PEACE--5 little letters that, when mixed with love, are fun to expermient with

This week, the topic of 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women focuses on honoring our inspirations. It's about cultivating attractions, practicing play, communing with your senses, taking time to capture ideas, creating a sanctuary and inventing creative rituals. Well, if you ask me, this is one power-packed chapter!

I love the idea of giving myself 15 minutes of quiet time every day to simply listen to my thoughts. And, more than ever, I find myself hungering for that daily moment of peace. I want to make a space within me every day that leaves room for the unexpected to lead me in new, energized, and deeply authentic directions.

Life comes crashing in and I feel myself become tense with anxiety. When this happens, I notice my creative receptors start to close up, shut down. Over and over, I find myself needing to guide my thoughts back towards center. Let the debris fall away...let the nervousness fall away...let the pressure fall away. Like meditation...let the thoughts comes...and then let them go. This is how I guide myself back in the direction of peace--over and over and over--sometimes a million times a day.

What I love most about the questions Jamie has asked in response to this chapter is how they guide you back to that place of inspiration. They have an instant calming effect. They have a way of opening those doors and windows of the spirit--creating a space for breath, possibility, and light. These questions are little invitations to our creative selves to come out and play, to believe in ourselves, to enjoy our vision.

In my world LOVE=PEACE. And PEACE=LOVE...over and over and over again. One creates the other. Today I want to find peace...peace in the little things. And in order to do that I have decided that I will pay attention to the things I love.

In response to Jamie's questions:
What have I always loved, what inspires me, catches my eye, makes my heart sing...

• Sunlight--and lots of it. Sunlight on the walls, sunlight on the furniture, sunlight spilling across my home and workspace--it fills me from the inside out.
• Wood--I don't know what it is, but I love the way natural wood makes me feel--wood floors, wooden ceilings and beams, a wooden table or workbench, an old wooden chair. I love the look, the feel, the smell, the warmth that it creates. Interestingly, wood is an element that I feel deeply comforted by.
• Books--I love being surrounded by them...on bookshelves, in stacks on the floor, carrying them with me in my purse, in piles on my desk and next to my bed...What is it about being surrounded by books that is incredibly inspiring? They remind me that there is no end to ideas. They connect me to something bigger than myself.
• Nature--oh, sweet solitude. I have always loved the way that nature gets me back to center. It is a space where my thoughts flow more easily, my body breathes more deeply. It is calming and energizing all at once. Not to mention, nature makes some of the best color combinations of all. In nature, clarity returns.
• A good cup of coffee--there is something incredibly exciting and inspiring in that first sip of an excellent cup of coffee. And it something that never fails to catch my creative time on fire. When diving into a creative project, a freshly brewed cup of coffee or tea is something of a ritual for me--it marks the passage between everyday stuff and creative time. There are little enjoyments that I partake in, in order to make the switching of gears more obvious to me--and this helps me to honor the creative time I give myself.
• Reds, fuscias, orange, warm yellows...I am a warm color person at heart. Even if I don't paint with them that often, I am attracted to those colors...always. They cause something inside of me to wake up...over and over and over again. Actually, now that I think about it, I often paint dogs in with lots of blues and cooler colors...perhaps it is the contrast. I love the way these colors of my life compliment and accentuate each other.

Ok...this list could go on forever. And so, today, I am going to do a little experiment on myself. I am going to look for things I love. I'm going to pay attention to the things that catch my eye. In everything I do and every where I go. I'm going to pay attention and, when I feel it, I am going to make a note to myself...I love this. Oh, I love this. Ooh, look at that--this is something I love too.

And every time I see or feel or smell or experience something that I love, I am going to pay attention to what happens to me on the inside. Do I feel peaceful? Do I feel inspired? Does it make my heart sing? And then I'm going to let myself feel whatever it is I'm feeling--completely. Even if I only give myself one second to feel it--I'm going to give myself the space to feel it fully.


Something tells me that the effects of this experiment will be good for me. Today, my "Word of the Day::Living Life One Word at a Time" is PEACE. And so today is going to be a peace experiment.

I'll let you know how it turns out. ;) In the meantime, here's to honoring our inspirations.

These letters are part of an ongoing project:
"WORD OF THE DAY :: living life one word at a time."
Today's word is PEACE.
See more letters and words at my Patch of Sky Etsy shop, here.

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