I'm Learning How to Take Care of Myself

Learning how to take care of ourselves is actually an aspect of learning to love ourselves.  We often feel guilty about paying attention to our own wellbeing. We don't think about how this benefits everyone. However, our culture, with all its demands on our time and energy makes self care a challenge.  

I once heard a teacher talking about meditation to new students.  He said, "It's good to meditate about a half hour every day, but if you're really busy, meditate for one hour."   We all laughed, because, although he surprised us with his conclusion, we knew he was right.  Rather than taking time from our other activities, meditation, yoga and similar practices give us more energy and focus and allow us  to handle our responsibilities and demands in an economical way.  These practices lift the confusion that we can experience when we are stressed;  they clear the mind and make our efforts more productive, our decision making more natural and intuitive.  A lot of energy and time are wasted when we are stressed and confused.  I found this especially true while taking care of my daughter when she was young.  Because I meditated before she got up in the morning, I was able to be more available to her instead of being focused on my own unmet needs.  

Of course there are many other ways of taking care of ourselves:  diet, exercise, positive thinking, vacations, creative time, reading, taking courses, to name a few.  I wonder what our feline friend in red is learning about taking care of himself.  Any ideas?

Learning to Love Myself

I'm taking a tip from my cat Matisse, whom you see above in his blue period, and I'm learning to love myself.....again. I practice this, but it doesn't seem to stick for very long. It's easy to forget, when I get caught up in the tasks and responsibilities of everyday life, that I need to love myself even while doing all those seemingly ordinary things. And it can sound pretty silly at times, the idea that I need to practice loving myself. After all, who am I to think it's okay to love myself? Or to even think about it. Nobody told me to do that when I was growing up.  In fact, it was discouraged. Loving myself would make me become conceited, spoiled, and a snob with a swelled head and a big ego. Our culture tells us these things.  Unfortunately, I listened to the discouraging voices that had made a home in my head and I learned to doubt and berate myself whenever the opportunity arose.  

I know better now, but it's hard to change thought patterns that are very entrenched in the mind. Awareness is the key.  It is most easily developed through practices such as meditation, contemplation, prayer, yoga, or reading spiritual works. Through awareness, or being the Witness, it is possible to become an observer of the thoughts in the mind that are not beneficial to our happiness or growth as a human and spiritual being. This very witnessing of the mind is what can change negative habitual thinking into a more positive and uplifting experience.  It is a process, and not accomplished overnight, but the practice can create a transformation in every aspect of our lives. With the positive change in our thoughts comes a positive change in our feeling.  Our positive feeling has the capacity to hold love more fully than negative feeling.  The kind of love that I am talking about is not that which we get from circumstances outside of ourselves.  It comes welling up freely from within. 

  

I'm having a great time learning how to use layers in Photoshop Elements to help me create photos that tell more of a story. I shoot a lot of photographs of family, vacations, and especially nature, and I sometimes like to integrate these photos into my artwork. I've used Photoshop for a few years but had never been able to figure out the layers part. I bought the book Digital Expressions by Susan Tuttle a couple of months ago and decided to take her on-line course, Digital Layers. I'm in the middle of the course now and I'm loving it.

                                                                    Maine Houses by Cindy Silverstein

I did this painting of Maine Houses a few years ago and I wanted to add some more interest. I used a couple of artistic filters to add some age to the buildings and then a layer using a photo of some flowers that I had taken. I cannot give details of proceedures I'm learning in class, but I guarantee that Susan can take the mystery out of Layers for you! She offers several on-line classes in Photoshop on a regular basis.