Hey everyone, this is Dione and one thing I’ve noticed since I’ve been putting videos out into the social media world, is that the ones that were about art journaling are very popular so, you know as a good online marketer, I should do more of what’s popular, LOL.
Lesson from my art journal
So I wanted to share with you a page out of my art journal. This is the journal that I have just, finished, I think. And it has such an important lesson, I wanted to share it. Actually visually, I don’t love it, it’s not my favourite thing at all. The colours aren’t my favourite. It’s not my usual kind of style. I did experiment with a couple of things in some new ways. It started like many of my pages do – clean up pages. I often clean my stencils on future pages, because I hate to waste all the beautiful colour left of the stencil and I end up with a mishmash of stuff that doesn’t necessarily all look good together. Then later when I get to that page in the journal, I use that as my starting point and build on it. That is what I have done on this page.
I like that process because in life we don’t always get what we want when we start, we have to take whatever’s happening, whatever cards we’re dealt, whatever chaos and drama that was totally not our fault, and we have to do our best with it. We have to make the most of what we’ve got.
I sometimes get stuck on how things should be
So back to this page. Now this is something that I struggle with quite a lot sometimes. Something happens, or someone does something, or something doesn’t happy, and it’s not the way i THINK it should be. I try to let go. But I sometimes get really hooked up on how things should be. It shouldn’t be this way, they shouldn’t be doing that. Oh lots of shoulds in there! I never even noticed. But yes it’s a ‘should’ thing – that’s a whole other video. We’ll have to talk about shoulds another time.
And I get stuck on this roundabout going over and over, and not being able to move on. I can’t think past that thing that is not right, even though I can’t change it. I get stuck up on those things and I can’t really let them go.
Let go of how it should be, accept that it is and move on.
Eventually, through my journalling process i came up with this mantra. Let go of how it should be, accept that it is and move on. So I have to try and breathe and tell myself “just accept that it is. Let go and move on.”
Freedom comes from letting go
I call it overthinking, when I just keep going over and over something that I really can’t change. I have learned to do my best to stop that process, to call myself out. I take a breath, think objectively if there is something I can actually do about it – if no, then I tell myself to accept that it is something out of my control, and give myself a stern instruction to move on and stop thinking about that thing. Then, if I can manage to distract myself, or change my thought train, I am free from it.
I wonder if somebody reading might find that a useful piece of advice. Is there something that you are holding on to, that should be, but isn’t. Something that you should let go, accept that it is and move on?
