Season 2 EP 11: Creating Slowly with Brian Serway
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Perfectionist in Recovery
Rest is a Creative Practice
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery and today I am sharing highlights from an amazing conversation that I had with a dear friend of mine and talented creative, Brian Serway, (you can check out his work here) but first - I want to take a second to say thank you!
Thank you so much for being here and joining me for this episode today. Thank you for supporting my work and for supporting the work I do for this podcast! I got some new feedback on the podcast this week and I am so grateful always for those of you that send over your thoughts about the podcast. In case you didn’t know, your feedback makes this podcast even better for you to listen to, so, please, send me all of the feedback! If you have some thoughts that you want to share about the podcast, send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.MarcyParksArt.com/PerfectionistinRecovery and submit your feedback through the feedback form at the bottom of the page. I am always looking to improve this podcast to meet your creative needs, so let me know what you think!
That being said, I want to hear from you! Do you have questions about things you have heard on the podcast? Do you want to hear a discussion about a specific topic? Let me know! Again, you can send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or you can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and submit your questions through the feedback form there at the bottom of the page. Again, go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and send me your thoughts! Let me know what you want to hear.
Now let’s get into it!
Transcripts Coming Soon
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 10: How to De-stress with Art Journaling
Listen Now!
Perfectionist in Recovery
How to De-stress with Art Journaling
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery and today I wanted to talk to you about how you can use art journaling as a way of de-stressing during this very stressful time. If you are a human on this planet, you know the past year and a half, going on two years now, has not been easy at all. Throughout this entire experience, so many emotions have been coming up like anxiety, fear, anger, and lots and lots of grief, so I wanted to share the practices that I have been leaning into in the past few months to help myself navigate through all the changes as well as all of those big emotions as they come up in hopes that they can do the same for you. Let’s go.
First things first, I wanted to take a second to say thank you!
Thank you for joining me here, for sharing your time while listening to this podcast, and for supporting my work! I am so grateful to those of you who have reached out to share your feedback with me - as I have said before and as those of you who have been long time listeners know, your feedback makes this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to! So if you have thoughts you want to share, questions you want answered, or topics you want to hear discussed on the podcast, go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and submit your feedback there! If you love the podcast and want to continue to show your support of this work, like, follow, subscribe, share - all the things - and leave a review! Reviews are the best way to support the growth of this podcast.
Otherwise, for those of you who have already done all of those things, thank you!
Now, let’s get into it!
On this episode today, I wanted to talk a little bit about my art journaling practice, which I have been leaning fully into lately, what it looks like, and how a similar practice as part of a daily, or even weekly, routine can help you to de-stress and find some clarity in the madness that we are living through.
Content warning: I am going to be talking about the pandemic, so if you are done hearing about it, or need a mental break away from it, you may want to skip ahead.
So I have been chatting with some friends about, well, life, and a common theme that I am hearing everyone share is this level of exhaustion that we all seem to be experiencing. Everyone I know, including myself, is hitting a wall. If you’re like me, this probably isn’t even the first time you're hitting that wall in the past year. It might be more like the third or fourth wall you have hit and have worked around. Or maybe you've hit the wall and just stayed there this whole time. Either way, you’re not alone in your experience.
The pandemic is ramping up again and even for the most adaptable, optimistic people I know, this brings a level of stress and anxiety to their day. And I think that can be said about everyone.
But, lately, I have been thinking about and also talking with friends about what the long term effects of living through the pandemic will look like in our brains and bodies. One thing I can definitely say is that my brain just doesn’t work the same. I mean, don’t get me wrong, becoming a mother definitely impacted my memory, but going on two years now of pandemic life and the stress that comes with all of it has definitely changed some things. It seems like every other week I have serious brain fog that makes it hard for me to orient myself in my life.
If you have been watching or following the Olympics, you have heard about gymnast Simone Biles stepping back from competition for her mental health. She later shared on her instagram stories that she has been struggling with the “twisties” which is this sensation gymnasts, and I imagine divers also, experience where their body feels disconnected from their mind and they have a hard time orienting themselves to where they are when they are hurtling through the air.
This is problematic because, for gymnasts, not being able to sense where you are and landing the wrong way could mean paralysis, or worse.
The brain fog I have been feeling feels a lot like this. Although, for Simone, she feels like this when flying through the air at a higher rate of speed. For me, it feels more like I am floating in an ocean that is covered with fog and I don’t really know where I am or what I need to be doing. Actually, I know what I need to do, because my to-do list stays forever long, but I can’t actually get started doing anything. The brain fog I feel just makes me feel… adrift. Almost every other week I will feel this way.
Not to mention, in addition to this brain fog are these interruptions of grief that always surprise me. I didn’t realize how much grief would come with going back to work and navigating all the changes that came with that transition, in addition to grieving all that has been lost and changed in the past year.
I share all of this because I want to assure anyone else out there feeling this way that you are absolutely not alone. You are not crazy, or weird, or anything else. You are a human being living through a truly wild experience.
I also wanted to share this because I have found that my art journaling practice is what is really helping me to get my feet back on solid ground. I’ve had to let a few things shift to the back burner for a little while, like this podcast and keeping up on social media, in order to prioritize my art practice, so if you have missed me sharing here as regularly or on IG, that is why!
But I want to share the steps of my art journaling practice so that you can try this out at home for yourself to get reoriented to your space anytime you feel out of sorts. You can do this daily or weekly as needed.
To de-stress with an art journaling practice, set aside some time on a day to do the following for yourself:
Get into your body:
Brain fog leaves me feeling disconnected from myself. There were definitely days where I could not get it together and would just veg out watching netflix, or some other avoidant behavior, but that only delayed me finding a point of clarity. What started to turn things around for me was getting reconnected to my physical body. There are so many ways you can do this, but here are a few things I did:
Walk - get outside for daily walks!
Breathe - taking a few minutes to breathe deliberately or listen to one of the meditations on this podcast
Get a Massage - if you are vaccinated and have the available funds to book yourself a massage, I can’t encourage this enough.
Write it down:
Journaling. I don’t even have to say it, but I am. Y’all already know. Journaling, journaling, journaling. Take some time either on your computer or with your journal and just write things down. Make lists, write down your feelings, write whatever is on your mind even if there is not much there, just write it down!
Paint it out:
You don’t have to paint, you can also color. If markers and crayons are all you have handy, use those. Only have pens and pencils lying around? No problem, they are perfect, too. Use whatever is on hand and easy for you to set up (because if it is not easy to use, you won't do it!). Either in your journal on top of what you wrote (unless it is important lists you need to remember), or on another surface, get out your supplies and paint or color or scribble whatever it is you wrote about. If you made lists, maybe paint or draw the items on your list - don’t worry if you can’t draw. This is not a graded activity, it is not about making a masterpiece for people to see, this is about getting stress out of your body. If you wrote about your feelings, paint, color, or scribble what those feelings look like to you. Maybe it is just a big scribbly mess, or maybe it is just a solid black page, whatever it looks like is exactly what it is supposed to look like. Again, this is not about making something to be seen, it is about getting what is inside of you on the outside.
These are the steps I have been deliberately taking a few times a week to help keep myself grounded through all the changes and disruptions this year has brought. I hope that this practice helps you to get back into your body and find some relief as well.
And if you would like a journaling prompt to get you started journaling:
Journal Prompt:
How are you feeling?
Take some time to write about how you are feeling, maybe 15 minutes or so, then take a second to close your eyes and feel those feelings in your body, and then write about what those feelings feel like in your body.
Otherwise, that’s all I have for you today! Until next time, friends!
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 9: Two Kid-Friendly Meditations to Try at Home
Listen Now!
Perfectionist in Recovery
Two Kid-Friendly Meditations to Try at Home
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery.
On today’s episode I wanted to share two kid-friendly meditations to practice with your little ones (that are also fun for adults to do, too), but first - I want to take a second and thank you so much for being here and for supporting this podcast! I love producing this podcast and it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without other people to share it with, so thank you for being here. If you are enjoying this podcast and would like to show your support for my work, then please, leave a review for the podcast! Reviews are the best way to support the growth and success of the podcast. You can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and find links to leave a review at the bottom of the page. In fact, it is in that same place where you can also send me your feedback about the podcast! As I have said before, your feedback makes this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to, so please, let me know what you think! Let me know if there are specific questions you have, episodes that have helped you, or if you have any questions you want answered! So go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery to leave a review and send me your feedback.
Now for our meditation today, I have two different meditations to practice that are kid-friendly (and pretty fun for adults, too) that I wanted to share with you!
So one of the two meditations I am sharing with you today is from the kid’s book Breathe Like a Bear, and the other is from the kid-friendly meditation app, Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids, I recently shared in My Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps blog post that you can find on my website. And just in case you were wondering, no, this is not a sponsored post! These are truly just books and meditation apps that I love and enjoy and have found to be really helpful and I wanted to share them for anyone with littles that are interested in teaching their children about mindfulness and giving them tools to help regulate their emotions.
I have shared a meditation from the Breathe Like a Bear book before that Searsha and I do on occasion and we both enjoy it.
The first is the Hot Chocolate Breath from the Breathe Like a Bear book. To practice this meditation, pretend that you have a steaming hot cup of hot chocolate and you have to cool it off before actually drinking it. For a few rounds, you and your little one can practice taking deep breaths in and then blowing on your cup of hot chocolate to cool it off, just like you would do in real life. Then, after 3 or 4 rounds of taking deep breaths and blowing on your hot chocolate, you can then start to pretend to drink the hot chocolate. So at this point, you would bring your invisible cup to your lips and take a deep, long sip of your hot chocolate as your inhale, then on your exhale say “MMMMMMMM…” For the next 3 to 4 breaths, you can then sip your hot chocolate and say “MMMMMM…” as you breathe out.
This was the first breathing practice Searsha and I really tried together. Every now and then I will ask her if she wants to do some hot chocolate breathing with me. There are times when she says no, that she doesn’t want to do it, or isn’t in the mood to do it, so I don’t push her, but it is something that I do try to incorporate into our routine so that it is a familiar practice to her.
The second breathing exercise is from the Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app that I shared in my blog post about My Top Three Favorite Meditations apps. This breathing exercise and meditation is Smell the Roses, Blow out the Candle.
For this practice, you and your little one will each hold up your index finger in front of your face pretending that they are roses. You can even have a little fun talking about what color the roses are, being mindful of the thorns on the rose, and what they might smell like. Then, holding your index fingers to your nose, you will take a deep breath in pretending to smell the rose. You can do a few rounds of breathing just pretending to smell the rose to start. After a few rounds of getting used to taking deep breaths in to smell the rose, you will pretend that your index finger is then a candle. Once again, you can have some fun visualizing the candle, talking about the color of the candle and even the flame of the candle. Then, you will practice taking a deep breath in and holding your index finger to your mouth to blow out the candle. Take some time to practice blowing out the candle, first with the intention of blowing out forcefully to blow the flame of the candle out, like you would with candles on a birthday cake, but then, after a few forceful, flame extinguishing breaths, practice blowing out slowly so as not to disturb the flame of the candle.
Once you have practiced blowing out slowly with control in order to not blow out the candle, start to combine the two practices together. Holding your finger up to your nose, take a deep breath in to smell the rose, then holding your finger to your mouth, slowly breathe out to blow the flame of the candle without blowing it out.
Then, on the last round, you can finish up by blowing out the candle!
So those are two kid-friendly meditation activities you can introduce to your little ones to start getting them acquainted with mindfulness and meditation. It might be a fun bedtime activity to introduce into your bedtime routines, or even something to try out after a meltdown or a stressful event to help your little one process the emotions afterwards. However you decide to practice it, let me know! Let me know what your little one thinks and if they enjoy the practice.
Otherwise, I hope these practices serve you well. Thank you for being here!
Until next time, friends!
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 8: Rest is a Creative Practice
Listen Now!
Perfectionist in Recovery
Rest is a Creative Practice
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery and today I am sharing highlights from an amazing conversation that I had with a dear friend of mine and talented creative, Jocelyn Mathewes, but first - I want to take a second to say thank you!
Thank you so much for being here and joining me for this episode today. Thank you for supporting my work and for supporting the work I do for this podcast! I got some new feedback on the podcast this week and I am so grateful always for those of you that send over your thoughts about the podcast. In case you didn’t know, your feedback makes this podcast even better for you to listen to, so, please, send me all of the feedback! If you have some thoughts that you want to share about the podcast, send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.MarcyParksArt.com/PerfectionistinRecovery and submit your feedback through the feedback form at the bottom of the page. I am always looking to improve this podcast to meet your creative needs, so let me know what you think!
That being said, I want to hear from you! Do you have questions about things you have heard on the podcast? Do you want to hear a discussion about a specific topic? Let me know! Again, you can send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or you can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and submit your questions through the feedback form there at the bottom of the page. Again, go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and send me your thoughts! Let me know what you want to hear.
Now let’s get into it!
Transcripts Coming Soon
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 7: 5 Steps to Overcome Fear and Get Started
Listen Now!
Perfectionist in Recovery
5 Steps to Overcome Fear and Get Started
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery and today I wanted to talk about overcoming fear in order to get started, but first - I want to take a second to say thank you!
Thank you so much for being here and joining me for this episode today. Thank you for supporting my work and for supporting the work I do for this podcast! I got some new feedback on the podcast this week and I am so grateful always for those of you that send over your thoughts about the podcast. In case you didn’t know, your feedback makes this podcast even better for you to listen to, so, please, send me all of the feedback! If you have some thoughts that you want to share about the podcast, send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or go to my website at www.MarcyParksArt.com/PerfectionistinRecovery and submit your feedback through the feedback form at the bottom of the page. I am always looking to improve this podcast to meet your creative needs, so let me know what you think!
That being said, I want to hear from you! Do you have questions about things you have heard on the podcast? Do you want to hear a discussion about a specific topic? Let me know! Again, you can send me a message on instagram at @MarcyParksArt or you can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and submit your questions through the feedback form there at the bottom of the page. Again, go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and send me your thoughts! Let me know what you want to hear.
Now let’s get into it!
Today I want to talk about fear and 5 steps to take to move through it in order to get started.
So, once upon a time when I was in my late teens and early twenties in college, I went through a period where I did not make any art at all.
If you are a long time listener of the podcast, you've probably already heard this story, but for those of you that are new here, I will share it again. When I was in high school, I was very artistic, loved art, loved making art. The art I made back then, though, is much different from what I currently make. Back then, my work was much more focused on realism and capturing scenes and people and objects with detailed accuracy. Abstract art was foreign to me and made little-to-no sense.
Anyway, I wanted to pursue art in college, but couldn't afford to go, so instead I went to college where I had a swimming and academic scholarship.
For the time I was in college, I did not make art at all. There just wasn't time for it. My creative impulses were still being met because I was studying English and I love reading and writing, but as far as the art that I knew and loved making before, that was gone. People that knew me would ask me about my art all the time, but being a full time college athlete was a really good excuse for not having any time to paint.
Until one day. It was during the summer when I had no other obligations, other than work. For whatever reason, maybe because I was super into Romanticism and literature of the 19th century, I wanted to recreate this portrait of a princess by a French painter. If you want to know what painting I am talking about, look up the artist Ingres and his painting of the Princess de Broglie. What drew me to this painting was how luminescent the material of the princess's gown was and the satin on the chair. I became obsessed with the way he captured the material of her clothes, silk? Organza? I have no idea, but it is absolutely gorgeous.
And my intention with the painting was not to recreate the whole portrait. I really wanted to focus my painting on the section where her hand is sort of draped over the back of the chair and really zooming in on the the lace of here sleeves, the fabric of her dress and the fabric of the chair because I was so obsessed with how delicate her clothes looked and the way they seemed to glow and I wanted to be able to do that.
But the real reason I was only focusing on this area of the painting was because I was already so intimidated to even try recreating it. Fear was present the moment I saw the original portrait. I immediately started comparing myself and my abilities to the abilities of this WORLD RENOWNED ARTIST whose work has lasted CENTURIES. Could I replicate what he did? Would I be able to achieve my goal? Was I good enough? What if my painting sucks? What if my painting sucks and people SEE IT?
But at that point I wasn’t aware of what those thoughts were really indicating. I wasn’t conscious of the root of those thoughts, or what their impact on my creativity really was, or how they were impacting me in any other part of my life really.
Now, at that time in my life, those thoughts alone would have probably been enough to deter me from pressing forward, but it had been so long since I had painted and I truly was so ready to do it again, I persisted. I persisted, but still with a hesitation.
My priority was to recreate that luminescent quality the painting had, and I wanted to get it just right, right? So I watched some youtube videos, which is how I learned about the technique of underpainting, and learned about the concept of “value” in paintings. Then, I went out and bought supplies. I started the sketch of the outline on the canvas. I even went so far as starting the underpainting and mapping out the values (the light and dark areas) of the painting.
Then I realized that the values were a little too dark. I went back to correct them, and they were still too dark. It started to get hard, and I was getting frustrated.
And then I quit!
That painting sat unfinished, black and white and gray, for MONTHS. I left it out for a while thinking I would come back to it and finish it later, but it just kept going on, unfinished, and the longer I went without trying again the harder it got to try again. And then one day, a little over a year later, I just threw it away.
What I didn’t realize at the time, but have come to understand now, is that fear drives a lot of perfectionism and my fear of not being perfect at something was a big reason I never finished that painting - and also a big reason I would go on to not paint again for even longer.
And the fears can be many - fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of getting something wrong, etc. - but when it comes to perfectionism, there is an avoidance that can happen as we try to avoid confronting that fear. We avoid putting ourselves in the position of being new at something, we avoid approaching that person, we avoid finishing the painting.
It has taken me a long time to learn how to move through that fear and to allow myself to be new at something, to be bad at something, to get things wrong. Honestly, I wouldn’t even say I am good at moving through that fear now! Ha! I still struggle with it so much - in fact, I started a new painting this week. I haven’t painted in months, but this week I finally started one and before I got started I had all those same thoughts again. What if it sucks? What if I suck? What if someone sees that I suck?!
And not only did I start a new painting this week, I also have been Live Streaming the process on my instagram - another new thing that also makes me super uncomfortable because if the painting sucks, people will DEFINITELY see it sucks then! Lol
But at this point in my life, I am so familiar with those questions and those voices and that fear that I have steps that I take to help myself move beyond the fear and not only get started, but to actually finish what I start, also.
So today, I want to share those steps with you!
Acknowledge Your Fear
Fear is totally normal! It is completely normal to feel afraid when trying new things, OR even doing things that you are familiar with! Fear is not a bad emotion, it is just your body’s way of telling you that what you are doing is brave.
2. Give Yourself a Pep Talk
Reframe the experience in your mind and recognize that starting anything new is a learning opportunity filled with possibility! Remind yourself that failure is just feedback and does not define you. Give yourself permission to be a beginner, even when you are a seasoned pro.
3. Set Boundaries
This is a big one! Set boundaries around your action or activity. Leading up to starting my new painting this week, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by just how monumental the task seemed - getting to a finished painting, so I set some boundaries around my time that made it feel manageable. On these three days, for one hour each day, I will work on my painting. That’s it. Depending on what you are working on or wanting to start, this can all look very different, but it might mean setting boundaries around how many days a week you will work, how much time you are going to spend, who you are going to share information with.
4. Start Small
Starting small might look like telling someone you trust what you are thinking about doing or trying. It could also look like going out and buying new supplies, signing up for the class, or sending the email you have been putting off. This week before starting a new painting, my small steps were mixing up colors for fun. I found so much inspiration in just mixing colors that by the end I wasn’t even scared anymore and I was ready to get started painting! Depending on what it is that you are afraid of doing this step will vary, but just think about what is the smallest step forward you can take towards getting started and do that. It is easy to build up momentum once you take those baby steps.
5. Do it Scared
I feel like this is such a cliche at this point, but it is so true. Bravery isn’t about never being scared, it is about doing things even when you are scared. I have already said previously, but I will say it again, I still get scared with every painting. It never goes away! Maybe it will one day when I am 60 or 70 and I have reached peak DGAF mode, but right now, I am still full of fear, but I do it anyway.
And what I hope you find is that once you get started and find a rhythm to your work, the voice of fear gets so much quieter and harder to hear.
Journaling Prompt:
What is something you have always wanted to do, but have never done?
Why have you never started?
What are some boundaries you can set and small steps you can take to get started?
For anyone listening today, I hope you don’t stay stuck in fear! Take the leap, and do the thing. Done is better than perfect.
Until next time, friends!
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 6: Busy Mind Guided Meditation
Listen Now!
Perfectionist in Recovery
Busy Mind Guided Meditation
Hello and welcome back to the perfectionist in recovery podcast. Today is meditation day! I have shared on this podcast before how beneficial a meditation practice can be to maintain a creative practice and keep us connected to our own internal voice. I like to share meditations regularly on this podcast for anyone who would like to start a meditation practice, but isn’t really sure where to begin, or for anyone who needs a little guidance. The reason that I think meditation is so beneficial for creatives specifically is because as a creative person, we spend a lot of time in our heads and that can get a little overwhelming sometimes, especially if your creative energy starts to spiral into anxiety. Meditation, however, is a way to help us get back into our bodies, and when we are grounded and connected to our bodies we can actually take action to channel all of those ideas as they swell up in our brains. Not to mention, there are LOADS of health benefits to meditation, but specifically for creatives, it can be a useful tool for keeping us grounded so we can actually create.
And if you are not into the meditations, well, just pretend like they don’t happen! Lol
But if you are enjoying dipping your toes into meditation and would like to explore more, I wanted to share with you my top three favorite meditation apps, so I made a blog post sharing just that! If you go to my blog at www.marcyparksart.com/new-blog, you will find my Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps! I promise, this is not a sponsored post, these are just the apps that I use personally and love and I wanted to share them for anyone who is interested in developing a deeper meditation practice.
Now, for our practice today!
Today’s meditation is intended to help settle a busy mind. Now, there is no way to force your mind into stillness, but there is a way to be a better witness and observer of what your mind is doing the stories it loves to tell you.
To practice at home:
First find a comfortable position for your body. You are welcome to sit up right or lie down. If you are feeling more tired and needing more support at the moment, come to lie down in a comfortable position. Make sure you have good padding underneath you wherever you need support. You can pause this recording for a moment to take some time to get yourself comfortable and then come back when you are settled in and ready.
Sometimes, if the mind is really busy, we can settle it down by actually moving our bodies. If you are lying down, this might just be rolling your wrists and ankles, maybe even turning your head side to side. IF you are seated or lying down, maybe roll your wrists out a little, slowly and gently, then make fists with your hands, then relax them, and do that a couple of times. If you are seated upright, you can start to roll your neck, making gentle and slow circles with your head - first letting your chin fall to your chest, then rolling one ear to one shoulder, then the other ear to the other shoulder, and if it feels comfortable, even letting your head roll back and your throat open up. You can even coordinate this movement with your breath. Exhaling chin to chest, inhaling one ear to one shoulder, exhaling chin to chest, inhaling your ear to the other shoulder. Do what feels good, but take a few moments and feel into these movements, whatever you choose to do. Feel into your body.
But now, feel the back of your neck lengthen. Feel your shoulder blades flatten and smooth down against your upper back. Feel your chest, broad and open. Feel your chest swell on an inhale. Feel the whole barrel of your chest, top, bottom, front, and back, all parts swell as you breathe in deeply, then soften as you exhale.
Take a moment to take 3 full deep breaths in this way.
Now return to your natural, easy breath.
See if you can keep your awareness on your natural breath, still.
Feel the coolness of the inhale and the warmth of the exhale.
To help keep your attention focused on your breath, maybe even start to say to yourself, silently, “Breathing in” as you inhale and “breathing out” as you exhale.
And anytime your mind starts to wander off, which it will, just notice and bring your attention back to repeating your mantra - “breathing in” as you breathe in and “breathing out” as you breathe out.
And if your mind gets caught up in a fantasy, or dream, or memory, just take note of what it is your mind is reaching for, and without any judgement or condemnation, come back to the breath.
“Breathing in” and
“Breathing out.”
Take note of any feelings or sense of urgency around the thoughts that captivate your attention. Take note of how enticing they are, or how fascinated you are by them, then, come back to the breath.
“Breathing in” and
“Breathing out.”
And then, let all of that go. Let go of your mantra.
Just feel your body for a moment. Feel the room that you are in, feel the temperature of the room, feel the temperature of your skin. Notice how you feel in this room, in this position that you are in.
Then slowly, transition back out of the meditation.
And as you integrate back into your day, take with you this understanding of your mind and your thoughts and how captivating they really are. Take care today to notice your thoughts and what thoughts are pulling your attention away and which of those thoughts have anything to do with the present moment. And when you can, remind yourself that you are breathing in and you are breathing out.
Thank you so much for meditating with me. Until next time.
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 5: Finding Joy in Creating with Richard Graves
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Perfectionist in Recovery
Finding Joy in Creating with Richard Graves
I had a great conversation with guest speaker and fellow artist-friend of mine, Richard Graves, from Abingdon Virginia about his creative practice, making room for joy in his creative practice, managing perfectionism, and his passion for youth engagement in the arts. This conversation was LOADED with goodness, so I saved some of the highlights for you below! Enjoy.
Connect with Richard on social media!
www.facebook.com/richardgravesart
www.instagram.com/serpounce
“I try to be really mindful of separating the art from the business side of it. I need to have time where I'm working on art just for art's sake and just for myself.”
-Richard Graves
Working as a full time artist, Richard describes his experience of developing a rhythm of working and how a necessary element of that rhythm is making space for him to make art for art’s sake - not with the intention of sharing it.
“I have a sketchbook where if I'm working in that sketchbook, unless something's just a complete home run, it stays in the sketchbook or it's not something that I'm going to sell, but it's something that I'm doing for myself and for my own creative practice.”
-Richard Graves
“I'm trying to remember that the validity of the art has nothing to do with how it's received or where it goes on a show or what type of feedback it gets.”
-Richard Graves
I really appreciated this reminder from Richard about the validity of art and its true value.
Speaking about Play in his art practice and his passion for youth engagement in the arts:
“There are times where I'm burnt out and I don't feel like doing anything and just making marks on paper and color on paper and mixing colors and playing. I think there's kind of that really great joy in that.”
-Richard Graves
“I love youth engagement with art. I love working with younger artists and kids and seeing how they approach it without thinking of all the tips and tools and all the things that you collect for your tool belt as an artist. It’s more forgetting about all of that and just having fun.”
-Richard Graves
“I have a four or five year old niece at the time, and she was showing some pictures to her grandfather, and I was in the room and they’re at that age where everything is silly, we call this silly and that's silly. And the grandfather looked at her picture and said, ‘Oh, I love this, but the sky is pink. That's so silly.’ And she got very, very serious and said, ‘No, Richard's an artist, and he said the sky could be whatever color I want it to be!’ That is one of my proudest moments, but it's also something that I want to remember myself.”
-Richard Graves
Speaking on the role art plays in his life:
“Art is how I digest feelings. That's how I feel most comfortable communicating with the world. It's where I feel the biggest, strongest connection with other people and with my community.”
-Richard Graves
“There's been plenty of times I've been painting something and I think about what's been going on in my life as I look at it, and I'm saying, ‘oh, this is very much that.’”
-Richard Graves
Speaking on how he fuels his creative practice:
“One big one, big activity that's been kind of a godsend for me, especially in the last five years, is yoga. I'm very much a go, go, go person and being able to kind of center myself and slow down like I see yoga as having a huge explicit connection with with the art of painting and drawing.”
-Richard Graves
“Taking time to appreciate and support other artists. I think being influenced by the community, and particularly the arts community, is very important to me. I try to make a point to go out and see other people's shows and to keep up with with artists that inspire me and the larger community. Being engaged in the arts in a broader sense helps encourage and focus me for when I get into the room alone to start the process of creating.”
-Richard Graves
Speaking on how he manages Perfectionism:
“I don't have those voices of being self-critical while I'm creating. I think once I'm in the flow. . . I'm feeling very present. I often get those voices before and after. It's before when I have to narrow down my decisions of what paint am I using, what colors, you know, the design, who's the intended audience - all those decisions pile up ahead of time. That's when I'm getting kind of the most self-critical, self-conscious, a little too self-aware in the bad way. Then it happens afterwards when it's like, ‘oh, will this sell?’ But the actual process of creating, for the most part, with a few exceptions, once I get going, I'm good to go. And it's kind of having to remind myself... I know how to do this. I've done this before. I might be taking a different approach or trying something new this time, but it's like if I sit down and start working, kind of clear those voices for a second, I can kind of work through it and find those periods of joy.”
-Richard Graves
Connect with Richard on social media! Check him out at www.instagram.com/serpounce or https://www.facebook.com/Richardgravesart
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!
Season 2 EP 1: Welcome Back!
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Perfectionist in Recovery
Welcome Back!
Welcome Back!
Hello and Welcome to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast. My name is Marcy Parks and I am a Perfectionist in Recovery.
Welcome back to the podcast! It has been a long, but needed break since our last season, but I am excited and ready to be back sharing with you here in this space. This season I am planning to have more guest speakers on the podcast sharing about their creative practices and the role that their creative practice plays in their life and what that looks like. Some of those speakers will be artists making a living off of their artwork, some of those speakers will be professionals in the corporate world whose creative practice is their refuge, but in every conversation I hope you are able to find and connect with a story that sounds familiar to your own.
That being said, I will still be sharing meditations and my own musings on creativity in between. I am still going to be hounding you about starting a journaling practice if you haven’t already, but not judging you if you’ve fallen off the wagon or don’t have the energy to start one either. I hope it goes without saying, but in case it doesn’t, I will say it anyway, I want this space to be a resource of comfort, inspiration, and connection. I never want anyone listening to this podcast to feel guilt or shame for not having the time, energy, or resources to commit to their creative practice. There are seasons for everything and it is completely normal to move into a season where creative motivation and inspiration runs dry.
Speaking of seasons, I thought I would take a moment to catch up on what has been going on behind the scenes during this break. We all know that 2020 was one, long, challenging season for everyone on every level. Following the conclusion of the first season of this podcast last year, I hit a pretty hard wall of burnout and fatigue that led to me taking a long break to try and rest, but my inner perfectionist has a really strong, negative reaction to rest that can make it hard to actually do so. I recently completed a new collection of work titled “Winter” speaking specifically to this tension - the tension of being in a season that calls for rest, the frustrated reluctance of actually wanting to rest, and the transformation that takes place when we are actually deliberate about rest. The collection was inspired by the literal season of winter, but is more about the winter seasons of life.
Winter is a season that forces us to rest. We lose daylight, it gets colder outside, and rest becomes an essential part of our survival of the season. All non-essential functions and tasks are reduced in order to better our chances of surviving the season. My collection was speaking to this feeling - the feeling when you are in a season of life that is demanding you take rest. Whether it is a pandemic causing a global shut down, or your body shutting down on you, there is a clear message that it is time for you to stop doing and slow down, whether you like it or not.
I am been feeling this so much within myself in the last few months - an intense push to slow down, to stop, and to find joy where I can, so that is where my focus has shifted recently. Right now I am just trying to be deliberate in what I give my energy and attention to and taking care to spend time with my family. Searsha, my daughter, will be four this year and time with her right now is my priority. I gain so much inspiration from watching her grow more and more independent and interacting with her world. Just this morning I was watching her coloring on her own chalkboard and it was so much fun to watch the ways in which she would be coloring wildly one minute and then very deliberate and very intentional in the marks she was making the next. That same freedom and play that she brings to everything she creates is exactly what I hope to one day find and translate through my own work.
In the meantime, I am back to doing the practices that I know fuel and support my creative practice. I am journaling, meditating, practicing yoga, and making time to connect with the people that inspire me the most. Right now I am binging every episode of The Creative Pep Talk podcast with Andy J. Pizza. It is an incredible resource and I love it SO MUCH! Definitely check that out. But other than that, I am back to sharing with you here every week! I am glad to be back in the conversation around creativity and finding inspiration in your daily life. Tune in next week to hear from one of my most favorite makers from my area, Jason Flack! You can find him on instagram at www.instagram.com/artbyjasonflack . Jay is such a fun person to talk to, he is so passionate about art and bringing the community together through art and I love that about him, but he is also just a really amazing human being and I was so inspired by his passion and enthusiasm! Tune back in next week on Friday at 12 PM to hear from him.
Journaling Prompt:
For now, maybe just take some time today for yourself to just write down anything and everything that is on your mind and treat it like you are wiping the slate clean, turning a new page, starting fresh. Just get it all out of your head and on to paper so you can just let it all go.
Until next time.
Ready to take the first step in your creative recovery?
If you enjoyed the episode, LEAVE A REVIEW!
My dream is to help more people connect with their creative identities and embrace themselves as a whole, messy human, and as it turns out, leaving a review on iTunes helps me to do just that!
So thank you in advance for leaving your review and helping me to connect more people with their inner artists!