Tag Archives: trust

Trust and intuition

Trust and intuition go hand in hand. So many people think intuition is something “out there” or woo-woo, when in fact it’s a natural sense.

You can’t see or touch intuition, but you can perceive it.

I have done readings for the public for more than twenty years and I often get the question, “can you teach me how to use my intuition?” (For various reason: i.e. as in finding answers or make soul-centered choices.)

Fact is, you already have intuition built-in, and if you’re willing to slow down, go within, and listen, chances are you will feel it.

That’s where trust comes in.

Most people don’t trust their inner sense. As children we were taught to only rely on the outside world.

People lied to us and punished us if we didn’t obey or if we questioned too much. Fit in, by gum, or else!

Children are completely open to all levels until they shut down, which they will invariably do as they go through the system.

If a child can feel intuition, you can too!

  • practice sitting in silence. Make yourself comfortable with silence.
  • trust your “gut feeling.” Your body is an antenna and will never steer you wrong.
  • practice your intuition by running your issues or questions against your inner sense. Does it feel right or wrong? Act accordingly.
  • practice, practice, practice. There is no other way.
  • TRUST what you get and know it’s right. There will always be trial and error, but you get better the more you practice.
  • Make yourself at home in your inner sense.
  • You are the ultimate judge of what is best for you, based on your inner voice.
  • The more you listen, the clearer it will get.

People ask me about intuitive art since it’s something I enjoy making. I start without a plan or ulterior motive and move with the paint as each color strikes me.

Intuitive art is not always pretty, but there is always a message in the paint for me, just as in night dreams. They key is to be open to receive those subtle gifts.

trust and intuition

This painting is a good example. I painted several layers before I saw an eye staring at me. Around the eye, I built the rest of the face. It came out all crooked, but true to what it wanted to be.

The message to me is that maybe I’m out of alignment? I have felt side-tracked lately, by my own doing. If the issue stares me in the face I can get the hint to do something about it.

Intuitive art is authentic. It speaks of deeper layers of our existence. That’s why I have explored the expression for a long time.

I paint other things, and I love mixed media, but intuitive art is about ME and what the energy is trying to tell me.

Sometimes it prompts me to find more joy.

Since we are all connected, an intuitive painting can speak to others on a deep level too.

You are freer to make choices due to your intuition. It’s okay to weigh every pro and con, but what FEELS right? Go with the feeling.

There are many angles to the subject, but intuition is always very straight forward.

I’m using my intuition to get closer to Nature, the mystical inner workings of energy. Now that is an adventure! 🙂

I have some more blog posts that tie in to this: Your Inner Child….

Another: Intuitive art or structured art?

I also have an intuitive art e-course that you can check out. It was $55, now $29. Art As Oracle… 

Jump in at the deep end! 🙂

Have a great weekend.

xo

Maria

Needing validation

Needing validation is like breathing; it’s something we all do.  As artists it’s important to have someone say, “what a great painting,” or “I love your art” or “your art gives me a good feeling.”

We love comments like that whether they are honest or not. Validation makes your work worthwhile.

However, if you sense the compliments are not sincere, you start doubting your talent (again.) I assume we come from a place of doubting the art all the time. I know I do, except for a few times when I truly KNEW the paintings were great.

needing validation
validation

How does it all start?

As kids we had to find out if what we made was any good. I remember showing drawings to my dad, and thank goodness, he always said they were nice. I still remember that.

But I also remember the bullies in school who always tried to tear you down, especially if you’d done something good, like gotten an A on a test, created a beautiful painting or broken a school record of some sort.

To seek validation is like making sure we are alive.

If we didn’t get any validation who’s to say we even exist, right?

That’s a pretty deep question, but one place were we can find true validation is within. You can validate your worthiness through whatever physical aspect you use to express. Worthiness is a feeling inside.

When you feel good about something you did, that’s validation enough.

We are social creatures but do we need the false compliments that people hand out to be “nice?” I say thank you for every compliment, false or true. I’m not going to confront someone about their honesty.

So how do you get to a point where inner validation is enough?

You have to learn to trust yourself.

Trust is a sense that was beaten out of us since childhood. “Trust no one.” I remember I learned to keep secrets so as not to be punished I was four years old. It didn’t get any better through life until I realized I have give myself the gift of trust.

If I trust in me, I can trust the world. The secret is to grow the trust within so that the games of the world do not affect you.

Trust, like worthiness, is a soul feeling.

I have learned to trust more through forgiving others and most of all, myself, for having a low opinion of myself.

Make a list of people you need to forgive today. Truly forgive them for all they have done to you, and ask for forgiveness for your stuff. This can be done in silence, but you need to be sincere.

Life is so much easier, brighter, and filled with possibilities when the burden of guilt and shame is gone.

Through inner trust you can find true validation.

Forgive yourself for art that didn’t work out and try again, and again. Life is a journey, art a process.

Life itself is validation enough.

Fear and mistrust go hand in hand. I have another blog post that takes this further, What do you fear?

Make something fun today!

xo

Maria

P.S My etsy shop is stocked to the brim. 🙂 Sale coming up SOON! EarthandFaery

Trusting yourself?

Trusting yourself can be an iffy business. I can say that I do for the most part, but then something happens to make me doubt my choices as in “am I insane?” 🙂

It happens to all of us since we live in a society that does not promote trust. It actually promotes the opposite.

However, we have a choice.  If you have the insight that you’re your ultimate judge of what is best for you, you can cultivate trust and see it grow from within.

We seek validation from others. That’s something ingrained in every cell from childhood. It’s a revolutionary concept to know you can trust your own inner wisdom and act on it.

How do you do that? You decide to begin trusting yourself. The trust can show up as a gut feeling, a sense of right or wrong, a strong desire to NOT do something that others want you to do. Ask your body before you make a choice. It will tell you the truth.  You can tell the difference between avoidance and truth. It might take some practice.

It take guts to go against the grain.  It’s likely you will encounter resistance from others and yourself. The more you trust and see that you chose the right thing, the stronger the trust grows.

Then there is the spiritual insight: life is everlasting so there is nothing to fear. Trust is the very essence of life. A small child has nothing but trust until it’s taken away.

What does this have to do with art you ask.

In art making, do you look for validation from others? Is what you painted okay or do you trust your own process however difficult or stumbling it appears? 
mixed media

I made this mixed media art in 2015 and put it in my etsy shop for sale. It never sold, and upon critical review I decided that the big bird was not right. At the time I liked the art.

We change and so does the art. I decided to reuse the canvas so I covered the art work with lots of papers that I proceeded to paint.  I have come this far now but I’m filled with uncertainty.

mixed media art

Should I paint something popular like a mermaid or some cute primitive animals or….? An abstract maybe?

The mind jumps in with suggestions all the time. Play it safe. Paint what sells, be smart. MONETIZE!

That takes away a lot of individual choice, doesn’t it? I wrote about the wisdom of the body to create a while back. It all comes back to trust. Do you trust yourself to make the right paint choices or mixed media combinations?

Who cares? Is it a matter of life or death?

Screw it all up and start again. There are no right answers. The art will tell you via your “good feeling” if it hit the mark of something awesome.

I’d say 90% of my art never hits the “awesome” status. Awesome is when something unexpected appears that could only come from the deepest inner inspiration.  It is inexplicable yet unmistakable.

Every time I paint I wish for that genius to step forward. It takes a lot of patience and ruined canvases. It takes commitment. Hard traits to cultivate. It takes a lifetime (or more.)

However, I have traveled the path of creating art on canvas for a long while now so the trust is there. I cultivated it by showing up at the project.

Maybe this one will be AWESOME!

What are you creating today?

Have a great weekend.

Lots of love,

Maria

UPDATE: here is the video I created as I finished the art project above. VIDEO.

P.S. Check out my awesome  🙂 self-paced paper creating e-course. Lots of varied papers and ephemera and some art journaling spreads how-tos as well, about 9 videos. ONLY $24. LIFE’S SONG.

 

 

Wisdom of your body to create

Wisdom of your body… did you know your body has wisdom, that it knows how to create? It’s obvious it knows how to run a healthy body, and it is wise in how to use a hand automatically, but how does it create?

We could go into discussing nerve endings and muscle memory and other obscure stuff I know nothing about, but think about the energy that actually lifts the hand and moves the eyes to the palette on your table or easel.

hands
wisdom hands

Do you trust your body to do its stuff? Sure you do. You know it’s going to beat your heart automatically, and when you need to yawn, you yawn. We only question the action if we get sick.

To get back to the topic of energy. What is looking out of your eyes? What makes you choose a certain color on the palette? Who holds the brush in your hand?

It’s consciousness. If you have ever looked at the pictures from the cosmos that NASA puts out now and again, you realize there is a great consciousness in the cosmos that holds the order among every single star and planet. If there wasn’t order, the earth might bounce into the moon and so on.

In the mini cosmos of our body, there is a consciousness that moves YOU.  You have personal preferences. What makes you take a particular action might be a conscious choice, but without the energy behind it, you could not lift your hand to the brush.

hand
Wisdom hand

Can you trust that consciousness to paint a painting FOR you? To trust that the hand knows what it’s doing?

Most people have a problem with the trust since we’re totally conditioned to see art as a specific expression, and we also like to label the art as pretty or awesome or ugly.

How do you learn to trust? By doing. By allowing your body to guide you into spontaneous creativity. To see it in action. That is courageous creating.

It is stepping off the creative cliff without expectations. The fall might end up in a puddle of mud or on a soft gilded cloud. It is uncertain, just as life is uncertain.

The only way to grow the trust muscle is to actually use it, yes, just like at the gym! Sounds boring?  At the gym you usually know what the result will be if you pump iron, but with the creative process you have to engage the unknown. You might even meet a trickster or two…

However, if you can learn to trust the innate wisdom of your hands / body and let go of the inner critic even just for a minute or two, you will experience the magic of being the center of the cosmos.

You are a divine creator, so let’s not pretend to be less…

I’m going to be putting together an e-course on how to become more YOU and create art from a place of trust.

We think we know what is going to happen tomorrow, but truly we don’t, so everything we do is based on faith that the tomorrow that comes will bring the experience we planned. It usually does, but what if we are faced with the unplanned, the unknown, what happens then?

That is where body meets magic. Keep in touch. I will be posting more about this shortly.  Meanwhile, you can join my free 2017 art journaling journey. The March prompts are going strong right now. You can SIGN UP HERE.

Create something today…! 🙂

xo

Maria

Save

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??

questionmark

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.
rose
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:
DSCN2034
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!