I once posted an Instagram Post about people prescribing Art Galleries for sadness.

Having explored art and design for over 20 years, it has been a powerful method of communication. The poignant moment in time was visiting Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery and being so moved by the Art and being so grateful to be able to feel the communication that was beyond words.

The effort of the exhibitions from seen the honouring of the human soul with all the different artists’ idiosyncrasies. Sadly, I can’t remember the exact artists that inspired me to be steadfast in creating Artwork in many media over the years, but if I could, they would deserve some sort of recognition for inspiring a whole generation of Artists and generations beyond that as well. Only a great Master of Art would take a melancholy lawyer and transform her into an Artist with a love and passion for art that has spanned decades.

I saw one particular exhibition

If I could only describe an almost transcendental shift in consciousness and human awareness that this experience had and the effect it has had on my whole life then everybody would be making Artwork, Craftwork, Pottery, Felted Work, Tapestry and other weird and wonderful imagery that goes beyond the realm of human understanding and is a bridge between the phyical and spiritual plane of reality.

This is why I am finding digital art difficult because of my passion and love of human connection, and the richness these Artists dared to display and exhibit their work gave people joy, it protected their souls. It humanised them; it was something beyond making and living for themselves that was kind.

Seeing somebody that that somebody photographed the beautiful and bizarre sculptures that were ornamental, with an array of splendifferent emotive colours allowed me to be me. I saw that someone was being genuinely expressive in who they are in all their glory and all their richness, having had the courage to creatively communicate in a way

In a simple environment of a council house.

It was at this minute i knew it wasn’t monetary wealth that brought joy or necessarily peace of mind, it could be something as simple as sitting in a council hous,e sculpting artwork with colours that transcended worldly emotion.

Work Wisdom: Overcoming Hindrances for Work Achievement From a Personal Perspective: Unlock Your Full Potential

Understanding Common Hindrances to Work Achievement: Effective Strategies for Overcoming Hindrances in the Workplace

If we are experiencing difficulties within our personal or work life, some strategies can be helpful to practise regularly. These may enable us to overcome some of the suffering we may be going through. Mindfulness can be beneficial. If we can focus on our breathing, rather than our thoughts. This may uplift us from our usual “conditioned” pattern of thinking. For example, we may be subconsciously following our parenting, and we can consciously choose our thoughts. We can also choose how to respond to other people in a more creative, positive way. Some people remember mindfulness as an awareness of our breath or reflecting on the breathe.

Similarly, yoga is a form of mindfulness. Adding stretches to our breathing to develop body awareness. Mudra is a type of yoga and mindfulness. Bringing peace or relaxation to our hands.

Further ways of rising above the stress we may face in day-to-day life can be reflecting on past successes and achievements. Having visual affirmations, especially if criticised, can boost our morale. We may choose up to three to ten words about what we like about ourselves. We can also focus on the qualities we hope to cultivate. Some people can think in pictures or video form. We could think about a TV programme we enjoyed and remember seeing those visions of the programme in our mind, or remember positive photographic imagery. Happy thoughts about what we enjoy doing, or who we love to be with, uplift us from the day-to-day humdrum of life. 

Understanding Common Hindrances to Work Achievement

Workplace challenges for some people can be bullying, over-socialisation, and name-calling. Personal Barriers can include having differences to others. This may be socially, mentally , ethnically and religious differences. People being judgmental or non-tolerant of the difference, may make our lives difficult. Personally, my main difficulty is an acute sense of hearing and recovering, from hearing name-calling, intimidation and physical discomfort from this. Furthermore, external pressures from organisations or family and friends about attainment, or financial pressures and environment, can hamper our efforts.

Trying to keep the environment clean and tidy and raising a family while working from home means that are work may be part of a lifestyle and be quite different to the typical office Job. Social isolation due to discrimination may stop us from mixing with the people that we need to be around, either to help others or to attain success within this. Procrastination can occur from feeling “not good enough” either in intellect, appearance, or at our skills or intellect. We maybe demotivated if overwhelmed by our difficulties. If we are not able to reach out, or overcome them with sensory and emotional strategies than we may not be unproductive or even ill. Fear of failure of being inadequate at our role may stop us from trying, or may cause us to feel as if we can’t attain success. Sometimes we also have a fear of success. The fear maybe about having responsibility. Once we have attained success and a high level of economic wellbeing. This may have to be continually sustained in the long term. A hinderance may also be due to fear of letting people down if we promise to provide them with a service or product.

The Psychological Impact of Hindrances on Performance and Productivity

Sometimes we want to attain something at work, for example, we may have a product that we created that we would like to sell, but we may have thoughts that are not conducive to listing them. If we think repeatedly “i can’t do this”, then it may cause a “mental block” , “artists block” or “writers block”. If we are in a hostile environment, or around hateful people, as well, our level of stress ma become so overwhelming that we can’t read and write and may have to complete tasks like “working the room” to make work environment pleasant and our products sellable, or creative pursuits instead like arts and crafts. If we are with other people with a high level of attainment or expectation, then we may not be able to explain that the level of stress is making what you expect of me unachievable. It can even lead to a meltdown and ultimately a nervous breakdown. Especially if we do not manage our time and stress levels effectively. We may have to communicate with people about this. If we are not able to communicate what is happening to us and our needs for reasonable adjustments, then we may have to work on our own. As it’s incredibly difficult and embarrassing if we can’t communicate our needs at work, and if we experience panic, meltdowns, or crying episodes. Not all employers are understanding of our difficulties and may not always support or understand us. The next blog will look at ways we can explore working in a way that supports our needs when from working from home. Snippets of work wisdom.

Next Blog Post: Work Wisdom: Effective Strategies for Overcoming Hindrance in the Workplace

Creating Beautiful Paintings with a Palette Knife for Technical Ease and Joy

What are Palette Knife Paintings? 

These are paintings created using a palette knife. These sorts of paintings are created with ease due to not needing to wash brushes. If you have to use a lot of brushes, especially with oil paintings, it can be difficult to maintain the quality of the brush. The advantage of palette knife paintings is that they take away the need to use brushes. 

They can be created quite easily with some basic knowledge of how to paint. Some suggested instructions for creating palette knife paintings are as follows:

Tools

Art Paper, Canvas Boards or Canvas

Palette knives

Painting supplies

Best palette knives for artists

Types of Palette Knives

Artist tools

Method

1. Take acrylic paper, canvas board or canvas.
2. Paint the background using white, black or burnt Sienna. 
3. Next, chalk out the composition. 
4. Start from the top and work your way to the bottom.
5. Some people like a drawing grid.
6. Add a base layer of paint using the side of the pallet knife.
7. This will result in the basic shapes of the painting composition
8. Then, add the details to the picture, thinking three dimensionally.
9. It may aid you if you think of the painting as a sculpture.
10. Consider light, depth, and mid-tones in order to complete the painting.

Relaxation and Hand Mudras and Proprioceptive Movement

In today’s daily yoga ritual, relaxation and peace was attained through yoga of the hands. On some days, we have more energy and motivation than others. Maintaining your yoga practice on days where you have less energy may be achieved through meditation or hand mudras.

Relaxation

Hand mudras are an effective way to relax, find peace, and maintain calm. It’s a different way of meditating and completing yoga. You can also use these postures when out and about. This is an effective way of resetting your emotional health if you become emotionally imbalanced.

Today I completed about half an hour of yoga with mudras.

What are mudras?

Mudras are hand gestures. These hand gestures affect the mind, body, and spirit positively.

Holding the thumb next to the fingers and pressing on them for about 5 minutes at a time is enough to improve one’s sense of calm and well-being. 

Digestion

Suraya mudra ring finger to the thumb as well is a good aid for digestion and fat elimination.

I then had the realisation that these postures alleviate the proprioceptive sensory needs. Sewing, jewellery making, and pen writing have the same proprioceptive movement affect.

Today has been challenging working from home. My anxiety has been so severe I have revised my will. Despite some minor health difficulties, I’m determined to try to love peace and positive parenting, endeavouring to make a positive contribution to the world. On days like this, my fear has been overwhelming with self-criticism. I used to listen to a lot of positive affirmations to overcome my fear and to develop a positive self.

Despite the terrifying fear, the practising of yoga even 5 minutes every now and again the difficult stretches from Ashtanga yoga have been a source of relief. They have transformed my stress, which has been high due to struggling to clear the clutter around the house in order to sit at my desk.

Finding managing the household tasks along with the expectation of producing something positive and consistent and feeling bad about the fact that I have had to claim benefits to supplement my income has affected my self-image. 

Affirm;

I’m really scared of other peoples harsh criticism of this too. This is especially difficult as I am highly educated, but living in an area which is still unknown to me. There are few people I speak with and the level of social isolation I currently feel is sometimes difficult, but sometimes the solitude is an absolute source of comfort

Affirm;

I can

I will

Singing really has helped to alleviate my chest pain and the prayers for peace in the world, I think Sanskrit makes me even more resolute to love peace wholeheartedly and to ensure that I am a PeaceMaker. I hope this has a positive ripple. My love singing, and an endeavour to smile through the stress and fear gives me courage and hope.

I keep trying different projects and waking up forgetting what I am working on. It makes it very difficult to be consistent in developing a positive work ethic. My self-criticism is well, why can’t I sustain a strong career and my frustration that sometimes my social interactions may be awkward and weird possibly due to some of the life situations I have been through

Affirm; 

I am not my life situation

I am not my economic situation

For anyone else struggling to contribute something free writing has been a source of relief and in time may plant positive seeds for future economic growth. 

Talking of seeds, gardening is on the horizon. Broadens to be planted in the garden and there is the hope of cultivating a crystal garden too.

Focusing on birthdays and Christmas while around the house and focusing on positive things and joyful moments of past, present and future and trying to find our weird human behaviour funny is a source of comfort.

Sharing my journalling from my Yoga practice. Today it’s been about healing the womb and yoni.

Here are some helpful thoughts if you lose your pregnancy;

“It’s not your fault. Let go of blame.”

“Pray for forgiveness anyway, for yours and theirs.”

“Buy a souvenir or trinket like an engraved ring, for all your family not just you.”

“You may not be available to hear their suffering until you dealt with your grief.”

“Love your womb and ovaries and Yoni as if it was your Child’s womb or Mother’s Womb.”

“Solidarity is power, mix and talk about pregnancy loss.”

Mountain Pose (Tadasana) Understanding the healing power of yoga with this posture. Especially around the Yoni(Vulva) area. Seeing the shadows around the inner legs as Mountainous gives a sense of peace and healing. Imagining the shadows disappearing feels empowering. 

Unexpected reflection upon pregnancy loss. It’s not the physical miscarriage that’s heartbreaking. Giving birth consciously to a dead fetus probably was the worst experience of my life. I consciously birthed “Mummy Baby” breathing “Sat” and “Nam” (Truth is my name) from Kundalini yoga, with no pain relief and blood everywhere. Trying to shield a partner and child from this death. Then being attached to the phoetus, not wanting the phoetus to be buried, and then seeing the phoetus being buried in the garden unexpectedly and having to deal with this psychologically. 

It’s like all the love, hopes, and dreams you had for when the child was born, faded into the soil. Then, being in so much physical and emotional distress. It’s like dying when the fetus dies, and dying in every sense emotionally. The level of despair and grief that makes you want to scream every day and night for all of eternity.

It’s the affect it has on your family too. Knowing that your child loved their brother or sister, and your tummy for ages, you felt like you let them down. Feeling like you did something wrong to cause it because of giving birth to a little ball of blood. That maybe you weren’t a good enough mum or human to have the child born to you. Feeling that the fetus should have had a proper burial, but didn’t, and not being able to honour the dead properly, due to your grief. Remembering despair so bad that you felt like dying for death in ways only other women suffering from miscarriages could understand. Not even beginning to think of the word miscarriage at the time, because that wasn’t what it was meant to be. It was meant to be creation.

It’s like the dead haunt you, why didn’t you even honour my spirit enough to bury me properly? I came into your life to teach you lessons and you didn’t acknowledge my birth or death with a burial. Only a ring that was engraved with the day I was born and died. You prayed and prayed for a good rebirth of the baby. (Om Mani Padme Om), Buddhist Prayer, and you connected with the spirit of the unborn child, that was perhaps never meant to come into fruition, but the dead child still haunts you. 

It’s like why aren’t we talking about the elephant in the living room as a collective sisterhood. When we feel like our hearts were unexpectedly ripped out due to yet again a third baby loss. Why can’t we love each better with compassion and understanding. It’s like the more aversive and marginalising and undermining we are about people who have these experiences the more we disown the difficult parts of our self or our collective consciousness.

“It’s like celebrating their existence or what you thought their existence would or could have been anyway”.

“Plant a tree and love the baby as if it is a tree.”

“I am worthy, I am deserving of my own loving kindness.”

Quick Book On Yoga, a work in progress:

Alive

Yoga may save your life in unexpected ways. Some people are alive because of Yoga. They may not be alive if they didn’t have Yoga in their life. It may enable you to find joy in any life situation. Finding peace within, no matter what the weather of your circumstances, is invaluable. Breathe with movement is uplifting and empowering. Re-connecting with mind, body, spirit and allowing yourself to be true and being connected to your original self.

Tradition

Traditionally, Yoga is practised at Sunrise and Sunset. This is maybe Asana, traditionally, sun salutations. To some people Asana, is called stretching with movement. Breathing with  awareness. Some people may have time to dedicate themselves to this level of structure and routine. This may help other along the way. Other peoples experience of endeavouring to follow this level of tradition, may not be as successful. Peoples’ work lives and family lives may require a level of flexibility to this approach. Their energy level and moon cycle (menstruation/period)or health may mean that this approach has to be adapted. Some people study during this allotted time or they may practise a more pranayama based yoga i.e. breath work. It is to be remembered that breathe of fire, a type of pranayama  must not be practised during a Moon cycle, due to the increase of oxygen into the blood stream.

Having studied the yoga’s ethical practice in (Yama and Niyamas), rather than criticising the flaws, of not being able to follow strict, disciplined practise and observing our flaws maybe more helpful and kinder to both mind, body and spirit.

Mother and Child Yoga, cooperated with 2 rounds of sun salutation with Warrior 1 then:

Sun Salutations

Warrior 1, 2, 3, Difficult poses

Standing splits

Triangle

Spider

Crab

Protect the breath with mantra.