Category: DIY Art School

Facing Worry

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I’m a worrier, and it stresses me out. This is not new. Actually, I do better now than I used to.

And yet, I still worry far too much. In some ways, I feel like I took the scout motto to “Be Prepared” much too personally. I’m constantly peering into the shadows trying to anticipate which monster will come out next. Maybe I read too many mystery novels when I was young and impressionable.

It takes a lot of energy to try prevent all the bad things that could possibly happen at once. “Don’t talk to strangers. Or people you know. Or walk too close to cars. Or groups of kids. And look out for dogs. And powerlines…” The warnings I want to give my middle schooler before he walks a block to school in the morning are endless. Usually I manage to limit it to one or two. Sometimes I just drive him to school.

I unplug small appliances before I leave the house and worry about the larger appliances that are too big to unplug. Every time the phone rings, I worry it’s the school calling. Bee sting? Broken arm? The sky falling? They haven’t happened yet, but this could be that call.

Early in our marriage, my husband stopped our newspaper subscription. I was reading the paper cover to cover, and I can still, twenty years later, remember the details of some of the scary stories I read. “It’s stressing you out,” my husband said.

“I need to know what to watch out for,” I told him.

And yet, without the newspaper to warn me, we survived living in that city, and the other cities we lived in. Some bad things happened, but some great things did too. I didn’t miss the newspaper… okay, I did. But I didn’t miss my daily dose of fear.

The internet has tried to provide that with its newsfeeds and Facebook, but I try to be wise and only read a few stories here and there. It’s like a security blanket. If I can just predict the bad things, whatever they are, I can defend against them, right?

But I think that the worry can be a bad thing all on its own. There is a point where it ceases to be helpful, and starts taking too much energy, time and space. I’m tired of worrying.

I will probably never leave my toaster plugged in when I leave the house. I don’t think I will ever ride a rollercoaster without imagining that this is the time it will go off the tracks. That said, I am trying harder to worry less. But how do I worry less after all this time?

Science says that the best way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit. This article explains it well: https://www.inc.com/melody-wilding/psychology-says-this-is-how-you-change-a-bad-habit-for-good.html

So what is a good replacement for worry?

In an Ensign article in April 1986, Gordon B. Hinckley said: “I am asking that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight.“

And later in the same article, “I have little doubt that many of us are troubled with fears concerning ourselves. We are in a period of stress across the world. There are occasionally hard days for each of us. Do not despair. Do not give up. Look for the sunlight through the clouds. Opportunities will eventually open to you. Do not let the prophets of gloom endanger your possibilities.”

Bad things do happen, but good things do too. Why not spend my energy preparing for the next big opportunity? Why not notice and recognize the good things that happen? I think it would be a better use of my time.

I’ve started keeping a gratitude journal. I try to get out and help other people. It really gives me a lot of perspective. Somehow, it’s easier to do hard things when I’m doing them for someone else. I am developing my talents and trying to share them.

I may always be a worrier. But, I hope that I can continue to improve. I want to stop seeking out storms and instead enjoy the sunlight. While wearing sunscreen. And a hat.

Do you worry a lot too? What are some things you do when you can tell that you’re starting to worry?

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Magnet Days

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There are some days that you expect to be extra busy. Holidays, and the days leading up to them, for example. The end of the school year when you have students at home.

But there are other days, out of nowhere, that are inexplicably busy. There might be nothing major scheduled for the rest of the week, but on a random Wednesday you have three different overlapping events of equal importance. Days like that I like to call magnet days. Like a magnet, they attract scheduled and sometimes unscheduled events.

Usually you can see them coming from a week away, or even longer. Even with a week of careful planning, you still can’t do it all, and it’s stressful. It’s worse when it all just comes crashing on you at once. On days like that, I find myself scrambling and stressed out, and wondering why some of this couldn’t have happened the day before when I had plenty of time.

I had a day like that last week. At the end of the day, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do any art practice or not. Often, when I’m tired, I let things go rather than pile on any more stress.

This time, I put on some music and told myself I didn’t have to do much at all, and if it looked terrible that was okay. Something is better than nothing, so there was no pressure.

I had fun. The pictures turned out fine. It felt nice to accomplish something that I didn’t think I could do. It doesn’t always go that way when it’s late and I’m tired, and that’s okay.

However, when I do beat the odds and accomplish something extra on a difficult day, it’s nice to celebrate that. Especially when it’s a magnet day!

Do you sometimes have magnet days? How do you cope when you feel overbooked? Do you have an accomplishment to celebrate? How do you like to celebrate?

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Art Prompts

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Last week it was story ideas, so this week I decided to share some drawing prompts that sound fun. Many of them would work for any medium. (I shared some more general art prompts in my post “Art Is Zero-Calorie Stress Relief.” )

  1. Ask someone to hold a 15 second pose and do a quick sketch.
  2. Go to a public place to draw people. Don’t be afraid to draw people in motion. Your picture may not look great. That’s okay.
  3. Set up a still life and put a bright light behind it. Move the light until the shadows look interesting. Draw the shadows.
  4. Draw something that makes you happy. Draw something that makes you sad.
  5. Draw something from a dream. Daydreams count.
  6. Draw something with an interesting texture. Focus on capturing the essence of the texture. Can you make your drawing look furry or smooth or scaly?
  7. Draw a cartoon.
  8. Illustrate a knock-knock joke or your favorite dad joke.
  9. Make a paper doll or a maze or a crossword puzzle or a word search and incorporate it into a larger picture.
  10. Draw a scene from your favorite story with characters from a different story.
  11. Pause a movie or tv show and draw what’s on the screen.
  12. Illustrate a question that you have.
  13. Draw your problems as a monster and then make the monster look silly.
  14. Draw your menu for the day. Post it on the fridge.
  15. Illustrate a family recipe.
  16. Illustrate a letter and send it to a friend or family member.
  17. Listen to music and draw your impressions.
  18. Close your eyes and draw a self portrait. Open your eyes and draw a portrait with your other hand. Now draw one with your feet.
  19. Draw pictures of what you see in the clouds.
  20. Draw something that you hope will happen someday.

Do you have any ideas to add? Have you tried any of these prompts? Did you have fun?

Story Prompts

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Are you sitting in front of a blank page, trying to decide what to write about?

Here are three fairy tale based story ideas that you can try:

  • Think of a fairy tale. Turn it inside out. What are the main points? What would the opposite be? If there’s a tower, turn it into a cellar. If there’s a forest, could it be a city instead? Could bears instead be children and children become bears? Which things you decide to change and what you change them into is up to you. Now think about how the changes you made will change the story. This can be surprising.
  • Take two fairy tales. Pick a character from each. What if they were the same character? Could the wicked witch also be the gingerbread boy? Which story came first? Or did they happen at the same time? How does that change the stories or your perspective of the stories?
  • Pick a fairy tale. Imagine it happening recently without any magic. Or with less magic. How could the basic plot translate to modern life and still be somewhat recognizable? What if rival kingdoms were rival grocery stores instead? What if it took place in the future?

Do you have any other story ideas to share? Have you ever had a hard time thinking of what to write? What do you do?

Progress Report

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We’re about halfway through the year, and school is finally out for the summer. My children are already receiving progress reports from school. I think it’s a good time to step back and look at how I’m doing on the goals I’ve set for this year.

Sitting down with each of my goals, I can see that I have made some progress. There is positive growth in almost every area. However, there are a few things I haven’t even started.

It’s interesting to look at my goals now and realize that I had forgotten some of the things I had hoped to do. It’s also interesting to see how some of the things I worked on led to other things I hadn’t expected.

One of the cartoons I have published in the New Era Magazine.

Perhaps I need to revisit some of my goals and see if they need tweaking. Have my goals changed? What are my priorities at this point?

I’m making progress, but there’s room for improvement. It’s time to recommit to the changes I hope to make. I need to look over my schedule and figure out when to attempt to add new tasks and habits. Maybe I can start checking in with my progress when I journal on Sundays?

I think regularly checking in will help. Also, I think that some of the goals are a little broad and need to be broken into more manageable tasks. For example, I need to decide how to approach editing the novels I wrote. Breaking it into smaller tasks would be a lot less intimidating. No wonder I haven’t started!

I thought about giving myself grades for each of my goals, but in the end I wasn’t sure if that would be motivating or not. I think that overall, I am doing well. If I was grading pass/fail, I think I pass.

Do you have goals you’re working on? How often do you check in with them to see how you’re doing? Are you making progress?

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My Plan to Achieve My Goals

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I’ve been thinking of my goals lately, as I mentioned last week. Working to achieve my goals is a bit like problem solving. The goals are where I want to be, and the problem is how to get there. Just like when putting together a jig-saw puzzle, there are tools I need to solve my problems. For a puzzle, I need a large, flat surface and good light and, if I’m lucky, maybe there’s a picture of the completed puzzle. For a goal, I need tasks, habits, and attitudes.

Tasks are the steps I will take to reach the goal. But, if the steps are too large, they are overwhelming. They need to be broken down into smaller steps. I have read that you need to break down the steps into smaller tasks until you look at the task and think, “I can do that.”

It works best when I schedule a time to regularly work on the tasks. This means developing a habit. A habit is a regularly repeated task. Unfortunately, developing a habit is a little harder than simply completing a single task.

There are little tricks that help. One thing I do is try to piggy-back off a habit that I’ve already established. I’ll add the new habit before or after it or some other daily milestone, like lunch time. It’s easier to only add one or two new habits at a time and keep it small. It’s easier to convince myself to spend five minutes on something on a busy day than to try to spend half an hour.

Of course, on really busy days or weeks, I may drop the habit altogether. At that point, I need to pick it back up when things have calmed down. This is not as easy as it sounds. I have to remember my motivation. Why did I want this habit? It can help to write it down and post it where I can see it.

And this leads to attitude. Sometimes I am too stressed to add one more thing. If I’m self-critical when that happens, it will make things that much harder to pick up again. In an article I recently read, https://www.fastcompany.com/90357248/procrastination-is-an-emotional-problem , it says that the more self-critical we are, the more likely we are to procrastinate. Negativity and stress are huge roadblocks on the path to achieving goals.

The more often we have negative thoughts, the more accustomed our brain will become to that response. It will affect our outlook on life and the work we do. But, we can train the brain to follow different, more positive paths. https://www.forbes.com/sites/vanessaloder/2015/03/18/how-to-rewire-your-brain-for-happiness/#401ada8359ef

Some ways to do this are practicing gratitude, thinking two positive thoughts for every negative, mindfulness, exercise, and creative activities. As we feel more positive about ourselves and our work, it will be possible to get more done. We will feel positive about that, and that creates a positive feedback loop (To replace the previous negative loop).

When putting together a jigsaw puzzle, there is some structure to the process. For example, edge pieces first, sky or other large single colored patches last. Other than that, I tend to take things as they come and work a little bit here and a little bit there as I find pieces that I can fit into place.

Achieving goals is like that. Once I’ve determined the tasks and habits I’d like to develop, it’s time to fit them in place. It may take a bit of work and more than one attempt to find the best fit. And then something might knock all the pieces off the table and I have to start again.

But, if I can keep working on my attitudes in the background and stay positive, I’m less likely to quit. And if I don’t quit, I haven’t failed, no matter how long it takes. That’s my plan to achieve my goals. Wish me luck.

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