Happy New Year! I’ll get to my 2018 phrase of the year soon. There’s a lot to share, so I’m just going to jump right in!
Lately I’ve been thinking more deeply about the spiritual, mindful, “woo woo” things I’ve been studying and practicing over the past few years. I’ve come to the conclusion that learning and doing these things have made me more me. I have grown a ton spiritually, mentally, and artistically. I’m learning how to find my way when I get off track by accessing my silent center much more often and more easily. I am blossoming! Blooming! Growing! Loving!
One of the things I’ve been reading about lately is the relationship between the heart and the brain. There’s an organization called HeartMath that’s been doing a lot of fascinating scientific research on the heart/brain connection in emotions, both personally and globally. It’s cool to see scientifically that there is a true, physical basis to sayings like “follow your heart”, “heart-centered”, “listen to your heart”, etc. I’m intrigued by the research about how our heart energy fields interact with others and the earth’s magnetic activity, and how global compassion energy fields can impact the world.
In a nutshell, our emotional energy can be sent out in waves from our heart into the world. And we all need to practice love and compassion now more than ever before.
If you want to learn more about the HeartMath Institute and their research, here’s a long, but interesting interview with Executive Vice President Howard Martin. NOTE: HEY! JEN COOPER! You should interview him on Hey, Jen Cooper!
Okay, enough about that (for today) and enough of me trying to boss Jen around about who she should talk to…moving on…
My 2018 phrase of the year is FROM WITHIN. I’m going to embrace heart-centered living personally and professionally.
In January 2017 I chose EARN as my word of the year. I was determined to “figure out” my art business. So, I dabbled – I sold original paintings, art prints, home, fashion, and stationery products, surface pattern and textile print designs. My art collaboration with Digital Kitchen launched. I was the first Artist Resident for the Creating Your Own Path podcast. I had two solo art shows. I partnered with Sarah Hurt at Seattle Art Source to represent my original abstract paintings to local interior designers.
Everything I tried worked…to some extent. However, overall, I didn’t invest enough of myself or my energy into any one thing to see how successful it could be.
Birthday Art Print by Melanie Biehle on Society6
Set The Tone, Sunshine Art Print by Melanie Biehle on Society6
Around June, I changed my word of the year from EARN to ALLOW. I wrote “ease” in small letters below it, as an additional reminder of how I wanted to live my life and run my business.
I felt like this change of course was a turning point in further accepting/believing that the Universe has my back. I didn’t want to “try” so much from an analytical standpoint any more. I wanted to see what flowed. But, as a visual artist with a background in psychology, marketing, and writing with lifelong (now “controlled”) anxiety issues, “analytical” isn’t going away. And that’s cool, because it’s a big part of who I am and it serves a purpose in my life. But the continuous practice of letting go of that part of me has been very beneficial.
At one point, around the end of September/beginning of October I was chatting with my wolf sisters (yes, that’s right… wolf sisters!) Jen and Caroline. I said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I’m just supposed to focus on painting?” Painting is what I love most. It’s where I find flow. Where time stops. Where I feel sensations and energy during the process.
We were all like, “Yes! That’s it! Just focus on painting!”
Not long after that, several painting-related projects came to me. Like, REALLY fast.
Like many of us at the end of 2017, I’ve been thinking about what’s next. How I want to show up in the world – for myself, my family, art, business, giving, education, EVERYTHING. How I want to be ME in my art. What I want to SHARE versus how I want to sell. Internal motivation/creation versus external.
FROM WITHIN.
This phrase encompasses a lot of the words and phrases that showed up in my brain dump – heart, heart-centered, real, pure, with heart, feeling, authentic, emotion, joy, alignment before action, flow, allow, ease, deliberate, intentional, from the inside out, intuition, open.
A lot of these words have to do with mental/heart energy and focus. You may be asking, so what does this mean, from a practical standpoint?
How will I live my life? What practices will I use?
- Gratitude – keeping a gratitude journal and consciously noticing things I am grateful for in the present moment.
- Presence – becoming even more aware of physical and mental distractions that are taking me away from the present moment.
- Meditation.
- Examining my negative emotions as an “observer” of the experience in order to understand where they are truly coming from. Note: Not BLOCKING the feeling. I believe it’s crucial to FEEL THE FEELINGS fully. It’s more about determining what’s really going on underneath the anger, snappishness, sadness, etc. I’ve already started exploring this a bit in my ongoing painting series, What Lies Beneath.
- Get up earlier for some AM alone time.
- Focus on love.
- Set the tone of my day every morning. And teach this skill to my son.
- Follow my intuition. Eg., Melanie, you are not a field trip mom. You are a yearly class art project mom.
- Live as a spirited artist. Be art. Share. Feel. E.g., Paint and share from the heart over “strategies”, “trends”, “what sells.” If necessary, question my motives – LISTEN to my intuition.
- Deliberately “build my audience” FROM THE HEART. Show up, interact with, and work with those whose ideas, values, personalities, interests, etc. HAVE MEANING TO ME.
- FEEL what my energy, my attitude, and my artwork is putting out into the world.
- Continue to learn and grow.
This is my plan.
What about you? Do you have a word or phrase for 2018? I’d love to hear what you’re working on. Share it with me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, or send me a good, old fashioned (ha!) email.
Wishing you much love and peace in the new year. Xoxo
Thank you for supporting my art and sharing my work.
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