mind comes in and starts urgently whispering that this change is going to be very, very bad. 

When I have a conversation with my students at this point in their process they will say something to me like " Well, if I take the gamble and go in this new direction I might not like what happens". And it is my job to remind them that yes, that may be true.  Maybe they won't like what happens next. But they have to be willing to take that risk.  I also have to remind them that thay have CHOSEN to be here in this class because some part of them is very interested in using their engagement with the creative process to challenge themselves to stretch and to grow. As scary as it might be at times, what they are really hungering for is an experience of being more awake and alive.

The painting is an excellent place to try new things because what you paint really does not matter. The painting has no consequence in your life. Your job or your status or your marriage or health or family relationships are not at stake when you paint. It's just a piece of paper after all. And if you can't take the risk of ruining a twenty five cent piece of paper with some cheap kids paint, what's the likelihood that you will take risks in some of those other arenas? But I think that is the point. Some part of the psyche fully understands that if you start taking risks ANYWHERE in your life then the movement that accompanies change could all too easily spill over into arenas that DO matter. So there is a built in mechanism to stop this process before it can really get going and you've sold the house and are working as a bush pilot in Alaska!

The truth of it is, anytime I have seen someone go against that voice in their head, and take the risk of doing what they think will ruin a painting, they always end up happy. For example, a woman in one of my classes was painting an abstract painting full of airy, pastel colors. She was engaged for a while, but then started to lose some steam. As she contemplated where the energy might be next leading her she got the impulse to bring black into the swirling pinks and blues and yellows. And she stopped. Dead. I was standing next to her and encouraging her to go ahead with what she was being given and to take the risk of trusting in her intuition once again. She was full of arguments. "This doesn't make any sense. I don't really need for the black to be here. It will most certainly ruin my painting. Maybe I can bring it into the next painting. Why does it have to be HERE?"  She spent a few minutes in this losing battle of bargaining with the intuitive painting gods. She was balking because she was caught on the hook of really liking her painting. She was kind of in love with all these bright, soft colors and now the black was wanting to come in and change everything. It was touch and go there for a while. The resistance had  her pretty firmly in it's grip. But she eventually did it. Courage and curiosity won out over fear and the need for things to stay the same. She started painting the black and when I came back to check on her a few minutes later she was engrossed and engaged, fascinated by the black and how it was transforming her painting. At that moment, she didn't CARE about whether or not she was ruining it. She was simply painting. She was engaged with the flow of her own creative energy, and that was all she needed.

Listening to and believing the voice of fear around the prospect of ruination always results in paralysis. But when you take the chance and paint the scary thing you regain your freedom. The block just disappears. You are back to trusting your creative energy and connected again to what is fun and satisfying and enlivening. You are back in touch with that sense of adventure and possibility and curiosity.You are filled with the anticipation that comes when you don't exactly know what's around the next corner but you are excited and curious to find out.

When you find your self in the grips of the fear around ruining something you can start to intervene in that process by asking yourself the question, "What am I really afraid of?" Because no matter WHAT you may fervently believe, it is actually not possible to ruin a painting! To ruin something means to utterly destroy it and unless you have torn the painting up and thrown it away, as long as you continue to paint, you are not ruining anything. You may not immediately like what you are painting, you may feel puzzled or scared, frustrated or disappointed, you may want to tear your hair out, but when you are having an adventure these experiences are just part of the terrain.

The creative process is an exercise in learning to become more fluid and flexible. To become more like water and less like stone. What you want to try and cultivate is a kind of "bring it on" attitude around your painting process. To become a painting warrior and to cultivate courage in the face of what often seems like certain creative doom. And to remember that you can fully expect to "ruin" your painting any number of times before your painting is complete. You can learn to embrace this apprehension about ruining something and even begin to welcome it when you keep in mind that this fear is always a harbinger of creative change. And that change is the lifeblood of the creative process. So next time you are at your easel you can let the painting gods know that you are ready for whatever they might have in store for you by cheerfully reciting the following mantra which is "Ruin it early. Ruin it often!"

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2008

INTUITIVE PAINTING AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Chris Zydel, MA

People paint for a lot of different reasons. To relax, to express themselves , to create beauty and meaning, to make money, because they have a passion to create, to gain approval, to stay sane, to make sense of the world, to play and have fun. All of the above are wonderful and valid motivations to put a brush filled with color onto paper or canvas. But did you also know that there is a way to approach painting that can be used very effectively as a form of meditation and psycho spiritual practice?

This type of painting goes by many names. It has been called Process Painting, Intuitive Painting, Free Expression Painting, Soul Painting and Source Painting. No matter what it is called, when you paint in this way your intention is to use the process of painting to connect with your inner life and to journey into the invisible worlds of soul and spirit.

What we are usually taught about creativity is that what is important is developing technique so that we can produce a fabulous product. The spiritual approach to painting does not focus on the outcome or result of the painting at all. Like all spiritual practices, soul painting allows you to connect with yourself on a more profound level and to develop greater self awareness. It teaches you how to use the creative process to expand and strengthen your intuition. You learn how to free up stagnant energy so that you can live your life from your core being where you are naturally passionately and joyfully alive. And painting in this way sends deep taproots into your connection with the source of all that is which often leads to positive experiences of trusting yourself and your own internal guidance .

As we travel further into the lands of great change and uncertainty that seem to be the hall mark of this early 21st century, many of us are experiencing a growing hunger to be living from a place of greater authenticity and a more wholehearted relationship with what we consider to be sacred. We are longing for some larger sense of meaning and a sense of something that is not so focused on things like money or success. We are searching more and more for a way to connect with what is real and solid and constant. We are needing ways to access a form of counsel and information that comes from another place inside of our beings that is not just linear, rational and logical.

There is a great thirst for spirituality in it's many forms. Meditation, prayer, yoga, shamanism, astrology and various types of Buddhism, are becoming more popular. All of these ways of connecting with spirit have in common that they give the person using these methods a much more personal and direct experience of divine presence and unconditional love. They provide a firsthand experience of healing and wholeness, a palpable sense of feeling less alone in the universe, and a sense of the power and safety that comes from opening to that mysterious greater something that we can call the Ground of Being, the Great Spirit or the Great Heart.

The job of a spiritual practice is to remind you that you are always connected to spirit. We can make our life our practice and try to let each instant be an opportunity to awaken. That moment to moment remembering is a very tall order, and one that we can all aspire to. But it's a lot to ask to be able to just throw ourselves into the busy fray of our lives and to stay mindful in the swirl and chaos of day to day living.

So that's why god/goddess invented the spiritual practice. A spiritual practice is just that. It's practicing. And it's practicing that very difficult job of being attentive to the realm of spirit by choosing a discipline during which we say, "OK. For this chunk of time and during this certain activity, I am going to devote myself to remaining awake. I am going to consciously invoke my relationship to all that is. I am going to choose to pay attention to the energies of compassion, trust, expansion and surrender. I am choosing the intention to open my heart , disidentify from fear, listen to my intuitive voice, let go of control, be present without judgment, and to love myself and all of life unconditionally." Now sure, this is still a tall order, but when we engage in a spiritual practice, we are clearing out some limited period and space in our lives so that we can just focus on this process of what is essential without distraction.

And this intentional, focused time makes it more likely that we will successfully access some of these sacred states.

In learning to use the medium of painting as a way to develop your spiritual muscle the first thing to realize is that the principles of painting as a way to engage spirit are exactly the OPPOSITE of the principles or rules that come into play when you are painting for a specific outcome. It's like everything you know about art and creating for a product needs to get turned upside down.

When you are painting for the process you are operating from the belief that you are inherently a creative being and that actually everyone is creative. You are learning to say a great big YES to your creative self and to cultivate trust and faith in your creativity separate from things like talent or skill. In the world of art for product the assumption is that only a very few special, rare and gifted people have the right to call themselves artists, and that you should only be encouraged to exercise your creativity if you are considered to have a particular aptitude or "genius" for art.

When you are painting for the purpose of outcome you are focused on what is external. The finished product, the actual thing itself is what has value and is what is considered to be important. You worry about what the painting looks like and are often concerned with other people's perceptions of your work. The questions you ask yourself are often  things like "Will this painting gain me approval and recognition? Will other people consider it valuable? Is it something that I can sell?" When you are painting from the soul what is important is your inner experience of creating. You are focusing  and placing value on is happening inside of you. The questions you ask yourself are more along the lines of " Am I feeling engaged, energized and alive as I paint?"or "Am I being present here in this moment? Am I allowing the creative process to touch me, move me and transform me?"

When you are oriented towards the product you tend to take yourself and your craft very seriously. There is importance placed on gaining technical skill and becoming polished and sophisticated. In the realm of spiritual art the focus is primarily on allowing yourself to play and to continuously cultivate " beginners mind" even if you are trained as an artist. When I have a new student come to one of my classes the first thing that I encourage them to do is to approach their painting as if they were four years old and to allow themselves to be childlike and spontaneous. The question here is "Can I let myself paint and create even if I don't know exactly what I am doing?"

Painting with something particular in mind usually involves having a goal or a plan. It often means that you have an idea about where you are going and what you want to accomplish. When you are painting as a spiritual practice your focus is on allowing the painting to lead you. It's being willing to face the unknown, to travel into uncharted territory without a map, and to learn to trust your intuition even if you don't know where it is taking you. The question now is  "Can I continue to create when I don't understand what is happening?   Can I allow things to be mysterious and to not make sense?"

There is a right way and a wrong way to do things when you are painting for a specific outcome and there are rules that you are supposed to follow. For example: make sure that what you are painting looks realistic, never put certain colors together or constantly strive to ensure that every element in your painting is balanced and in perspective. Some other rules are: don't try something unless you already know how to do it, don't risk being foolish, don't make mistakes, always be perfect, don't be messy. Following the rules is a way to stay safe but those rules can also limit you and keep you small. In the world of transformative painting I always encourage my students to break some of the rules that they carry around with them and that limit their sense of expressive freedom. As one of my students so aptly put it, "It's going outside the lines to find the god place."

When you are focused on results there is a constant mental evaluation going on. Your mind is continually asking itself things like "Is this good, is this bad, do I like it, do I not like it, is it beautiful, is it ugly?" When you are painting as a spiritual practice you are trying to let go of judgment and comparison and inviting mercy and curiosity to be your companions as you create. When you approach your creativity with the attitude of holding everything that comes out of you with compassion instead of criticism you have an opportunity to experience what I like to call Radical Self Acceptance.

Painting to create a pleasing product can be very satisfying in it's own right. Beautiful and meaningful works of art are a much needed source of inspiration in all of our lives. But you don't have to be an accomplished and highly trained artist in order to tap into the power of creativity to open you to a profound connection with that magical place of spaciousness, stillness and sacred wholeness that is the true home of your heart and spirit. When you are painting as a path to spirit you are not so much interested in creating a masterpiece as you are trying to remember that YOU are already a masterpiece!

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2008

INTUITIVE PAINTING AS A JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN

by Chris Zydel, MA

“We’re lost but we’re making good time.” Yogi Berra

As I walk through my painting studio on any given day I am sure to hear at least one plaintive cry of " I hate this painting because it doesn't make any sense!" or " I can't believe that I've spent so much time working on this absolutely meaningless painting!!" There is an assumption when people first begin an intuitive painting practice that understanding what is happening in their painting is an important part of the process. They think that the healing that is intrinsic to engaging with their creativity can only happen if they are painting something that is clearly  meaningful.

It is common and natural to want to know what something means as it shows up on the paper.  We are so much happier when we can figure things out, when the path ahead is clearly marked, and when we can feel like we are moving towards some well defined goal. When we begin to paint we bring this same desire for clarity into our painting process.

In our day to day lives we like to think that we know what is going on but in actual fact we live steeped in a world of mystery. All of the most important questions in life we have no answers to. Where do we come from? Who are we really? Why are we here? What happens after we die? Why do we suffer?How can we ,with great enthusiasm, make the same mistakes, over and over again?

We often cringe in the face of  these unanswerable questions, and so we decide that we will only ask questions that we can answer and we will only paint things that we already understand. As we move through the seasons of our lives sometimes bad things happen. And sometimes we face difficulties that seem like more than we can bear. And sometimes we are blessed, for no apparent reason, with love and good fortune , and all we can do is stand there, open mouthed in amazement. The real truth of it is that we are not in control of our lives much more that we ever want to admit.

The need to make sense of things and to have definition and assuredness is a function of the ego and the mind. This is the realm of the day world, the land of lucidity and light. This is the place that is ruled by plans and goals, reason and productivity. This is the world in which we have the illusion that we are in control.

The heart and soul are more at home in the uncharted realm of the night and the intuitive painting process is an invitation into the night world. This is the world of the dreamtime, the realm of what is hidden and unknown. It is the secret and invisible land of pure energy that lies behind our daily mundane experience and the shadowy and often perplexing domain of the unconscious. The night world is by definition confusing because we literally cannot see. And to navigate well in the realm of the night we need to be willing to give up our need to explain everything in terms of what is reasonable or rational.

The intuitive painting process is a practice of surrender to the energy of creativity, much like a shamanic practice.  There is a transformative power in the act of painting when you can allow yourself to open to the painting itself as a living thing. We are afraid to drop down into that realm of unadulterated energy because it doesn't always make logical, rational sense. It doesn't make sense that standing in front of a piece of paper and simply engaging with images, forms and colors can make any difference in your life at all. But this process will change you. It will wake you up and call you towards what is sacred and mysterious and alive.

If we really allow ourselves to be led by the painting process we will be confronted with all kinds of things that we don't understand.  One of my students often finds herself painting these long snouted, many eyed creatures. They keep showing up in her paintings and they are always different. They come in wild colors, different sizes, and almost always with rows and rows of teeth. The first time they appeared she was highly agitated. " What are these???" she would ask me feeling distressed." I don't know where they are coming from or why they are here?? i've never seen anything like them yet I am completely compelled to paint them!!" Were they friendly or unfriendly? What were they doing? Where were they going? What did they want?

It gave her tremendous energy to paint them. She felt alive and on fire as they came out of her brush. The messages that she was getting from the painting were very straightforward. Paint some green teeth. Now it needs blue and purple squiggles going down it's back. Now it needs another eye. OK. Stop now. No more eyes. The painting was very clear in terms of it's instructions about what to do next. The only question that wasn't being answered was why they were there at all. Her mind was going nuts as her paint brush continued to move. Her soul and spirit were deeply engaged and completely satisfied. It was her mind that kept jumping up and down, sputtering and outraged.

When I get into conversations with my students about the importance of letting go of meaning and things making sense they often want the reassurance that if they keep going in their painting it will ultimately all come together. Right? If I just keep trusting the process I will eventually get to a place where this all becomes understandable. Well, the answer is, not necessarily. The point is not to get everything to always line up, but to learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable about being in the dark . We long for a life where the way before us is at all times plainly visible and free of doubt, but we live in a world of light AND dark and on the road to meaning and clarity we often have to go through long patches of chaos, confusion and the feeling of being lost.

So what do we do during those times when we don't know where we are or where we are going? When we don't have any external guideposts , no clear direction and no destination? Well one thing you can do is to paint. And allow whatever wants to come into your painting just  be there even if you don't quite get it. On this little piece of paper with a few colors and the crazy contents of our hearts and minds we get to practice just being with what we don't grasp and can't comprehend.  A pink cat shows up in the middle of a landscape that a moment ago was filled with darkness and despair? So be it!  A cow wants to come in under a chair? Let it happen!  You have an absolutely overwhelming desire to start painting green dots in every corner of the painting for no apparent reason? Why not!  It's an opportunity to learn to openheartedly listen to your intuitive voice and to embrace the courage necessary to face the exhilaration and terror of the unknown in a spirit of curiosity and compassion.

If we try to stay open to what is showing up, even if it makes no sense, we discover something interesting. We discover that even when we are blind, bewildered and wandering around in circles that we are actually doing just fine. We feel so frightened when we don't understand because we think that everything is always up to us. We forget that we can trust in life and in spirit and in the great workings of the universe around us and in us. We forget that no matter what the external circumstances we are always being held in the palm of god's hand. We find that there is a place in our hearts where we can rest in the mystery, be intrigued and energized by the mystery, and be in wonderment . And we find that there is something healing in and of itself by just simply allowing ourselves to sit in the experience of not knowing in an attitude of trust and surrender.

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

Your Natal Astrology Chart: The Map of Your Souls Purpose

by Chris Zydel, MA

What is it that allows you to wake up in the morning feeling energized and inspired?

The particulars are going to vary, but I think the majority of us feel most alive when we experience being aligned with some greater purpose. That purpose is often related to becoming more of who we are, to giving ourselves permission to freely and unselfconsciously use all of our natural gifts , and to having the willingness and the courage to continually grow, learn and stretch ourselves in order to live a truly authentic life.

We all know what it feels like when we are totally engaged in our lives, and how deeply satisfying it is when we experience being in the flow with all cylinders firing. But too frequently we lose our connection with that full on sense of "YES". And when we do find it again we often don't know how we got there or how to get it back when it's gone.

So we need a map. How often have you heard someone say " I wish I had gotten an instruction manual for my life." Well, the truth of it is that there is just such a thing. And that thing is called a natal astrological chart.

Your astrology chart is essentially a blueprint for how to achieve your soul's optimal growth in this life. Your natal chart paints a picture of your inner world that can help you understand your needs, desires and motivations more deeply. But it also answers the question of " Why are you here?" What are the specific tasks you need to undertake to fulfill your unique destiny, what lessons are you here to learn, what are the challenges that you need to embrace that will allow you to feel like your life has purpose and meaning?

Your natal chart is more than just your sun sign. It includes all the planets in our solar system, and each of these planets is a metaphor for a different "operating system" in your psyche. Understanding these systems and how they all work together is like having a "guidebook for your life " complete with detailed instructions about how to make the most positive use of your planetary energies and how to effectively deal with the challenges presented by your chart.

I have included a short description below of the individual planets and the psychological issues that each one addresses to give you some sense of the rich information that your natal chart can offer you.

The Sun gives you suggestions about how to maintain your greatest sense of vitality , sanity and joie de vivre and shows you where and how you need to shine in the world.

The Moon gives you clues about you what makes you happy and how to feed and nurture your deepest heart and soul.

The Ascendant gives you information about the best way to present yourself and the personality style that will give you the greatest ongoing sense of confidence and effectiveness.

Venus paints a picture of your natural soul mates, what you need to be fulfilled in love , and your gifts and talents in the realms of art and creativity.

Mars asks and answers this question: In what areas of your life do you need to develop more courage?

Jupiter gives you a good idea as to where you might be naturally lucky but also reveals where and how you sell yourself short, and in what areas of your life it is a good idea to take some outrageous risks.

Look to Saturn in your chart to see where you are being called upon to perform a great work thus developing a natural sense of authority.

Uranus shows you where you need to break any outmoded rules that are holding you back and in what way you need to follow your own individual path.

Neptune points you in the direction of how you connect most naturally with a sense of inspiration, intuition, and spirituality.

Where you find the planet Pluto is the place of your greatest wounding and the source of your greatest passion once the wound is healed.

And finally, the Nodes of the Moon give you a clear picture as to the nature of your evolutionary journey . The South Node of the Moon points out the deeply familiar patterns of your life that can feel frustrating and repetitive and ultimately like dead ends. The North Node of the moon directs you to the cutting edge path of growth that will put you on track with your life's purpose leading to a greater sense of fulfillment and aliveness.

So take some time to look at your own chart with some of these concepts in mind or treat yourself to an in depth reading with a competent astrologer.

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

ONE MAGIC QUESTION TO MOVE YOU THROUGH CREATIVE BLOCKS

Chris Zydel, MA

The creative process is a journey, and like any journey there are times when things are going smoothly and you are just humming along. And then there are the times when everything feels frustrating, blocked and in a tangle. The sticky times are never fun, but what makes them even worse is when you buy into a popular belief about creative congestion that sounds something like this. "If I were a real artist everything would always be effortless and I would never come up against any obstacles. So the fact that I'm struggling means that I am doing something wrong."

The truth is, creative blocks happen. Stopping, starting, frustration, ecstasy, agony, despair, triumph, agitation, pleasure, movement and monumental blockage are all part of the creative experience. Wrestling with your creativity demons is a great way to have high drama and intensity in your life without losing your integrity, your marriage, your reputation or your good credit rating. And it's what makes creativity so much fun! When you are painting or writing or playing music you are in relationship with a primal force, like a hurricane, that blows hot and cold, then whips you around and throws you out the window. And your job is to get your self up, climb back in over the ledge, and say, "OK, cool. Let's do that again!"

It's important, especially when you are stuck,to stay in the game, and to keep your butt in the chair. You never want to give up on your process when you hit one of these tight spots because what feels like a suffocating creative narrows is always a creative birth canal. And learning to work your way through the anxiety, boredom and the blankness of not knowing what to do next is always a great way to build your creative self confidence.

If you are feeling immobilized, it's very likely that you have lost contact with your  self and what is most important to you. When that happens you need to get back to the first rule of maintaining creative juiciness. Simply follow the energy. If you are stopped it is likely that you are caught up in your ideas about what is supposed to be happening. You are probably off in the fantasy future or hanging around in the long gone and quite dead past and are no longer in the dynamic, living present. When you are in your head fretting , preparing or planning you immediately lose connection to your endless supply of raw, creative power.

In some ways this should be the easiest task, because following the energy just means asking yourself the question, "What do I want to do NOW? What do I want to paint or write or dance NOW? In this very moment, what will allow me to feel the greatest sense of excitement and aliveness?" But we are trained to be suspicious of what we really want. If we want it, it must somehow be wrong. We must be serious artists and not waste time on frivolity and feeling good. If we are not suffering we must not truly be doing art. We get bogged down in trying to figure out what we should be doing, and looking for what will gain us the most approval, brownie points and pats on the back.We end up asking all the wrong questions, and then feel shut down and uninspired and wonder why we can't be more creative!

A creative standstill is never a catastrophe. Rather it is a priceless opportunity and invitation to wake up to the present moment and reconnect with your hearts desire. So don't be afraid to ask that one magic question that will open your creative floodgates again. What do you want to do NOW ?

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

CREATIVITY TIME BANDITS: Making Wise Choices for a Fulfilling Creative Life

by Chris Zydel, MA

In my work as a creativity coach I talk with many, many people who want to be more creative, either as a way to deepen their spiritual practice of self nurturing or who have a specific dream that they long to manifest, like writing a book or forming a rock band. But too often something gets in the way. And the major culprit, as they see it, is that they are too busy and don't have enough time.

When these folks tell me that they don't have time for creativity, they trot out the unassailable list of essentials that obviously need to come first as the reason that they can't have the creative expression that they so achingly desire. They point to things like the need to feed themselves and their families, to exercise, to pay their bills, to care for their children, or to go to work . But these honorable and necessary tasks are rarely the culprit in stealing the energy needed to fuel a passionate and creative life.

What stops the majority of people is usually not so straightforward and irrefutable. The real bad guys that suck the juice right out of our creativity are most likely to fall under the heading of non-essentials. We have all frittered away enormous amounts of time watching bad television, mindlessly surfing the internet and sport shopping. Engaging with your creative process ALWAYS wakes you up and even though our souls really do want that much genuine aliveness, it is also scary, so we will blithely waste our time and energy finding any number of ways of putting ourselves into a  stupor.

The second category of time stealer's comes under the heading of putting others needs ahead of our own. There are, of course, circumstances when that is necessary. But it is particularly insidious when we allow  our valuable and limited time to be swallowed up based on a false sense of duty or responsibility that exists only in our imagination.

For example, I offer creativity retreats at some of the most beautiful places in the world, and I needed an assistant for one that I was facilitating in New Mexico. I asked a friend of mine, another expressive arts therapist, to be my assistant, which meant she would pay the minimal expenses and help me set up and take down the studio. Other than that she would be free to participate fully in the rest of the workshop. She said that she would really like to take me up on my offer but a cousin who she had no relationship with and didn't even really like all that much was MAYBE going to be in town that week and MAYBE would like to go out to lunch with her . I just looked at her completely flabbergasted and said " In my career as a creativity coach I have heard some sorry excuses about why people won't let themselves have creativity in their lives, but you have just come up with the LAMEST excuse I think I have ever heard!" Luckily she was not only a good friend but also pretty self aware so we both cracked up laughing and she DID come on that retreat and had a fabulous time.

When you are choosing how to spend your precious life energy, ask yourself the question, " What really matters to me at the end of the day or at the end of my life? " One of my favorite barometers is the  deathbed test, which goes something like this. When you envision yourself in the last days, or hours or minutes of your life, are your final thoughts going to be something along the lines of , "Gee, I'm sure glad  that I reorganized my sock drawer for the 10th time, or that I played internet solitaire until I got carpal tunnel syndrome, or I will always fondly remember the time when I took that last load of clothes that I never wear anymore to the dry cleaners."

Or are you going to have a glowing memory of the risk you took in setting aside some time for yourself to paint or write or make music ? Will you be savoring the recollection of the exquisite excitement of putting color on paper, of watching your own words turning into an original story,the sweet pleasure of sitting at your piano or with your guitar, strumming away, playing well or badly and singing your fool head off, consumed with the joy of allowing your voice to be  heard out in the world ?

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

WOMEN, PAINTING AND POWER

by Chris Zydel, MA

I'm standing in my studio, watching ten women painting in silence with exquisite focus and concentration, and the energy is just humming. All of a sudden I hear a groan from one of the women and the words "Oh no, I hate it. It's so ugly". I smile, feeling a sense of great relief and dread.

Relief because another woman has just blindly stumbled into her gateway to creative freedom.Dread because I know the resistance and arguments I am going to be coming up against as I try to talk her out of destroying what she deems ugly and to even to begin to take the radical step of accepting what she has created with curiosity and compassion. I have to be quick here because women are nothing if not stealthy and crafty and will waste little time in eradicating the evidence of what they consider unattractive art.

This is a class in what's known as intuitive painting or process painting. The purpose of this kind of painting is to learn to listen deeply to yourself and to then courageously express what you find , without censoring anything, in a spirit of spontaneity, surrendering to the creative process . It's very different from typical art classes where the primary focus is on developing technique and ending up with a pleasing product. This type of class uses art and painting as a way to get more in touch with the inner world of soul and psyche. The focus is exclusively on exploring and expressing that internal process.

This road is difficult for most women, because even though many of us have done some kind of self investigation and recognize the value inherent in that search, we are still fighting an uphill battle against a very strong cultural bias that teaches us to place the greatest value on what is outside of us. We are taught that feelings and an inner life are fine as far as they go, but what is truly worthwhile is how we look, what we own, who we know,  and where we find ourselves on the economic and status hierarchy.

The mysterious stirrings of our soul,the needs of our hearts,the messages from our bodies,and the genius of our intuition, are STILL, even after all of the battles for liberation that we have fought, denigrated and considered trivial, somehow not really important,not realistic or grown up. In the world of the process arts the world of emotions and dreams,imagination and feelings are staunchly defended as sacrosanct and even given center stage.

The women in my painting class know the rules of intuitive painting, one of which is that they are not to destroy anything or cover up what they have done just because they don't like it or have a negative reaction to it. They know what they are attempting here is an exercise in radical self acceptance which means embracing everything that comes out of them especially if it makes them uncomfortable because there's "gold in them thar hills" of the psyche that they can mine to great advantage if they are just willing to stay with the discomfort.But the urge to disavow the abomination of a perceived ugly painting by making it disappear can be overwhelming.

There are four words in the English language that you should never use in reference to a western 21st century woman if you don't want to get your teeth knocked out .Those four little words are ugly, fat, bitch and selfish .

Each of these four words addresses an issue of great importance for a woman, and what they all have in common is that they are keys to unlocking the door to our forbidden feminine power. And one thing you can count on is that each of these four issues will show up eventually if a woman seriously gives herself over to making her own art. Which is one reason that women often shy away from the creative process.

These words have extremely negative connotations for a woman and have been used to denigrate and control us for a very long time.The charge around them is so intense that as soon as we hear them we throw up our hands, recoil into a place of shame, close our eyes and back away from them as if they were Kryptonite and we were Super Girl. Since we are unwilling to be curious and explore them, we never get to see that in actuality these four words describe very positive qualities and archetypal energies that we desperately need if we are going to be complete, whole, actualized and effective feminine creators of our own lives.

One of the biggest internal obstacles to reclaiming our power is a potent archetype at work in most women's psyches that can be called the Inner Good Girl. The Good Girl lives for approval and she garners that approval by keeping women small and safe and non-threatening. She is not interested in growing up and is content to remain eternally immature and young. Ultimately, she is the one that keeps a woman from being able to develop and flourish as someone who is strong and potent,gutsy and capable of taking authority over her own life. And the Good Girl never wants to risk being fat, selfish, ugly or bitchy!

If a woman takes her creative life seriously, if she makes a commitment to herself and devotes herself to her creative work, she will eventually reach a crossroads where she has to confront  the Inner Good Girl and the list of Good Girl rules if she wants to continue creating with passion and authenticity.

We all know what those rules are.  Smile, smile, smile, be sweet and nice, never get mad (or even annoyed),look pretty ( which of course includes being thin), smell good, be clean and neat and always be pleasing and accommodating. Don't be loud, stay in the background. What you think or feel is not really all that important. Don't upset anyone. And never, ever make another person uncomfortable. If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all. Never rock the boat. In the Good Girl world perfection is an attainable goal and you need to work relentlessly, tirelessly, exhaustively, to be the absolute best mother, daughter, wife and friend you can be, all the while berating yourself because you inexplicably and continuously fall short of the mark.

When a woman starts her creative life she brings these same attitudes and expectations to her art. She only allows herself to paint pretty paintings that are perfect in every way. Paintings that are nice and make people smile. She is unwilling to risk disturbing or intense color or imagery; nothing that is too strong or stands out too much. But painting in this way eventually leaves her feeling bored and stifled. Pretty can be wonderful as part of a larger repertoire, but if it's all you are allowed to do it eventually becomes both a noose and a cage.

At a certain point in her creative process a woman needs to be willing to ditch the Good Girl by breaking the Good Girl rules. But breaking those rules leads a woman into the territory of the shadow side of the Good Girl, the dreaded yet fascinating BAD GIRL!

The Bad Girl is alive and well in most women's psyches and is the part of us who is sick and tired of the long list of restrictions that hem in her wild and juicy self. She is feisty and bold, full of audacity and unafraid to go for what she wants. She is adventurous and courageous, and enjoys the excitement that comes with taking positive life-affirming risks.

But our relationship to her has a strong shame and shadow element so she often gets expressed in way's that end up hurting us. She is the one who eats the whole container of the mint chocolate chip ice cream in one sitting, who doesn't return necessary phone calls to annoying family members, who spends money that she doesn't have on clothes or shoes, and who has inappropriate relationships with men or women that aren't good for her.What I am presenting here is a way to reclaim the Bad Girl energy that is affirming and positive. To recognize that what we have been calling bad are actually disowned parts of ourselves that need to be brought back home.

The Selfish Girl: Unafraid of putting herself first, of being needy and proud of it, of nurturing herself, of conserving her own energy, of filling her own well, willing to have limits, making her own self care her first priority, willing to be her own good mother, willing to take time just for herself, willing to confront and overcome her guilt about taking care of herself.

This is the first bad girl to show up when a woman attempts to have a viable creative life, and the first one I see when a woman walks in the door of my studio to attend a painting class. I hear over and over again from these women how much they have lost themselves in taking care of everyone else. How tired they are of putting everyone else's needs first and that they have come to this class because they want to do something just for them, something that has no visible benefit to anyone else.

I wholeheartedly support them because for a woman to be creative she needs to be willing to take time just for herself. She needs uninterrupted time when she enters her studio, sits down at her computer or her easel, and sees what wants to come. She lets herself get dreamy, does nothing, stares out the window, is seemingly unproductive, inviting the muse to enter her, and inviting the often secret and mysterious movement of her soul to express itself.

She faces herself through her art and begins to find out who she really is. "What do I think? What do I like? What do I really want?What moves me, brings me pleasure, makes me feel alive.?" It is a me, myself and I time , a time that needs to be treated as sacred and inviolable in order to allow those creative juices to flow unimpeded and to eventually turn into a raging, rushing river.

However, it's usually not long before the telephone rings or someone taps (or sometimes pounds ) on the studio door with the cry of "I need you! And I need you RIGHT NOW!" It could be a friend, a child, a mother or husband, a work obligation, or a pipe that has just sprung a leak. All of a sudden, somebody else's needs become more important than her need to be creative, and the woman is faced with the eternal female question." Do I once again close the door to my studio and turn my back on the needs of my own soul? Do I once again prove how reliable, dutiful, compassionate , caring, self sacrificing, available, loving, responsible I am , at the terrible price of my own creative self? Knowing that I have the small, and getting smaller consolation of being able to say "Well at least no one is going to be able to call me selfish!"

The Ugly Girl: Willing to buck the tide, to be her own unique self, to not always conform , to step away from the need for approval, to be willing to risk censure, to step outside of the box of what is acceptable as a woman in this culture, willing to be weird, different, unique, outrageous, bold.

The most common lament or desire that I hear from my women painting student's is "But I just want my painting to be beautiful." or "Why can't I make it more beautiful", or " I don't like it because it is not beautiful".

For most women, beauty is a need, a deep irrational hunger, and an unconscious compulsion. Our identification with the need to be beautiful is so great and so ingrained that we rarely, if ever, question it. Beauty is the key to the magic kingdom of well- being, happiness and success. It is the source of our value, the guarantee of love, our only legitimate access to power, and on a very deep level has meant survival itself. Because so much is at stake, the pressure  a woman feels to be beautiful and to create something beautiful is enormous.

Our whole relationship to beauty shows up painfully and clearly in the painting process. While she is painting, there is always some beauty standard- whether she is aware of it or not- that a woman is trying to live up to. Maybe the ideal is of a painting that is neat and flawless where no mistakes or messiness, no drips or uneven lines are allowed. Or the idealized vision may be one of a painting that is balanced and symmetrical, a paragon of elegance, grace, and impeccable good taste. In this version of perfection, all the colors must match, and can only be in the range of muted pastels with the overall effect being soothing and pleasant, like a well put together design in a home and garden magazine.

Whatever the ideal, the energy put into achieving it is relentless. When I watch a woman paint I am always amazed by the passion she has for endlessly fussing over and fixing her paintings.  Spontaneity is out of the question. She just takes it for granted that her painting must be well thought out, planned, and organized , and under as much of her control as is humanly possible. She is used to not trusting in her own innate beauty, and expects that the quest for beauty will entail nonstop work. She never questions the ceaseless dieting and exercising, the hours spent shopping for just the right outfit and the worrying over her skin, her hair, her nails. She always has and always will fall short of the beauty mark and just assumes that beauty is something she will continually struggle for and rarely, if ever, achieve.

The really sad thing is that she sees nothing wrong with this fretful and anxious approach to her self and to her artwork.This ceaseless and ultimately hopeless striving for the unattainable ideal is just the norm. It's really the only thing she has ever known.

These narrow constraints of beauty that a woman finds herself tangled in are always some variation on the Good Girl creed. These socially accepted standards are based on a definition of beauty that is related to being nice and non threatening, to not standing out too much and conforming to an established norm that is pleasant but not powerful. Beauty is related to compliance and convention, to following the rules and to fitting in. The Good Girl beauty ideal means that it's not OK to just be herself, warts and all. She needs to clean herself up and make herself acceptable.

When a woman is painting, the Ugly Girl often sneaks in as a mistake or imperfection, a smear or a smudge, something messy or uncontrolled.When the woman tries to clean up the mess, she finds with increasing horror that the muddle only continues to grow. She is constantly having technical calamities. The paint drips or runs, she can't control her brush, chaos reigns, and it seems like there is nothing she can do to make it stop.

She is desperate to get back to pretty. In risking spontaneity, she has found, to her horror, that she has created something that appears harsh or loud or imperfect. Or,even worse, something grotesque or malformed. She frantically tries painting more safe images, more flowers, rainbows, peaceful landscapes . But the flowers develop sharp edges and dark colors and grow completely out of control , the rainbow colors  become wildly fluorescent , and the landscapes becomes populated with darkly mysterious shapes and figures .

At this point she has stepped out of the confines of charming and attractive, and into an unfamiliar landscape of the wild, the untamed  the unkempt and disheveled. This is often the beginning of a relationship to the inner Wise Old Woman archetype, also known as the Witch. This is the face of the deep feminine that doesn't care about appearances . After all, the Witch walks around with missing teeth and warts, and obviously doesn't care what other people think. This is an awakening of the aspect of a woman's soul who is no longer a slave to approval and who has begun to walk down the long road away from woman as product and commodity.

The Fat Girl: Willing to be big, be visible, to come out of hiding, to be a woman and not a little girl, to take up space, to be hungry, to say what she wants, to know what she wants, to be full of herself, too big for her britches,to be a full adult, unafraid to say yes! A fat girl isn't afraid to take up space and to take her place in the world.

  In my studio I offer high quality paper that is of ample size, but students can tape the sheets together to make even larger paintings. It's a heady time when a woman can let herself spread out and take up some real space,when she can make a HUGE painting, one that can sometimes cover an entire wall.

Creating a giant painting is a dizzying and terrifying prospect, and a woman often needs lots of encouragement and permission to take this step. In fact I usually need to nudge her a little. She will start with saying something about MAYBE needing to go a little bigger with her work. She feels something pushing on her, wanting to come through, and so she will ask if it's OK to use two pieces of paper instead of one. I generously offer to get the paper for her but come back with four pieces of paper, instead of the asked for two. No matter how "nice" she is, at this point she is more than willing to make a fuss, to strenuously object about how it's too much, she could never fill up that much paper, she doesn't have enough to express, she couldn't possibly take up that much room in the studio.

But as I continue to calmly pin the four pieces to the easel, nodding supportively, yet ignoring her increasingly frantic protestations, I see the gleam in her eye. She wants this opportunity to take up space, to proclaim herself in living color, to be unmistakably seen, but is trained to not give voice to this desire. I watch her as she struggles with the forbidden excitement of the challenge, the possibility, the sheer daring of it. The door to a secret longing is creaking open on long unused and rusted hinges, opening to her hunger to be big, to be bold, to be outrageous, to be visible as completely and utterly herself.

The Bitchy Girl: Willing to be fierce and powerful;  unafraid of her own anger, unafraid to speak up, to take a stand, to have limits and boundaries, unafraid to say NO! Unafraid to combat abuse,  refuses to be treated badly, willing to break connections and walk away from toxic relationships if it means protecting your own wild and precious self.

Another major crossroads occurs in the painting process when a woman realizes how angry and enraged she feels and she lets herself express it on paper for everyone to see. However, the feeling of anger is so taboo and so threatening that it will usually sneak in the back door as just a little color.  Some red or black appears on the page and then slowly or by "accident"  grows larger than the woman had intended .

As this continues , the artist begins to feel a little uncomfortable. She will stand back from her now unruly painting with a puzzled frown and turn to me , saying something like " That looks awfully angry,"  followed quickly by, "You know, I'm not really angry. I don't get angry. A little frustrated maybe, but never angry." This is a very precarious moment in the process. I have had women actually walk out of the room to get away from this intimation of anger, put on their coat and announce that they really must leave now. I am generally able to coax her back to the painting for the rest of the class, but once she leaves I will often never see her again. The reality of her own angry feelings is just too scary, the prohibitions too strong, and all I can do at this point is hope for her that someday she will be able to feel safe enough to take that deep plunge into her own passionate and furious heart .

For the woman who is ready to take that terrifying yet thrilling dive, admitting that she is indeed angry can allow an amazing intensity of feeling to come flooding out. All the years of saying yes, yes, yes when she wanted to say no, no, NO to unreasonable demands, to abuse, to putting her own needs on a perpetual back burner, come out on the paper in a frenzy of paint , of color, and of image.

For one woman it comes out as a bright red background, with black words painted simply and starkly to read "I AM SO PISSED OFF!'". For another , it is a large image of a woman with wildly flying red hair, bellowing open mouthed and brazen " What the $#%@ about me!!!"

A 60 year old woman, who has been married to a Methodist preacher for 40 years, surprises herself by painting a warrior goddess in hot pants, with a Colt 45 in one hand and a cake spatula (to be used as a whacking weapon when necessary) in the other.

The paintings sometimes depict images that are recognizable out of myth, such as a snake haired Medusa, and sometimes are expressed as a whirl of color and chaos, populated by weird, otherworldly creatures sporting very large, VERY sharp teeth. But what they all have in common is that they jump off the page with the ferocity of emotion portrayed. There is no mistaking the intent behind these paintings which is some version of " I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

I recently read an article in a marketing journal that was warning advertisers away from using the words power or powerful in ads directed towards women. The writer of this article was not questioning the issue of women's fear around power, just stating an obvious ( to him) fact that women won't buy things that are associated with the language of power.

We have a long history as women around being disempowered and victimized, and we have internalized  this fear of power, of our own power, for way too long. We are living in times of great change and uncertainty and it is critical that we reclaim our birthright of strength, authority and creative vision to take advantage of the opportunity that we have to recreate the world as a place where our most treasured values can survive.

There are many ways to face and to heal this power wound, and approaching it through our creativity is just one of them. But it's a good place to start. As my women student's and I have learned over many years, it's quite possible to experience courage, transformation and self love by wielding the business end of a paintbrush. And breaking our long allegiance to the Good Girl and allowing the Bad Girl an honored place in our lives is not only healing, but makes life a lot more interesting and fun! 

Copyright © Chris Zydel 2007

WHO IS THIS INNER CRITIC AND WHAT THE HECK IS IT DOING LIVING INSIDE MY HEAD?

by Chris Zydel, MA

I came across a startling statistic recently, which is that more than 90% of all children consider themselves to be creative yet only 10% of adults see themselves as having any creative capacity.

So what happened? How do so many of us lose our connection with the basic truth that we are all born creative and that it's not meant to just go away once we get our adult badge?

Have you ever noticed that there is a voice inside of you, constantly on patrol, which is advising you to not trust or believe in yourself? Telling you, over and over, that you are not good enough, talented enough, smart enough, CREATIVE enough? The voice of criticism, judgment, invalidation and shame that makes you feel like you are somehow intrinsically defective and just basically not OK?

Well that, my friends, is the voice of the inner critic. It is not the voice of rationality, or reason or reality. It is not a voice that is just trying to be helpful.

This voice has one job , and one job only, and that is to make you feel bad about yourself. Period. To make you feel bad enough about yourself so that you won't go ahead and do the thing you really want to do, which is to express yourself creatively. So if you are trying to do something creative and you start to feel bad you can bet your bottom dollar that it's the critic at work.

For example, if the last time you painted or drew something was when you were 4 years old, guess what? Even if you are now 35 years old, when you screw up your courage to finally take hold of a pencil or a paintbrush, you are most likely going to pick up where you left off and draw or paint like a 4 year old. AND THAT IS OK. Really. To be able to create you need to give yourself permission to start exactly where you are and 4 years old is as good a place as any to begin. Except it's not OK to the critic.The critic expects, even though you haven't touched an art supply in over 30 years, that when you finally do put that brush on the paper, your finished piece should come out looking like it was done by Michelangelo. Which is, of course, preposterous. But the critics main currency is not rationality. It mostly deals in manipulation, intimidation and fearmongering. It doesn't really need to make sense. It only needs to convince you that it's RIGHT.

So how is it that you find yourself so raptly listening to and believing a voice that is essentially the voice of a raving lunatic?

Inside most people’s psyches there is a huge imbalance of power between the real self (the source of your creativity), and the inner critic. The inner critic was formed when you were about 2 years old, so in that internal psychic landscape you are still a child and the critic is a scary adult authority. You believe this irrational voice because at the moment when the critic speaks, you have become the 2 year old, the critic becomes the adult, and the inner child believes everything ,no matter how unrealistic, that the adult is telling it! As soon as the critic says “Boo” that inner child just collapses into fear, shame and self doubt.

There is a debate that I often hear about the best way to deal with the critic. Many people are proponents of the theory that you have to befriend the critic, that the poor thing is only trying to do it’s job, and just needs a liitle compassion and understanding. And once that happens it will become the domesticated critic, willing to go off happily into some corner and weave baskets or be a crossing guard for children. The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t want to recognize how DANGEROUS the critic is, dangerous to your self esteem and dangerous to any hope of a happy, healthy creative life. And that the critic will remain dangerous until the internal power balance is rectified.

You need to grow up, gain some power, and develop some cojones before you can effectively deal with the critic.You need to learn to use your teeth, to growl, to become dangerous yourself. To become the fiercely protective warrior, who will not allow ANYONE, including some punk in your psyche, to knock you around and abuse you. You need to be able to learn to say NO! NO I won't listen to you, NO I won't let myself be limited by you, NO I won't let myself be defined by you. You have to be willing to be ruthless and forceful. To say things like shut up, buzz off, get out of my life and never come back. But before you can stand up to it you need to be able to recognize it for what it is. The critic is not, and never was, the voice of your true and essential self. THE CRITIC IS NOT YOU! And that even though the critic speaks with great authority it DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS TALKING ABOUT!!!! . Again,the number one thing to remember in dealing with the critic is this.... its only job is to make you feel bad.

The inner critic is born out of a deep place of fear. The critic thinks its job is to keep you out of harms way at all costs. To keep you protected, shielded and secure,which it does by not allowing you to venture into uncharted territory. But to stay protected you also need to stay small, stay stuck, stay where we are, because where you are is safe. Where you are is FAMILIAR. The critic's job is to keep you from ever leaving what is familiar and usually that means never trying anything new, never experimenting, never making mistakes, never being confused or unsure of yourself, no adventures, no going out on a limb or taking risks. All of the types of things, in fact , that are ESSENTIAL if you are going to be creative. The critic also has a huge problem with the unknown. And if it ever does consent to leave home, it wants to have a clearly marked map, again anathema for the creative journey.

The paradox is that it will stop at nothing to keep you safe. It tries to scare you into safety. It thinks that if you go off-road without that map that you will die somewhere in the scary forest. So you find the critc acting like the parent who’s 3 year old child just ran out into the street. “Don’t you ever do that again. What is wrong with you ? Are you stupid? If you ever do that again I will kill you”! The critic won’t let you grow up. it doesen’t trust you to take responsibility or think for yourself. it convinces you that if you take risks that you will end up in major disasters.

The critic is also the part of you that knows what the rules are in your family, culture and society. It's the part that keeps track of whether you are being a good person, an acceptable person, a grown up responsible person. Since we are talking about the creative realm, the critic is also the part of you that knows (or thinks it knows) what the rules are about being creative or being an artist. The critic as art god!

The inner critic has definite opinions about what good art is, about who is talented and who is not. According to this voice, who is talented is certainly not YOU! A person who is capable of making art is not the person who looks back at you from the bathroom mirror every morning. The critic can certainly convince you that you making art is a monumentally bad idea. It whispers in your ear that you don't have any good ideas, no real capabilities and that you trying to be creative is a total waste of art supplies!

Now this voice can be very convincing and daunting. It knows exactly where your weak spots are and how to reduce you to a state of quivering, nauseating anxiety. It has spent its whole life inside of your psyche and has been studying you exhaustively, so it knows what will really get you going and what messages you are likely to ignore. It's not going to try and get you where you feel confident. It is only interested in your vulnerable, psychic underbelly.

For example, I am a very warm, friendly, outgoing person who has a large dose of compassion as part of my nature. So if the critic would say to me " Chris, you are an incredibly cold and uncaring person and you will probably die old and alone", I would just look at it quizzically and say "Huh? What in tarnation are you talking about!" There's no place for the accusation to stick. I am very comfortable and relaxed around my relational capacities.

But it's a different story when it starts in on my writing capabilities, saying things like," What do you think you are doing? Why are you even bothering to write? You have nothing original or interesting to say,other people have already said this better than you ever could, and you never even learned where to put the commas!"

Suddenly I start to feel my gut clench and anxiety crawling up into my throat. I begin to pant, my eyes start to bug a little and I am responding internally with something along the lines of "Oh my god, OH MY GOD, you know it's right, it's right, it really knows what it's talking about this time. This is ridiculous, I should just stop this before I add to the ongoing travesty of trying to put my own original words and thoughts on paper. AAAARRGGHH. I should just STOP RIGHT NOW!"

Now at this point I have two choices. I can either quit writing and go do the dishes, vacuum the dust bunnies, raid the refrigerator, call my Aunt Hilda, (who hasn't heard from me since the last time I tried to sit down and write), organize my sock drawer... you get the picture. Anything to stop me from continuing writing. Or.... I can smile and say "Cool. I must really be on the right track. I must really be challenging myself to grow in some deep way otherwise that darn critic would not be so interested, so hell bent on getting me to stop. It must be very threatened right now." So I bare my teeth in a particularly nasty snarl, face it down once again, and continue writing.

I have also learned over time to see the critic's showing up as a good thing, because it only really goes into high gear if I am breaking new ground and taking some big creative risk. It is still extremely unpleasant, and the show is always the same (for an art god, the critic is actually not all that creative). I always feel nauseous and anxious and like I want to run out of the room, but I have learned to recognize this voice for what it is. It is a firebreathing dragon that you need to battle every time you challenge your internal status quo. EVERY TIME! Every time you try something new or scary, every time you take a chance creatively, every time you try to reach beyond your familiar territory, your inner negative voice will be right there trying to get you to stop with the same bag of tricks. You would think that over time the poor thing would get bored, but the good news is that if it's something that you expect, then you can much more effectively deal with it. You won't feel blindsided or betrayed every time it shows up. It's helpful to have the attitude of "OK,OK here we go again. Well, let's get the heavy breathing over with so that I can get on with what I really want to do which is to CREATE!"

This attitude is not the attitude of the scared, cowering child. It's the attitude of the sometimes haggard, beleaguered adult, who knows that reality has its share of difficulty and unpleasantness, but feels confident in being able to deal with it. It is the grownup part of you that is actually powerful enough to handle the voices in your own head. The part of you that is fierce enough, and courageous enough, to stand up to the critic and defend you. Who knows that it's OK to feel scared and unsure at times, and also knows that what's truly important is making every effort to stay true to yourself and live your life from your essential core.

The most obvious form of the critic is the inner voice that says things like you're no good, you have no talent, that is stupid, ugly, trite, kitschy, why bother, you'll never amount to anything, you're not as good as other people ,you'll never be creative. It's the voice of never, that's impossible, it's hopeless, you'll never make it anyway, you're too old, you have no talent, you should have started this years ago.

It's important to recognize these messages for what they are. They are not the truth, they are just designed to make you feel bad, to paralyze you, and to keep you from taking the next step, writing the next word, painting the next stroke. However, one of the reasons that the critic is able to maintain its stranglehold on your creative self esteem is because it often gets a helping hand, and from a most surprising quarter. The critic gets tons of assistance from the person who you would think least likely to support it. That mystery person vigorously nodding their head and agreeing wholeheartedly with the critic? Hey, wait a minute ...it's YOU!

It is a truly amazing phenomenon watching someone passionately defending their critic. "But it really IS ugly", I hear people protest, as I stand in front a painting they are working on, a painting that is exploding with life and energy. At that point my job is to model for them a firm, unwavering stance in dealing with the little monster who they are still certain is only trying to help. .. I always tell them that I have never seen an ugly painting, which is the truth, because assessments such as ugly don't mean anything anyway. I remind them that this voice is just a way to.... one more time, MAKE THEM FEEL BAD!!! But no, no they are absolutely convinced and I can see them beginning to wonder if maybe I am just a slightly deranged person with monumentally bad taste. In these altercations, I always make it clear to my students whose side I am on, informing them in no uncertain terms that I will never, EVER agree with their critic. Confident in the knowledge that if they stick around long enough and experience me championing their unique creative process a few thousand times that my faith in their creativity will eventually rub off on them.

Another thing that I hear from people is the refrain of "But I want my art to be really GOOD! I don't want to lose the inner critic because then I'll just paint bad paintings, or write bad songs etc." But, truthfully, when you say we want something to be good what you are actually saying is that you want to make something that someone else will like, so that you can gain approval, and once again be safe. At the huge price of losing yourself. Since "good" is really code for pleasing some external authority, it is a pretty meaningless concept outside of the pint-sized world of the inner critic. So, since you can't create something good (or bad for that matter) you need to focus on what you can do , which is to create something that is authentic, dynamic, alive and full of energy. FULL OF YOU! But the critic can't help you with that, because to create something dynamic, authentic and alive, you have to BE dynamic, authentic and alive, which is the LAST thing the critic wants.

Often people confuse the inner critic with the voice of discrimination, analysis, or evaluation, but they are not the same thing. When I am writing, I make certain choices regarding what words I use, how I structure a sentence, how I put things together. So I am thinking as I write, as well as feeling, but above all else I am having fun. I feel creatively engaged, sometimes frustrated, but never scared or shamed. The voice of that kind of appraisal is not mean or cruel, it doesn't make me feel bad! However, I have to watch out because when I am involved in that assessment process the critic can try and slip in with its tricksy ways.

For example, I have beaten off the most recent fire breathing dragon and am now happily writing and looking for a word to express what I want to say next. I come up with something that has energy and aliveness for me such as when I chose the word "dangerous" to describe the critic earlier in this piece. I can hear the critic coming in (although at this point I don't know yet that it is the critic), saying something like " Don't you think that word is a little too intense? People are going to think you are over the top, too much, kind of weird and out there". I find my finger hovering over the delete key, getting out the Thesaurus, trying to find a word that's more to the critic's liking. I'm starting to feel just a little tiny bit crummy. Just a whisper of feeling wrong and unacceptable. It's not too bad, really, just a small leak in my energy, but because I am so focused on the critic right now I catch it." AHA!" I say, " I smell a critic rat gnawing away at my self confidence, at my own authentic creative flow and I won't have it. I will use that word dangerous, even if you don't like it."

Now I still feel a bit uncomfortable, because I am going against the " authority", ("What if it's right this time...."). However, if I'm going to be teaching about this stuff I need to walk my talk, but even more importantly, I know that giving in to the critic, even in this seemingly inconsequential way ("It's only ONE word after all"), is a slippery slope. I like to think about this process as learning to feed the creative soul (which means listening to and trusting your intuition) and starving the critic, so every single time I give in to those fearful demands or suggestions, I am feeding the critic. And as I slowly fall asleep to myself, as I'm unconsciously shoveling the food of my attention and acquiescence into it's voracious, plug-ugly mug, it starts getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER, sucking the creative life force right out of me and before I know it, I'm organizing my sock drawer.

CREATING A CRITIC FREE ZONE

You need to make a conscious choice to take the critic on, because it's not going to just go away on its own. You can avoid confrontations with the critic but only by staying in the circle of limitation and safety that doesn't challenge it. If you want to grow creatively you need to engage directly with the critic.

There are two different archetypes you need to recruit to help you in your battle with the critic. The first archetype, the warrior, is the part of you that is capable of setting boundaries and is effective at self defense. It is not interested in putting up with B.S. (either yours or the critics), is willing to be angry and assertive, and will do whatever it takes to prevail and to win. You need to develop your warrior self because you are safeguarding something very precious, the treasure of your unique, authentic, creative self. The warrior energy is essential to fight the dragons of conformity, fear, low self worth, learned helplessness, underachievement, and victimization that manifest when the critic gets the upper hand.

The second archetype is that of the nurturing, all accepting, cheerleading good parent. This is the aspect of yourself that believes in you unconditionally, who stands by you no matter what, who hears the still small voice of your creative intuition and encourages that voice to become loud and confident and strong. It is the part of you that loves and values everything that you create, just because you created it, and not because it will make you money or get you on Oprah!

Engagement with the critic is always difficult and requires commitment, focus, intention and discipline as well as specific strategies and tactics. One of the primary goals in critic work is differentiating between yourself and the critic so I've included a few tips and exercises that can help you with that process of separation.

Give it a name. It can be a descriptive name like Stinky or Killjoy or Blowhard or a real person's name. The important thing is to distinguish it in your own mind as an independent entity.

Draw, paint or sculpt your critic. Really get in touch with the ener