Opinions

How often do you listen to opinions that don't really matter?

How often do you take on things that other people - people who shouldn't hold any sway with you - say about you?

Why do you care about what the woman at the school gates whispers to her friend before they both look at you and smother a laugh?

We shouldn't, but we do.

In my latest spread in the 'From brain to veins' journal, I remind myself that there are very few opinions that should really matter to me. In reality, the only opinions of me that matter are those of God, my husband, and my daughter. The opinions of others don't affect me unless I let them.

Why should I care if so-and-so doesn't like me? If I can stand with a clear conscience before God, my husband, and my daughter, that is enough.

But I need to be reminded of that when my skin becomes a little thin.

More adventures out of the journal

Continuing on my adventures out of the journal and on to canvas. This is the largest canvas I've worked on so far. It is 76 x 61 cm (that's 30 x 24in for my American friends). I approached it in exactly the same way as I would a journal page. There is under collage, stencilling, gelli-printing, removing paint with baby-wipes, applications of paint with fingers and shaping tools. The only thing it doesn't have is journalling.

I've been adding to it for several weeks. I think it might be finished now :)

I'm sharing this with the creatives over at Paint Party Friday. Check out the wonderful work everyone has done this week.

Continue to reach out

I'm sure some of you have been there. You put yourself out there, invite some people round, and no-one shows up. It's somehow embarrassing, but I know I'm not alone in this. In these busy days people's schedules fill up, things slip through the gaps. It's nothing personal.

But still.

That sort of thing stirs up old feelings of inadequacy, remembrance of bullying, and just a general feeling of being left out.

And so I pray.

And I'm reminded that those feelings have been dealt with. It really isn't personal. My word for the year - continue - is something I need to employ. Continue to reach out, because eventually you'll make a connection.

It's not easy.

It can be disheartening.

But we have to persevere to make face-to-face connections in this virtual-driven world.

Step by tiny step

Continue… to put one foot in front of the other. Step follows step until the journey is done.

Looking back over some of my recent pages I can see a theme emerging - continue to move forward, even when those steps feel small and insignificant. It's amazing when you look back over those many small steps to see how far they can carry you.

I shall be sharing this with Art Journal Journey, which has the theme of journey this month.

I am loved

This is the first spread in my 'Brain to Veins' journal (see the last post).

I am loved.

A simple declarative sentence. Yet we often find it hard to believe.

How often do you find yourself thinking, 'They wouldn't love me if they knew…'

It is only with length and depth of relationship that the truth of 'I am loved' moves from the brain to our veins. Only with repeated instances of being shown that we are loved, no matter what, do we begin to believe it.

Linking with Paint Party Friday and Express your Creativity

From brain to veins

It's one thing to know something with head knowledge, but quite another to know it in your heart.

A while ago my husband found a great book for me to alter - Atlas of Female Anatomy. It's interesting for a couple reasons. The shape is fun as it is tall and narrow. Inside there is a slim book on the left hand side and a three-way fold-out atlas of the body with some movable pieces on the right.

It has been sitting in my studio while I decided what I wanted to do with it. I didn't want to cover all of the anatomical illustrations and I wanted there to be a theme. A few days ago it came to me: exploring those things that can sometimes take a while to travel from our brains to our veins; those things that we don't always find it easy to believe deep in our hearts even when our heads say it is true.

So here's the first page of the book side; the title page, if you will.

What are you full of?

If someone pushes you - metaphorically speaking - what spills out?

You can only spill out what you are full of. If you push someone who is full of hatred, you shouldn't be surprised that you don't provoke a loving reaction.

Obviously human beings are complex creatures. We are not full of a single, unalloyed 'thing'. But we can be 'flavoured' more in one direction than another. In general I am a fairly patient person who works at being loving, caring, compassionate, gentle, kind. I know that if I find myself responding to someone with impatience and resentment, then I am depleted. I need to be refilled, because impatience and resentment are not my default positions. They are not what I am generally filled with.

Small things add up

To do something big in the world you may have to take lots of small steps. Don't disregard them.

All things, no matter how large, are made up of atoms - extremely tiny things. So why shouldn't your journey to make a difference be the same? Yes, occasionally we take a giant step, but that isn't the norm. Most journeys are made up of small steps. It isn't until we look back that we can see how large a distance we have covered with those small steps.

The hidden blooming

This flower emerged from the page, but it stayed quite well camouflaged on the background. It made me think about the things that bloom within us, deep down inside, and aren't seen until some time later. Those things that surface when you react differently to a situation and you suddenly realise that something has changed.

Face your fears

Don't you find that, if you really think about it, your fears turn out to be so much bigger in your own head than they are in reality?

I'm thinking about when I have to have a hard conversation, for example. I play the conversation in my head many times before I actually get around to doing the thing. And the reactions I imagine are always stronger than what actually happens. I have the whole adrenalin thing going on, feeling sick, voice shaking etc., ready to be shouted at or argued with or walked away from, and it doesn't happen.

By experience I have found that when I face those hard conversations and go into them with the welfare of the other person uppermost in my mind, with emotion set aside as far as I can do that, then the outcome is so much more favourable than I imagined. Indeed, there was a time when I told someone off and they hugged me!

Experience tells me I should face my fears, because they are so much smaller than what I can conjure up in my imagination.