Your ‘Practice’ Will Save Your Life

We all will face some crisis in life. “That’s why you practice”…Dali Llama

What’s your practice? What can you immerse your body, all your senses into, that pulls you out of grief, anger, denial, life changing events, even the stresses of everyday life? For some it’s meditation, the inner journey, the Breath, visualization, accented with incense, music, drumming, chanting, the ‘beads’, candles. Others find exercise, Yoga, hiking, swimming, skiing, running, dancing, walking, works out so many of life’s stressful moments. For some it’s journaling, but more than art therapy or catharsis, it must move you through the event, past the raw emotions, and transcend that pain into the deepest pure essence, the pure feeling of life. It’s the creative spirit of all the arts, using raw materials to create an original work, taking you to new levels.

For me, it’s immersing in creating art, a new painting, pastel, or ink. My practice begins by finding the inspiration in nature, magazines, and looking deeply into the world around me. It’s not waiting to be in the mood, but rather creative play, trying ‘what if’ ideas, experimenting with different media. I alter my original photos with Leonardo App colors, apply various artistic techniques with the Glaze App, and layer 2 images with Diana App. From there I work with the image in Clever Painter, which changes a photo into the look of a painting. Once I have something I love, I take the plunge by just wiping huge areas on the canvas with paint, pushing, spraying, swiping the colors, and going for that ‘hard’ new thing to create. It’s aiming for something more. It’s the scary ‘risk-taking’ that knows no limits, full of new potentials. I lose myself, as well a track of time, in what I choose to do.

A Practice finds the natural high, the deeply infused inner joy, the ‘playing with the puppy or kitten’ feeling. Each act almost becomes a ritual, with it’s own tools, clothing, and surroundings. A Practice gets you into the body, into all the senses, to create a physical shift that brings peace and puts you into the ‘zone’ of intuition. It creates mindfulness while taking you away from the ‘every day’ mind. Involving all the senses, it’s active in its conscious focus. A Practice is personal and it doesn’t give pain over to another to ‘fix’, in heaven or earth. It’s taking responsibility for your life, not allowing overwhelm to paralyze you, and seeking the joy. As the Dali Llama says, ‘That’s why you practice”.