Since I like to tell stories, I'm going to tell you how I recently discovered why I ended up painting.
It's like what Steve Jobs said in his Commencement speech at Stanford. I listened to that speech a lot. I felt as if he'd given me GPS coordinates to an island I was destined to go to, without really knowing why.
The famous island, the one with no bridges...when you get there, it's official. We've got our pilot's license. We can fly, and we feel fantastic on it.
The only thing is, it's an island, so you feel protected and alone at the same time. So sometimes certain emotions can overwhelm us. Fragrances come flooding back. We'd like to forget them, but certain winds blow hard and bring with them debris from faraway lands.
Steve jobs said: “you can connect the dots afterwards, not before”.
If we follow our heart, our choices may seem incongruous and inconsistent. It can put us in a very uncomfortable position of doubt. And if that's the case, we'll be quick to press that button, especially if we've gone off course.
When you're off the beaten track: it's upsetting, it's frightening, it's destabilising. You'll be told loud and clear that you're on the wrong track. And if, on top of that, you've taken a spill along the way: the supporters of the opposing camp will be happy to blow the whistle: we told you it was stupid what you were doing! You wouldn't listen. Too bad for you.
When I started painting. The covid had left a gift for me along the way. covid and a nice mid-life crisis, 4 kids, and serious other hiccups. The gift was simple: just have fun...just try.
It began with the first afternoon I went out alone for a cappuccino after giving birth to my 4th child.
A short cappuccino break as I was still breastfeeding and couldn't leave my son away from me for too long.
When I got home, I felt so serene that I took the pleasure of sitting with my children, gave them something to paint with. I did something rather shabby and painted a cappuccino. My daughter and my son, who were 10 and 6 at that time, produced two marvellous paintings. Two paintings that touched me. I was amazed by their creation. Especially my son’s. I couldn't understand where his imagination came from to create this mess, which I found very beautiful.
I was so proud of his work that I asked my mother to show it to her art teacher.
My mother had also taken up painting and discovered a talent she'd never imagined.
The teacher said: "Yes, it's abstract!
Abstract? The word resonated in my head. And began to make its way to my heart.
From there, an opportunity to take a private course arrived. then YouTube did the rest of the teaching. I took a big breath…. I took the plunge.
And then the first miracle happened. I immediately noticed that when I painted, I automatically felt happier. Lighter. If I'd started painting when I was feeling frustrated or whatever, I noticed that my inspiration was different. I also noticed that my movements were different. Like when you listen to music, and your body
adapts to the melody and doesn't dance in the same way. Which is normal, the tempo is different.
Voila! by painting my works, I understood better how I felt. What was on my heart.
That's where the secret lies! If we target exactly how we feel: bingo! Our body immediately relaxes. My mind immediately found rest, as if it had sensed that I was considering the emotion I was feeling.
We've all experienced that moment when we're full of anger. If the person in front of you asks you to calm down, you'll go to the wall. But if the person understands how you're feeling and tells you: what happened made you angry! validates our emotion, then, you immediately feel relieved. Anger goes down a notch.
But the catalogue of emotions is huge. It's like looking for a specific screw reference on Amazon, and you don't have the right reference code. Enjoy yourself!
Painting saved me a lot of time. I almost didn't need to type all the screw refer type on amazon anymore. All I had to do was let myself be guided. Accept whatever colours came to my mind and trust the process. Abstract gave me the freedom to have fun. It's free style and open source. It's like I've become a super-efficient code developer. No need to learn programming languages. In free style, I'm so free that I let my soul express itself freely. And that's exactly what she wants to talk to me about. It has a message for me: it's my emotion. By doing this, I took the time to receive my emotions. To respect them. It felt like a sacred ritual. A ceremony of kindness to myself.
I automatically felt joyful or rested.
Understanding one's emotions, and welcoming them with an open mind, is not taught' at school. And it wasn't traditional in my family to ask how I felt.
7 years in Saudi Arabia brought me the gift of embracing my emotions.
To open up to what I was really feeling and be more in control of my reactions.
Painting abstract is so rich that I even found myself finding hidden messages behind each of my works.
And then I understood the power of art. I understood it thanks to Jason Mraz. Who sings :
“Life imitates art”
From this extraordinary inspiration can be born a whole new way. More intuitive, softer, happier.
As a hypnotherapist, we use the art of suggestion to reach levels of consciousness that enable us to release buried emotions. Emotions of sorrow and pain are buried and cause such spiritual pain that we refuse to think about them or remember them.
But you can't run away from your emotions. You can pile them on and push until the pot is full and explodes. At that point, you don't know what’s the refer type code for that bursting emotion , you just experience chaos and drama mainly.
But if you work like a goldsmith, or like a surgeon, you pull out a precise knot. The emotions will come out more delicately.
And that's when I understood the power of this abstract art.
It's like turning down the sound on a very loud video. And I speed up the motion. I see images flash by. I can hear the film's music, but it doesn't scare or hurt me as much as if I were watching the video in normal motion.
It's as if I were gently cleansing myself with a body scrub full of essential oils and then taking the time for a massage right afterwards.
I gently cleanse my body of toxins.
You might ask why I started with Steve Jobs.
The key word is Kandinsky!
One day I was watching a thriller. The main character had a painting by Kandinsky. The painting is used as a thread to unmask the culprit in the film.
Kandinsky is the pioneering painter who launched abstract art.
And I remember perfectly when I first heard the name. It stuck in my memory.
It resonated within me.
As if my soul, my brain had heard a frequency that corresponded to a destination that concerned me.
I remember the sensation: this curious feeling. As if the sound in my head had become clearer, much clearer. As if everything around it was fading away.
That's how I traced the link. That’s how I connected the dots.
Connecting the dots gives us more clues to finding our Inner Gem.
Emotions and sensations lead to my intuition. The only one capable of finding me the Path to Paradise.
Much love
Lamia
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