Fear of feelings

Posted on February 25, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

People are afraid of having feelings. I don’t really know if this is something that is true just for the western world or for humanity in general. But it seems we have gone out of our way to create walls for ourselves as a protection against feelings.

Really our battle seems to be with “bad” feelings. We are afraid of experiencing anything other than joy. But perhaps it is that very fear and the resulting behavior that causes the true pain.

Food is sometimes the cause and the cure of pain. I know several people who feel such anxiety about not having food when they are hungry that they constantly eat. These people don’t live in poverty. They don’t live in areas that are “food deserts.” They have easy access to any food they want at any time of the day or night. So what is the source of that fear? For some, the stated reason is that they don’t want to feel hungry. Hunger pangs are the surface reason. Waiting just ten minutes past a regular lunch time causes great anxiety. These are not people with a medical need to maintain proper blood sugar. There is something else going on.

I think that something else is a fear of feeling in general. We aren’t taught how to deal with our feelings so we stuff them deep down inside (literally) rather than letting them out. Feel bad? Have some “comfort food.” The bad thing is that just like with any other addiction a new problem is created. Your old problem is still there and you now have something else to contend with.

You may feel guilty for having eaten the entire bag of cookies. So you eat more. And then you feel not only mentally bad that you have no self control but you may also feel physically bad. You may start to gain weight. Then come all the subsequent feelings with that problem. Your knees hurt. You have a hard time bending. You get out of breath more easily. You start to feel trapped in your own body.

Then it becomes a really big problem with really big issues. You have slid further into the hole. Your “fix” is just digging you deeper. When presented with the way out it is normal to dig in, and with heels or forks it is the same. People want a quick fix to their problems. Perhaps this is just the American way. There are no repercussions. Eat whatever you want and then take a pill or have surgery.

The Y is a better choice than liposuction. Eating more vegetables and less fried foods is a better choice than a diet pill. In both instances you do many positive things. You get rid of the symptom of the flab. You also get healthier inside. Your muscles get stronger and you have more energy. You start to feel better mentally because you can see that you are losing weight but also you are burning off stress.

I know from personal experience that it is totally normal to not want to do the right thing. I remember when I first started to get healthy that I resented every carrot and every minute of exercise. Like a small child I wanted to just yell “NO!” every time I was confronted with the better choice. And I remember that every time I lost 5 pounds I wanted to celebrate by eating a brownie or four.

It is easier to eat yourself to death rather than face your feelings. It is easier to let the other person have their way and for you to remain silent and passive. It is easier, yes, but don’t do it. It is hard to make this change. But it is your life that you are saving. It is important. You are important. Your feelings and opinions matter. It is very hard to feel emotions when you haven’t allowed yourself to feel them for a long time. It is painful, and that pain often manifests itself in the gut. That feeling isn’t hunger for food. It is hunger – but hunger for self-awareness. It is the feeling of you waking up to yourself. It is OK to feel that. You won’t starve. Feel that feeling and then try something different, since what you have been trying all your life hasn’t worked.
Go for a walk. Write in your journal. Paint. Dance. Sing. Do something, anything that makes you feel really alive and happy. It is important to get those feelings out. It may look weird. It may not come out right the first time. That is OK. That is normal. Keep it up.

I remember seeing a child who was very frustrated and crying. He was loud. He was not happy. Things weren’t going his way. He had gotten to the foot-stomping and hand-swinging part. His parents told him to “Use your words.” What if you don’t have words? What if part of your frustration is that you don’t know how to say what is upsetting you? I think it is a good idea to learn different ways to communicate. There is a program where I live called the “Healing Arts Project” that teaches mental-health consumers how to paint. One of the clients said that “Art lets me say the things I haven’t got words for.” I think there is a lot of truth in that.

What you have to express is important. You are here because you are needed. You are giving the world a huge blessing if you share yourself and your talents. Go forth, and feel.

Process, not Product.

Posted on February 17, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I had a nice discussion with friends last night about creativity and how important it is to not edit at the beginning of the project. Put down a rough outline or a sketch. Then fill in. Then edit. If you edit at the start you will never get your project built. Yes, a strong foundation is good. But the best part is that whatever art form you use, be it writing, music, beading, painting -isn’t a building. You can rearrange it, especially if you are creating in a digital format.
If you think too much about the end you will never get past the beginning. Rarely do my creations end up the way I expected. Over twenty years of jewelry making has taught me that, and I’m learning it is true about writing as well. Even if I have the beads, once I put them together they look different. This texture doesn’t look right with this color. Or I don’t have the skill to connect them the way that I want. I’ve learned to do it anyway with what I have. Just keep going forward. The process is more important than the product.
What you make this week will (probably) look stupid to you in a month. That is OK. You are a different person a month later. Don’t rip your creation apart. Make something else. If you rip it apart and try to remake it, you are just making the same thing over and over. Make something new. That way you are adding, not subtracting. You will constantly be growing and changing and developing. Each time you create you are learning more about the medium and about yourself. Each time you create you are growing.
It is OK to revisit a theme. Whether you are creating with beads, words, or musical notes, themes come up and need to be worked on. It is fine to return to that theme and give it a different treatment. Perhaps this time you will find the “right” way to express that idea. Or not. That is OK too. Keep working and pushing and trying. Grow forward, not back.
I suspect creating is a lot like having a child. You don’t know how it is going to look or behave once it comes out. It isn’t about controlling the creation – it is about being part of it, and letting it develop naturally through you. Part of the delight (or frustration) with being a creative person is that the result surprises you. It ends up how it ends up. Rarely when you are creating do you get to “have it your way”, in spite of what Burger King says. The way your creation ends up is the way it either needs to be, or it is the best you can do right now. The more you practice your art, the better you will get. It is helpful to think of each attempt as a stepping stone, not a stumbling block.
Perhaps I’m trying to be a midwife to your creativity. Don’t fight it. Let it happen. Don’t push too soon. Breathe.
Everybody has to start somewhere. Mozart didn’t create amazing music right from the start, right? OK. Maybe he did. That’s why we call him a child prodigy. But the fact that we have a special word for it means it is unusual. I seem to remember that he had a LOT of music lessons, though. The only difference between you and the expert is a lot of time and work. So get going and make more art!

Beads and Writing

Posted on January 1, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Writing had been an integral part of my life for many years before my parents died. I had written in a journal for longer than I’d known how to drive or cook. I was working on a degree in English so I was surrounded with words. Writing was how I thought. Writing was who I was.

But I stopped writing after my parents died. Full-stop, arrested, halt, “none shall pass” stopped. It was too hard. I didn’t have the words to process my grief. Every time I started to write, even something simple and not-journal-like such as an email, I started to cry with great wracking tears. The emotions overwhelmed me in huge waves and I didn’t know how to deal with them. I was drowning in grief, so I didn’t even want to go near the water.
Yet I still needed to create. I still needed to drink the life-giving water of creation. I think creating is essential to the human soul. I like Madeline L’Engle’s view in Walking on Water, her book about what it means to be an artist and a Christian. She says that to create is to be a co-creator with God. Essentially, we are created to be creators.

It doesn’t make sense now for me to have stopped writing. It was like another loss, another grief. I’d lost my parents, and then I lost my way of thinking, of understanding. I was untethered. My boat was unmoored. I had all these new, unpleasant and unfamiliar ideas and thoughts and I had no way to deal with them, no way to bring them back to a safe shore.

And then I remembered beads. I had started working with beads when I moved to Washington D.C. I’d made that first fateful foray into a bead store in Dupont Circle nearly half my life ago. I went with a student I’d met through the Cultural Consortium, a program that the Kennedy Center had to introduce inner-city kids to the arts in an active and participatory way. Thankfully for me, this student was kind enough to teach me a new way to be creative. That bead store trip was the beginning of a long-term love affair with all things bead, and a new way to think and communicate.

Beads have their own language and their own symmetry. I can say things in beads. I started to string beads together the same way I’d string words together to create a sentence or a paragraph. You can pick out a focal bead the same way you’d pick out a really cool word or a really interesting idea.

Recently I noticed that I had too many ideas. I was carrying around a notebook at work so I could keep up with all the ideas I wanted to write about. I was under the impression that ideas are like beads – when I come across them, I’d better collect them. I may never see them again. It was like I was on a bead-buying frenzy. After a while, it is time to sit down and start working with them.

Sometimes with beads I’ll start work on a project and not be sure where it is going. I’ll leave it in the saucer until I get some better clue as to what needs to happen next. Some saucers stay full. Some projects never get finished because I take apart the proto-necklace again and again until I realize that there is no way I can finish it. Maybe it wasn’t a viable project. Maybe it isn’t a project for me to finish. Maybe I don’t have the right kind of beads or the right mindset.

I now have “saucers” for my words. I’ve developed folders for note-seeds. I can return to them when I have time or inclination to work on/water them. I can revise/prune them later. I can add or subtract, just like with beads – but faster. If only beading had “copy and paste”!
Sometimes I have too many saucers, too many projects. This might be part of the nature of being creative, or the nature of being bipolar. Sometimes I think that the true essence of being an artist is knowing how to edit, and how to know when something is “done”. Sometimes I think another part is just being OK with the process and not worrying too much about what it is going to look like at the end until you get there.

Here are things I’ve “written about” in beads. When I learn how to post pictures I’ll update this post.

The Davinci code book.
The Griffin and Sabine series
A trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama.
What it is like to do water aerobics in the pool at the Y.
The history of the church, from Byzantine to Catholic/Orthodox to Protestant to now.