Inner Wise Self, Part II
I attended two SARK retreats in June, one in Portland and another in Carmel. I felt joy and excitement before and during both of these retreats.
During the past nine months, I attended all of the online classes and in-person retreats. I filled two journals with notes and began shifting the ways in which I create my world.
I felt great, focused and excited about the process everyday … until I didn’t.
Anxiety rose up to meet me a week before the final retreat in Portland. I was shocked this was totally unexpected!
I turned to my watercolor paper and painted my anxiety while teaching my Hide-N-Seek painting method at a “Playshop” for the Hawai`i Watercolor Society on September 30th.
The painting began horizontally.
As my left arm circled the brush round and round, my right arm made the infinity symbol with the brush moving from left to right and back again. All the while I verbally and visually explained my inner feelings.
My left hand described my frustration with going over the same learning cycle, again and again, feeling stuck, seeing the same issues rising up over and over in my mind. (Remember the Onion from the last post?)
At the same time, my right hand explained my desire to break free of this cycle.
Step two of this painting process is the removal of texture, revealing the underpainting. It was then that a heart appeared, and I knew this painting would be vertical.
On the second day of the final SARK retreat, I watched in awe as Dr. Scott Mills drew out the exact structure of my fresh underpainting on the flip chart for the class.
Scott explained that it’s easy to get stuck in the seductive loop of learning and that it’s essential to break free from that loop so we do the work we’ve come here to do.
We need to use all of our learning
or we’re wasting everyone’s time.
Learning and Doing are parts of the infinity loop. One side feeds the other. If we get stuck on either side, we’re out of balance.
I’m committed to learn and evolve throughout the whole of my life. Now I have more tools with which to do my internal excavation.
The deeper I dig, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more questions I have and the more potential and possibility I find. And the more I have to give and share with others.
The world appears to be “out there”. Yet the VAST majority of it lies “in here” — within and for all of us.
That’s why I’m inviting you to join me for my first ever 7-Day Creative Cruise through the Hawaiian Islands, August 4–11, 2018.
Together we will Discover Paradise Inside and Out.
The official pre-launch is in December. Find out first by sending an email to me: Patrice@artofaloha.com. Please put cruise in the subject line so I’m sure to respond quickly.
I’ll share with you the processes I know to dig down deeper within and outside our selves, to hunt for and find the clues being left for us by our Inner Wise Selves.