this abundant life

NOTES FROM THE STUDIO

It is understandably very easy to get sucked down by the negative vibes surrounding us in the world right now…believe me I have had my days when getting out of bed has seemed a challenge.  I think the thing we are all finding the most difficult is the lack of control and predicability in our lives.  As a self-confessed control freak it has been my greatest hurdle.  The urge to try and fix everything is now pointless…(secretly it always was, but I didn’t believe that then haha).  When I am feeling this way the only way I seem to cope is to try and make changes to the things I am in control of…my thoughts, my actions and my attitude. 

Over the last month I have been challenging myself to put into place new daily routines to try and overcome this resistance and I have to say I have loved the unexpected changes. Being in lockdown has brought out the good and the bad in all of us. Hands up, I started lockdown cooking and eating every recipe that I had been saving on my Pinterest boards for the last 10 years. I am pretty good at not sitting and watching TV during the day, but if I am honest I didn’t have the healthiest lifestyle before this all began. I had been caught up in ‘busy’, dashing from one thing to the next, without making time to take care of myself. We had takeaway a little too often and I never made time for exercise…a minimal dog walk was all that happened and I hadn’t made time for yoga in years.

My multi purpose space...painting & yoga

Clearing your space and mind

As an introvert I haven’t found lockdown too difficult. I love my own company and I am easily entertained. I still find there aren’t enough hours in the day for all I’d like to do. Being at home all the time has highlighted to us how much ‘stuff’ we surround ourselves with and we had a lot of stuff we never used. Hard rubbish collection time is always a great motivator to get rid of the clutter we have be accumulating and this year we had been looking forward to it.  We were ready weeks in advance, sorting and we were being ruthless.  We had things stored in our garage that had been there for at least 5 years…particularly that container with my skinny jeans…you know the ones that you are planning to get back into (haha). I am proud to say they have gone to the charity shop….letting go…letting go 🙂

Creating a morning routine

All the great motivational people out there in Instagram land (and I follow a few) swear that all ‘successful’ people have a morning routine. Of course, when I first heard this I scoffed thinking surely that is just another kind of busy to add to the list and I really was enjoying not having to set an alarm in the morning.

At the beginning of the month an email appeared from my usual yoga group with a challenge to do a half hour yoga routine every morning at 6.30am for 21 days, via Zoom. Apparently 21 days of consistent action will create a new habit. I was very sceptical that I would be able to manage this…it is Winter and dark at 6.30am, but I signed up before I could overthink it and paid my money. Some days in the first week were pure torture, but I soon began to see the benefits. There was no longer had time to lie in bed in the morning, reading the anxiety inducing news apps, I tagged a half-hour meditation session onto the end with the Calm app and I was so much more productive in the morning. I have now been doing this for the whole month of June and I can’t imagine not carrying on with it going forward. I missed one day last week and felt out of sorts for the whole day. Today I started Deepak’s Creating Abundance Meditation…I’ll let you know how it goes....here's a link if you are interested Creating Abundance from Deepak Chopra

Create the life you want

This time has really highlighted to us what is important and what isn’t. Yes I want to be successful in life, but what is success? It is not the cars we drive, the big houses in the right area or the designer clothes. Success for me is being less anxious…not medicating with food, shopping or alcohol. It is spending my time with the people who matter and doing the things I love. I think I always new that, but it is sometimes difficult to ignore all the nonsense around us.

I stumbled across a great podcast about manifesting the life you want and having an abundance mindset. To be honest I was a bit sick of myself and had been feeling very negative lately. I was tired of worrying about money and I had got caught comparing myself and my artwork to other 'successful' artists. What did I have to lose? I would give it a go. Shortly after a post came up from one the galleries where I have some work promoting one of my paintings. I thought to myself 'that will sell this weekend'. The next day I got a message from Lyn at the gallery to say that not only had that painting been sold, but the new owner had bought another of mine too! I immediately thought of my manifesting and laughed. Whilst I was laughing about it I got a message from Bluethumb.com to say that another painting of mine had sold!! and a few days later another! You can imagine I am now a bit of manifestation/abundance convert haha. Here's the podcast if you want to have a listen Clare Wood - Why Aren't you Manifesting the Life You Want?

Abundance is all around us!