What a week! This week started the Art Every Day Month challenge and I've been having a blast. The journal page above was created digitally by scanning painted papers, a notebook, and an image. Photoshop is the best tool for layering. Meanwhile, the blog book group hosted by Jamie Ridler is on chapter 7, "Play" by Martha Beck. Once again I found myself unimpressed with the writing style but pulled out key ideas for further exploration. The idea of finding your "real" career by noting your reaction to a major tragedy is not really an indication of where to pursue your career as much as it is an indicator of where your core values lie. Understanding your core values is important as it underscores your happiness. For example, I'm service oriented so my desire to teach is in alignment with this core value. Pursuing a career in say selling products that I think have no value would make me miserable as it doesn't serve my customers well. I offer a great exercise in exploring your core values in my vision journal online workshop. While you may know what your core values are from your reactions to a tragedy, it doesn't tell you which career to pursue. This takes some more work and I share an exercise further down in this post that can help you if you are feeling stuck.
When I read about Beck's attempt at Tai Chi Chu'an I imagined a very awkward nervous, spastic woman trying to go with the flow. Her explanation of the Hungarian- American professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work was lacking. She doesn't really explain the work and goes off on a tangent. It was a matter of synchronicity when I was blog surfing not 24 hours after reading the chapter when I came upon an article by Owen Waters republished on Teesha Moore's blog about this very topic. As I read the article I kept saying, "Aha! This guy gets it and explains it better than I or Beck can." If you are intrigued by the topic of FLOW, creativity, synchronicity, and the like, I highly recommend reading the following blog post, CLICK HERE. You'll also see how to pronounce Csikszentmihalyi's name.
And while you are on Teesha's blog poke around to her recent posts as she offers some fabulous new videos demonstrating her unique journal style. I'm looking forward to playing some with her techniques this weekend.
I agree whole-heartedly with Beck on making play a priority in our lives. This week I started working through the book, "The Creative Entrepreneur" by Lisa Sonora Beam and you can see my first journal page HERE where I look at what has HEART + MEANING and the second page HERE is where I look at FLOW + PROFITABILITY.
One exercise that has served me well over the last 20 years is to write down three accomplishments in the last year. Write each one down on a separate piece of paper. These do not have to be work related accomplishments (i.e., buying a house, organizing a bake sale, setting up a new blog, etc.). Select accomplishments where you felt really jazzed. For each accomplishment answer the following:
What did I do?
What skills did I use? (Include hard skills like using Adobe Photoshop and soft skills like organization)
What did I like doing?
What did I dislike doing?
What was I commended on by others?
Now put your papers side-by-side and circle any repeating items. Notice your reaction as you compare and contrast your answers. You'll find some really good clues as to what you enjoy and where you will want to spend more of your time. All the while really notice what brings you joy, that heart beating, internal fireworks feeling.
A fellow Joy Dieter (I'm sorry I can't find the original comment!) left me a great suggestion. Whenever you feel joy, stand up, and spread out your arms and exclaim "Joy!" I loved this idea as it reminds me of my favorite character from the NBC show Heroes. Pictured above is Hiro a character who does just that only he exclaims, "Yata!" Which I believe translates as "I did it." I've been doing this only I haven't been as brave as Hiro, I've restrained myself a bit. I think I'm going to try it this week, be brave that is, in freely expressing myself and feeling the joy throughout my entire body.
I hope this week brings you many occasions to spread your arms and exclaim!
{soul hugs}
Kathryn Antyr, Collage Diva

Check out these links for more information and inspiration:
Jamie Ridler's The Next Chapter Blog Book Group: The Joy Diet
Creative Every Day