Category Archives: purpose

What is your purpose?

What is your purpose? Mine is to be happy. How do I accomplish that? I have chosen to do things I love to do to explore my capabilities. Today’s post is a video about purpose. My goal with the video is to inspire and also make you think about what you’re doing with your life. Do you like what you’re doing?

Have a creative day!
xo

Maria

P.S. I can help you find out what you’re talented at if you don’t know. Check out my intuitive consultation offers HERE.

It’s ok to be all over the place.

My inner critic does not believe it’s ok to be all over the place.  Follow the check list, tick the items off and feel accomplished.  That is the ego’s rule.  Work hard! I never was much of a list person, but I would have a goal in mind and try to accomplish that by making a vague list to follow. Funny thing is, the lists seem to repeat themselves over the years.  Did I ever get anywhere??

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There isn’t anything wrong with lists, but sometimes I stop and realize I’m missing the whole point. That happened this morning as I read one of my favorite author, Michael Roads’ daily quote in my inbox.  I read every single one of them…

                          Focus on the target, but ‘live’ the arrow in flight.

 Suppose you have a business ambition, or a wish to be spiritually enlightened, or whatever your target is that you are aiming at.

Focus on that target clearly, without seeing any problems or difficulties.  This clears the way.  Seeing problems creates obstructions.

You must now bring your awareness and full expression into the moment.  You know the target, it is in your focus, now  . . . you live as the arrow in flight.  The more focussed and clear your vision, the truer and more sure flies your arrow-self.

Unconditional Trust is the flight of the arrow.

Michael J. Roads

The excerpt is from his book 365 Steps to a Happier More Conscious Life.
Read that statement a few times and take a deep breath or two. What does it bring up for you?
I’m a goal oriented person and one of my strengths is to get shit done, but many times I wonder if any of it brings me any closer to where I really want to be?
I don’t know.
I think I understand where I want to be in my “evolution,” but seriously, does anyone really know?
I for sure don’t know the big picture even if I can feel a hint of it sometimes.
I’m an adventurer. Not that I went and discovered some lost continent, but my own frontier is enough since there is so much to discover.
People say: focus on one thing and make that spectacular. Become an expert.
I have tried. I’m one of those people who gets interested in something by chance. I read and absorb everything I can about the subject, and when I’m done I’m on to the next bright thing. I could teach many things, but that’s not really my “thing.”
In some ways I’m a walking encyclopedia of useful and useless information.
No wonder I can’t see my way through the jungle of possibilities.
I have been trying to combine my spirituality, which is a practice close to my heart, with my art, and create a fusion that can  help people in some way.
Nothing has really gelled, so I keep forging ahead in the wilderness with my machete/ paintbrush.  I can’t stay with one type of motif and explore that at length like some artists do.
Now there is a word for people like me!  A woman by the name of Emilie Wapnick gave a TED talk about being a “multipotentialite.”
Check it out HERE.
“Why some of us don’t have a true calling.”
I found it comforting and delightful to listen to the talk.
So, I guess the gist of this post is to be content with being all over the place. Remember to stop and smell the roses! Don’t live by ticking off items on a list.  Focus on what you want next (and that can change if you’re anything like me,) and be the arrow that shoots free and clear toward that goal.
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Smell the roses.
The best suggestion I can give today: be kind to yourself and allow for a wider perspective to seep in.  No hurry, no worries. Have TRUST and enjoy the journey, wherever it leads. It’s good to have goals but not at the cost of the simple joy of living.
Follow the moment and life is always fresh and full of wonder, and explore the word Trust. There is so much more to that word than meets the eye.
I am discovering a whole new level of TRUST and it’s awesome.
My latest painting:
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The Buddha intuitive painting.
xo
Maria
P.S. If you’d like an intuitive consultation, check it out HERE.
I offer reasonable rates and awesome readings!

Because you are a leader.

Because you are a leader…

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because you are a leader

Hello beautiful person,

Does the headline put a great bubble with a question mark above you as in the cartoons?  A leader can be many things, and the most exciting is when he or she has the brilliant enthusiasm and determination to change the world.  Do you say then, “I’m not like that, or do you say a resounding ‘hell yeah’?”

Basically, you can’t change the world, but by changing yourself you change the world. However, it’s not so much about changing yourself as it is to ACCEPT yourself, with warts and all.

You know, we are all leaders IF we decide to blaze our own path and go “there” whether anyone follows or not. The individual has that choice.  I believe we were put on this earth to have amazing lives filled with passion and prosperity.  I totally buy into that concept and I have consistently turned to the arrow  pointing toward my best life: “go there, there is your passion.”

It is becoming a habit to follow where the joy is in my life.  And so it should be for you. There is no mystery here.

It can take guts to change yourself, let alone change the world. But I’d rather take the risk of making a fool of myself using my own mental and heart capacities to create something original than working 35 years in the same job.  I never could settle down to a career, but now I’m grateful for that since so MANY varied experiences have led me to take charge  and become the CEO of my life.

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CEO of your own life

When you step into the shoes of leadership, you say no to the fears of society, you rise above the anchors that hold you down at status quo, i.e. the murky bottom with the sharks.

So, a leader leads people toward something good, a transformation.

A leader offers the path that she has already blazed with a badass machete. 🙂

A leader inspires others to break out of the mold and become the awesome person they are meant to be, to become another leader to help others succeed.

It is basically all about helping others to become great, so a leader stands behind the people and urges them along the path he or she knows will lead to contentment and discovery.

A great leader listens to the needs and implements solutions to problems.

Leadership is something we can grow into if only we take the steps to free ourselves from the beliefs and fears that hold us back. Who says your idea, your passion, isn’t the next great thing that will help humanity??

If you ever read the classic book Jonathan Livingston Seagull you know anything is possible.  Jonathan sensed within that he had greatness and he set out to prove it to himself and others. He flew higher than any seagull had done before.

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soar

The other seagulls said it could not be done, but Jonathan practiced and practiced. He didn’t care if his wings hurt or if it was stormy; he know he had to reach that greatness.  He made the decision to never give up and that decision brought him to success.

I stand in my power as a leader. I’m no great name or famous person, but at one point I decided to be the best I can be,  and that includes my spiritual life, my mental and physical health, and my work.  My passion is art and to help others to create, overcome their fears of exploration via art.  I am an intuitive artist and I use my intuition to help others break through to greatness beyond that snarl of brambles that grew across the path because no one had the nerve to cut them down.  Do you have the nerve?

Passion leads you along to discover even more passion. There is no time like now to get started.  Maybe passion flows quietly at first, but if you keep at it, it will become a roaring river.  It is a natural law!

As I said above, it takes guts to change, and the change starts within, with mindset and determination.

Are you longing to change?  Are you longing to help people in a way that counts, not just surface stuff? Do you want to help change the world from the inside out?

If you want to explore art as a way to break through your brambles, I can help you.  Check out some of my e-courses, and I will soon be offering one-on-one coaching based on intuition.  Are you in?

The only thing that stands between you and your own greatness is DETERMINATION.  Just don’t quit.

On that note, keep on going. Our roads might cross at some point, or they won’t. It is all okay.

xoxo

Maria

P.S. My available ecourses at this time: CLICK HERE.

 

 

Ugly Is Okay!

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Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, right?  To me, ugly is okay.  I googled free pictures of “ugly” and there were a whole bunch of them, all wildly diverse. Who decides what is ugly anyway? I saw the toad picture and thought of the saying “ugly as a toad,” but truly, he’s kind of cute, warts and all! After all, he is Kermit’s half(?) brother…

Do we judge something as ugly because of the colors or the shape?  Opinions are as diverse as there are people. Then there are clueless people who don’t like anything, but they are not important in this post.

As an artist, I deal with “ugly” every day. Many times I judge my art as ugly, or that the result of a day of painting turned out ugly. However, a friend might come by and totally love the piece.  Who am I to judge??

I think it’s about making art in the face of fear and failure.  We make art because we love it, not so much hoping we are going to outshine Vermeer or Michelangelo.  Still, it can be painful to have your art judged as ugly, or that you hate the result.  What counts is that you showed up at the blank page.

We all start somewhere. The technical skill might be lacking but the essence of the person who made the art shines through.  Especially if it’s not a copy job.  It can be hard to fly in the face of trends. The cuteness factor is hard to compete with if you’re painting mostly in black and gray.

No one paints like you or me or Vermeer.  We are unique and we came here to share our unique gift with the world.  Share the good vibe as they say. 🙂

Artists who keep coming back to making art “has to” share  their unique vibe and it’s a beautiful thing.

The point of this post: don’t compare yourself to others. You will never paint as cute as they do, haha, but your art is important.  If you consider your art “ugly” own it and be proud of your accomplishment.  Someone might come by and fall in love with the piece, and then what are you going to say?

We share at the level we are at.  We might no be a genius like Mozart or Leonardo, but our art is just as important if in a smaller scale. If you touched only one other person, that would be enough.  Then again, as you practice your art, you may dig deep into your inner genius, and then your name will be on a plaque in a museum too. You never know unless you keep on going!

Let’s go paint some ugly pictures! I’m excited. 🙂

xo

Maria

P.S. I have a bunch of short free tutorials and a couple of paid ecourses on my other site.  If interested you can check them out HERE.

Hard work is good when it’s the right kind of work.

 

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Many of us grew up with the belief that hard work is good, but no one ever mentioned that it should be the right kind of work.  It’s more like “keep your nose to the grindstone” and don’t question the situation.

All I ever did growing up was questioning my situation. When I was about nineteen I decided I wanted to be an artist. The hard work factor had not kicked in yet, so I gave up too soon when I failed to get into a prestigious art school. Also, people were always saying that you can’t make any money as an artist.

My dilemma was that I did not see a single career on the list of possible careers that I liked. It was horrible. The only one I could possibly get excited about was art therapist, but my math was weak in highschool so I could not get accepted into the education I needed.

I spent my twenties working all kinds of jobs, and that was sort of fun in that I learned a lot.  There were some things I hated and have always hated:

Getting up to an alarm clock

The 9-5 grind

The soul killing monotony of my days and no end in sight.

Next to no vacation, and then not enough money to do anything exciting.

Bosses who were jerks.

It was the Gulag of life, a life-long sentence, and I hated every day of that.  I did learn to work hard though, and be dependable. I met some nice people along the way.

In my youth I just upped and left when I’d had enough of the grind. I did some fun things like bicycling across the country and hitchhiking around Europe with NO money. Those are nice memories, but my parents called me irresponsible. I think I was more desperate to find some meaning.

I found meaning in spiritual awakening, but that will be another post.

My passion finally ignited when I realized I could be a writer and make money at it. I was thirty years old.  I started writing fiction and didn’t end until my writing career crashed while I was rehabilitating a knee injury many years later. It wasn’t fun.  Over the years I developed an ironclad discipline. (By the way, there is nothing like writing to hone your discipline.) My writing career has crashed three times, and I had to pick up other major skills along the way.

I also returned big time to my art passion. It has run like a red thread through my entire life. That is where I should have focused my energy all along.

The point of this post? Find what really excites you in life and work hard at it. Use your discipline to keep pushing through when things aren’t going right, and there will be many days like that, most of the days in fact.  Never give up. Keep working at it when there is no sign of success in sight. Don’t listen to others, listen to your heart. Your passion is a sign from the universe that you’re on the right path.

There are many many examples in history of people who worked themselves to the bone to launch wacky inventions into the world. One of the most famous is probably the flying machine. The Wright brothers must have been some kind of good crazy!

Why not you?  What is your good crazy? You have it in you, and only you can launch it into the world.

Then “nose to the grindstone” finally has a meaning that makes sense!

xo

Maria

P.S. I have some crazy cool ecourses you can check out HERE.

What will be on your tombstone?

 

tombstone

What will be on your tombstone?  Since we’re getting close to Halloween I thought it was a fitting title. It’s not all fun and games, but Halloween is sure fun.

Many self-help books actually use that question to get you thinking about your life.  My tombstone would read: Maria Greene was an inspiration. I can aspire to inspire, if not teach people. I think the only teaching that sticks is the one that people actually want, so  I won’t claim teaching as something I’m known for.

But I can inspire people to take a look and maybe stop and think for a few moments of what they stand for.  How many ever stop to take a look, though?  Those that do know there is more to life.

In a previous post I wrote about painting in the moment like children do. They make a mess and then they move on to something else, and they don’t care about the so-called quality of their work. What they did in the moment is enough. Same goes for animals. My cat lives totally in the moment all the time and all his reactions come from either love or fear. He’s a total love bug but there are many things that frighten him. However, he embraces those conditions fully.

Take a human. We very seldom really merge with the moment of now to be observant or feel what that moment has to offer. We rush from one thing to the next, but what significance does that kind of action  hold? How important are the things we are doing?  Do they matter in the long run?  Don’t you ever wish you’d had a deeper experience with someone or something in life? I often hear people voice regrets that they didn’t have more time with someone before they passed. That was a choice. Something else was more important.

So, I guess my offer of inspiration today is this: What is important to you and how much do you acknowledge that? Life is fleeting and if we don’t pursue the people and things that are important, what value does life have?  What moments did we lose because we weren’t present?

I often stand in front of that idea and realize that everything I do in this life is not that important. It’s not very satisfying. Most things leave me with the impression that this wasn’t “it.” Absorbing and fully living in the moment IS because that’s where everything happens.

To add value to life, de-clutter and remove useless habits, items, mindsets, and jobs in life so that you can say at the end that you really got something out of life. You chose from the things because you loved them, not because of some habit or some trend.  Choose love and you’ll be an all around better person for it.  Become one with the positive and blend into the real flow of life, finding magic in each moment. Spread goodness!

It’s the easiest yet the hardest thing to do, but heck it’s the only truly valuable and ultimately satisfying thing to do! (with practice.)  Forthwith, I hope to inspire you to take a look at that and live lightly like a child, moving fearlessly from one thing to another with confidence.

Love everything  you do and become one less problem in the world…

Along with you, I aspire to stay in the moment and truly experience life.  Beyond all the desires and needs lives peace!

A worthy cause for sure!

xo

Maria

P.S. I offer a few different e-courses on my other website. Free or affordable. Take a look HERE!