What are you pushing aside?
Ever wonder why you put aside the things you want to make? Perhaps as a way to clear your mind, try something new, see what else you can create besides your daily chores and responsibilities.
A painting. A sewing project. Journaling. The urge to redo a room that sits waiting for you? Something you want to build or write. I've collected the materials, saved photographs, bought the fabric, started writing in a newly purchased notebook, telling myself I'll get to it when I have more time.
Do I actually get to them? Sometimes. But lately I've realized something important.
Not every impulse has to become a project, and not everything that interests us needs to be acted on immediately. But it's worth wondering: why does this impulse persist?
Why do you keep noticing certain materials, imagining certain projects or feeling a little spark when you see someone else doing something you've wanted to try? I don't think it means you're supposed to become a painter or musician, or discover a new career, a hidden talent or some grand purpose.
Making something with our hands is often seen as something extra, something to do after the "real "work is finished. First there are the obligations, errands, emails and appointments, the things that need fixing, paying, cleaning, answering and organizing. Maybe if there's anything left over, perhaps then we can paint or bake or pick up the guitar.
Have you noticed that the 'real' work is rarely finished? There's always something else pulling at us. We may wait for a very long time before we do something purely for our own satisfaction.
Making something with our hands changes our relationship with time, For me, when I'm absorbed in what I'm doing, I stop thinking about being somewhere else.
When I make something, I enter into a relationship with what's happening in the present moment. Even when I have an idea, the materials always have something to say. The painting looks very different from what I imagined. My writing goes somewhere I hadn't expected. The bread may not rise.
So then—and here's the fun part—I adjust. I dance with the process. I realize something new.
This is one reason making something can feel so alive. You enter into a relationship with it. You're no longer standing outside the experience and deciding what should happen. You're a participant in what's unfolding.
We "get to" rather than "have to". And that changes us!
Ordinary life encourages the opposite. We're supposed to have a plan and some assurance that the time we spend will be worthwhile. We want to know what we're doing before we begin and where the effort is going to lead.
That's a bad idea when we're exploring something new.
We're asked to begin before we know exactly where we're going. Yikes! We're asked to give our attention rather than insist on certainty, and to be responsive rather than controlling.
What we're making changes as we make it, and if we're paying attention, something in us changes too.
There's something magical that happens when we bring our attention to a piece of paper, a bowl of ingredients, a length of fabric, a lump of clay or a blank canvas and allowing ourselves to find out what happens next.
I think that's the reason the things we want to make continue to call to us. Maybe they're inviting us into a way of being that's harder to find when everything we do has to have a purpose attached to it.
I've become less interested in scolding myself for what I haven't made and more interested in noticing what continues to 'draw' me.
Sometimes the invitation may be nothing more complicated than this: make something and see what happens.
And that, for me, is reason enough.
A painting. A sewing project. Journaling. The urge to redo a room that sits waiting for you? Something you want to build or write. I've collected the materials, saved photographs, bought the fabric, started writing in a newly purchased notebook, telling myself I'll get to it when I have more time.
Do I actually get to them? Sometimes. But lately I've realized something important.
Not every impulse has to become a project, and not everything that interests us needs to be acted on immediately. But it's worth wondering: why does this impulse persist?
Why do you keep noticing certain materials, imagining certain projects or feeling a little spark when you see someone else doing something you've wanted to try? I don't think it means you're supposed to become a painter or musician, or discover a new career, a hidden talent or some grand purpose.
Making something with our hands is often seen as something extra, something to do after the "real "work is finished. First there are the obligations, errands, emails and appointments, the things that need fixing, paying, cleaning, answering and organizing. Maybe if there's anything left over, perhaps then we can paint or bake or pick up the guitar.
Have you noticed that the 'real' work is rarely finished? There's always something else pulling at us. We may wait for a very long time before we do something purely for our own satisfaction.
Making something with our hands changes our relationship with time, For me, when I'm absorbed in what I'm doing, I stop thinking about being somewhere else.
When I make something, I enter into a relationship with what's happening in the present moment. Even when I have an idea, the materials always have something to say. The painting looks very different from what I imagined. My writing goes somewhere I hadn't expected. The bread may not rise.
So then—and here's the fun part—I adjust. I dance with the process. I realize something new.
This is one reason making something can feel so alive. You enter into a relationship with it. You're no longer standing outside the experience and deciding what should happen. You're a participant in what's unfolding.
We "get to" rather than "have to". And that changes us!
Ordinary life encourages the opposite. We're supposed to have a plan and some assurance that the time we spend will be worthwhile. We want to know what we're doing before we begin and where the effort is going to lead.
That's a bad idea when we're exploring something new.
We're asked to begin before we know exactly where we're going. Yikes! We're asked to give our attention rather than insist on certainty, and to be responsive rather than controlling.
What we're making changes as we make it, and if we're paying attention, something in us changes too.
There's something magical that happens when we bring our attention to a piece of paper, a bowl of ingredients, a length of fabric, a lump of clay or a blank canvas and allowing ourselves to find out what happens next.
I think that's the reason the things we want to make continue to call to us. Maybe they're inviting us into a way of being that's harder to find when everything we do has to have a purpose attached to it.
I've become less interested in scolding myself for what I haven't made and more interested in noticing what continues to 'draw' me.
Sometimes the invitation may be nothing more complicated than this: make something and see what happens.
And that, for me, is reason enough.