Transcripts
1. Introduction: How do I listen to my intuition? How do I make sure that I'm taking deep care of myself and listening to what my inner voices trying to tell me on a day-to-day basis, when things feel so uncertain a lot of the time, things can feel really scary in this world that we live in. This world is beautiful and amazing in so many ways and at the same time, it's also stressful and scary and things are changing all the time. How do we take care of ourselves through all of that stress and all of that change and all of the challenges that come our way every single day. My name is Jessica swift and I'm an artist in Portland, Oregon. I began creating this kind of artwork after my husband unexpectedly died in August 2018 while I was pregnant with my second child. The best way that I found for working my way through that grief and the fear and the confusion and all of the big feelings that I experienced during that time was through making art and specifically through making art based on messages that I tune in to my own intuition to receive and listen for and turn that into a visual representation of the message that I have received from my own self. In this class, you'll get the opportunity to create your own artwork based around your own messages that come from your inner voice for your own self, for 14 days in a row. This is not a class about art making techniques and in fact, you don't even have to be an artist at all to take this class, to receive the benefit of listening to your intuition and then translating whatever that messages is that you've received from your own deepest innermost self and translating that into some sort of personal visual statement that's meaningful and powerful and transformative for your own self, let's get started.
2. My Story: My life has changed a lot in the last two years and I thought it was important to start us off by telling you a bit of my own story because that's directly where this class and this whole idea of creating messages for yourself stems from, it's from my own painful, grief filled, challenging, difficult time in my life, that was filled with uncertainty. My whole life turned upside-down, basically over night and everything was different. In August 2018, my husband, Ryan, unexpectedly died and I found myself a single parent of an almost three-year-old, my son, and I was pregnant at the time, so I was about four months pregnant with my daughter. I was soon to be a single parent of two very young children, and that is not how I ever pictured my life going. That wasn't part of my plan. Life is so uncertain, even when we think we're in control of everything, we are not. That was the most stressful day of my whole life. This has been the most stressful experience of my whole life and on that morning, that awful morning, I was in the kitchen and I was reaching into the container of cat food to feed my cats, something normal that I do every day and I heard a voice and I listen to my intuition regularly, but usually it's a bit more subtle, it's quiet. I really have to tune in, but this was like a blaring voice in my head that really surprised me. The voice said, "This will not stop you. This will not end you. You are okay. You are already okay. This will not break you." That was really surprising for me because this was the most awful day of my whole life up to this point. Hopefully it'll be the most awful day of the rest of my life. But I was in shock. I didn't know how I was going to move forward. I didn't know what life was going to look like. Everything was different and I sure didn't feel like everything was going to be okay and hearing that voice was incredibly comforting because I knew that that voice was me. It was like a bigger, deeper higher whatever version of myself, that was telling me that and it felt really powerful and really comforting and in that moment, I believed those words, I knew that I was going to be okay, and I thought, there is really something to this, what other messages do I have, or what other messages are trying to come through from my inner self that I drown out in some way or that I just ignore and I don't listen to because I'm too busy or I'm too distracted or I'm complaining about something or whatever, what could I be tuning into that could actually help me feel better in general, but especially in this really stressful, uncertain time in my life. That's where this project began and I didn't actually start the daily art-making project for a few months. I began shortly after my daughter was born as a way to make sure that I was taking care of myself and tuning into my own self and not losing myself in new motherhood, which was a familiar idea for me. I did an important daily project, a daily animal painting project, a few months after my son was born and that was really powerful. So I already knew how powerful a daily art-making practice could be. But combining it with this idea of tuning in for a message from myself, for myself was new and it was completely trans-formative. The way that it looked for me, as I was trying to navigate grief. When my daughter was born, Ryan had died five months before that. So I was still walking through the early stages of grief. I was now walking through the early stages of new motherhood, again, of being a mother of two, it was a crazy time and I had a lot of big feelings and a lot of emotion and a lot of confusion and fear and all of the things that you could imagine. My feelings would change on a minute-to-minute basis sometimes. What I discovered is that it really helped me to sit down at the end of the day when the baby was sleeping and my son had gone to bed to sit on the couch and the way that I did it was drawing on my iPad because that felt really easy and manageable and doable for me and I would sit on the couch and draw. Usually it was just quiet. I didn't listen to music, I didn't have a show playing. It was just quiet. It was just me sitting on the couch with myself and I would sit with my iPad on my lap just waiting until the message came, thinking through what I had experienced, what I had felt during that day, what I was keeping bottled up that I maybe didn't realize I was keeping bottled up, just letting whatever needed to bubble up from inside me bubble up into a phrase, a sentence, sometimes just a word that felt like what I needed to hear for myself that day. Without fail every single day, I felt better as I was creating the artwork. So I would listen to the message, and then make the art and I never set out with a plan. I would just start drawing and see what happened and some days I loved what I created and other days I didn't love it so much, but I was always so glad that I did it and it always made me feel better. To this day, whenever I sit and tune in and listen for whatever my own inner self wants to tell myself. It's deeply powerful and trans-formative and it feels like a magical gift that I give to myself, to give myself those minutes to really focus on what I can give to myself, to make myself feel better, to make myself feel heard, to make myself feel acknowledged and seen and comforted and I'm not alone. That's a bit of my story and why I started doing this in the first place and your reasons may be completely different. One other thing that I want to note too, is that this doesn't have to be a negative thing. I know my story stems from navigating grief and a lot of dramatic changes. But there were days, where my message was one of hope or happiness. I remember in particular there was one that was, it's okay to be happy. There was one day that I found myself just feeling really happy and it was such a wonderful surprise. I don't feel sad and devastated today. I feel happy. That was my message. It's okay to feel this way. Yes, this terrible stuff has happened and you're allowed to feel happiness. It's okay. So wherever your story begins, that's the perfect place to begin. It doesn't have to be dramatic. It can just be vague. You don't even have to know. Maybe you just want to feel better and you're not really sure why, that's a great place to start. So let's dive in. Let's talk about, what are the benefits of doing this? What are the reasons to do it? How does this actually benefit you in a practical way and an internal moral, spiritual way? Then let's get into the nitty-gritty` and I have some prompts for you that will make this even easier to dive into than just starting from scratch. I can't wait to do this with you.
3. Reasons and Benefits: Before we dive into the actual art-making portion of this class, let's talk a bit more about some of the reasons why you might like to cultivate a practice like this, and some of the benefits that you might see from doing so for these 14 days together or beyond, if you choose to keep going after these 14 days are complete. So maybe you're somebody who finds herself currently feeling just a little bit blah or lost, or you feel like there might be more that you could be experiencing, but you're not really sure what it is. Or you're somebody who judges yourself really harshly, or you value other people more highly than you value yourself. Maybe you have low self-confidence or you don't trust yourself very much. All of these situations are wonderful reasons to start tuning into your own in herself for guidance from yourself, because nobody is living inside of your life or your head or your body except you. So just unlike a completely practical level, you are the one who knows best for you. There's no way that anybody could know better than you for yourself because you are the only one living inside of yourself. So if you find yourself in any of these situations and you would like to improve your self-confidence, trust yourself more, hone your intuition and learn to hear it with more clarity and more definition and to really trust it more. These are all great reasons to take this class. Also, if you're somebody who tends to keep your feelings bottled up or you have a hard time discerning what it is that you're actually feeling or experiencing, this is a great reason to take this class because tuning into yourself to figure out what's actually going on, what is that feeling? Maybe you just have a general sense of discomfort, but you're not really sure why. Tuning in and really pinpointing that and figuring out what's going on so you can pinpoint and name a feeling so you can accept it and then move through it and let it go, can be incredibly powerful. I know that from personal experience, I'm somebody who didn't use to talk about my feelings at all. I believed that they were a burden for other people. While I do talk about my feelings with people more now, and it really helps, I've also learned to have that conversation with myself and my own inner voice so I can pinpoint what's going on for me and move through it instead of keeping it stuff down because that can actually physically make you sick. I've had experiences where my digestion has really been affected by me not dealing with something that I'm going through. There's a really powerful gut-brain connection that if you're keeping things bottled up, it can have all negative consequences on your physical and mental and spiritual and emotional health. So get that stuff out if you can figure out how to tune in so you can move through it and get it out so you can move on to feeling good, that is going to be of huge benefit to you. Also just remember that if you don't deal with something, what you resist, persists. So just because you don't feel something or acknowledge it, it doesn't mean that it's going away. It's going to get stuck in here somewhere in your body, in your energetic field. It's going to have some impact and dealing with it now and figuring out what it is so you can move through it and let it go, could potentially save you from some blow up with a family member or a work colleague or something terrible. Or it could keep you from getting sick. Or it might just make you feel better to let that stuff out so it's not stuck inside anymore. So there are all reasons why this practice might be a great one for you to start at wherever you are in your life right now. Some of the benefits that you might see are improved mental health. You might just feel better. On a practical level, whatever you show up to do each day right practice makes you better so your art-making skills will improve whatever your project is, whether it's painting or a digital drawing or collage, or drawing with a pen on paper or whatever it is you will improve. So that's pretty cool. Your self-discipline and follow through muscles will also improve. When you commit and show up and actually do what you say you're going to do, your follow through muscles. You'll be able to trust yourself that you can keep your own word when you say you're going to do something, you'll just know that you're going to do it. So that's not something I think that all of us just naturally know. Many of us are procrastinators. I procrastinate a lot in my own ways, so it's nice to build that muscle. So I know that when I say I'm going do something, I know that means that I'm going to do it. I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm actually going to. So those muscles in your own self could get strengthened through this practice and you'll be taking care of yourself by giving yourself a gift of doing something just for you, just to figure out what's going on in your own inner world and expressing it to make yourself feel better, that's a huge gift. You will feel better, I promise. One of the biggest benefits of any creative practice actually is a decrease in anxiety and stress. That's like a proven fact. Think about the recent craze in recent years, the adult coloring book craze, like coloring for stress relief. It's just a proven fact that when you're focused on creating, you basically distract your mind from worrying. I'm a worrier, I've always been a worrier. So my mind is constantly, spinning with all the what-ifs about any given situation. When I create, I give myself a chance to think about something else. My mind can shift away from worrying and give my nervous system a chance to calm down and get out of that fight or flight mode that I think many of us living in this modern world find ourselves in a lot of the time, whether we realize it or not, we're always just on high alert, waiting for the next stressful thing to happen. When you're creating, you can give your body and your self a chance to calm down and give your nervous system a chance to reset. So on a very practical level, if you are somebody who finds yourself feeling stressed a lot of the time, this could help you feel less stress and less anxiety in your day-to-day life, or at least in the moments where you're sitting and making your art for the day. So those are some of the reasons and benefits. Now, let's move on to talking about what we're actually going to be doing here.
4. How This Works: Before you begin, I want you to get really specific and clear about defining your project. What are your art-making tools going to be? When are you going to be creating your artwork? Where are you going to be creating your artwork? Will your project be public, for example, will you be sharing it on Instagram or Facebook with a special hashtag or something, or will it be private just for you, will you be showing it to your spouse, or your partner, or your kids, or your art making friends? Get really clear so you can give yourself the best chance possible for success for these 14 days. There are not really very many rules as far as how to actually create your artwork, you have a lot of choices at your fingertips, maybe you already are very familiar with a medium or a couple of mediums that you love using. Great. I would really encourage you to not choose something that's brand new. The idea here is to tune into your intuition and remove any barriers to listening to yourself, or to following through with actually doing this for 14 days. If you're setting out to do this and you're trying to learn a brand new medium at the same time, that could be a big barrier, or that could impede, or get in the way of you hearing that voice because you might be judging yourself for using the new media, maybe it's watercolors, or something, that your watercolor looks terrible, because you don't know what you're doing. That could be getting in the way of you actually, tuning into whatever it is that you need to hear for yourself. I would encourage you to choose something that's familiar, but again, if you want to choose something brand new, that's up to you, that's just what I personally would do. For example, as I mentioned before, the first time I did this project, I sat on my couch and drew on my iPad Pro with my Apple Pencil, which is a very familiar medium for me. I actually did this project the second time, which you can see, some of the paintings behind me I did, acrylic paintings on wood which, again, is another familiar medium for me, it's something that I've used regularly for years. There were a bit more barriers for that project, because I had to actually leave my house and come up to my studio, which is on my property, but it's a separate buildings. At the end of the day, and I was tired, I needed to actually leave my house, which sounds silly, but that was a barrier, for me, sometimes. The paintings took longer than the digital drawings, so that was another barrier. If you don't have much time, it might be a good idea to choose something that's more on the simple side, drawing with pen and paper, something like that. Some options that you could consider are, digital drawing on an iPad, on your computer, on any kind of tablet, drawing in a sketchbook with just a simple black pen, colored pencils, markers, crayons, I mean, if you want to get a really rudimentary, just grab your kids crayons and go for it. You could paint on wood, or canvas, or paper, you could use watercolor, gouache, acrylic, oil, the sky is the limit. You could collage, if you think you're somebody who can't paint or can't draw, why not get out a stack of magazines and just start cutting away, and position your images or cut out words that speak to you and just see what happens, just make it really playful? Keep in mind also that your images don't actually have to contain words. We're talking about messages here and listening to messages that you're receiving from yourself, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean words. Hand lettering is super hot right now in the illustration worlds, so maybe that's calling to you, but maybe hand lettering is not your thing at all. You want your messages to speak only in images, and no words, and that's great, the message doesn't have to be clear to anybody, except for you. If you can see behind me, some of my paintings back there have obvious words on them, but some of them don't, like the mermaid image down there, doesn't have any words, and I know what the message of that painting is, but others may not. It doesn't have to be obvious, it doesn't have to be in your face blatant, these art pieces are just for you. You make your own rules, define your project, and then in the next video, we are going to get started talking about some prompts and what you're actually going to be doing for these 14 days.
5. How To Tune In: We have one more very important thing to talk about before we actually start making some art, and that is, how do you tune into this voice anyway? How do you hear your intuition? How do you hear these messages? Maybe this is all brand new to you and you've never even considered that you have a voice inside that wants to help you. I think we're all familiar with the voices inside that are critical, and that are telling us mean things about ourselves or the judgmental voices, and that's not really the voice that I'm talking about. I'm talking about a voice that's a bit quieter, and a bit more underneath the surface of all of that monkey mind chatter. I always picture the chatter is up here, and it's high-pitched, and it's talking really fast and then my inner voice is deeper and quieter and calmer, and it talks more slowly and spaciously and just has a different quality to it. Some techniques for starting to learn how to tune into that voice or for honing that skill. There are a lot of different ways that you can get in, but I'll just list a few here. The first and maybe most obvious is meditating, and meditating doesn't have to be fancy or where you're sitting in a lotus position or sitting in a certain way, breathing in a certain way, thinking, certain thoughts, keeping track of breaths. It doesn't have to be anything like that, it can be simple. It can be sitting on the couch, sitting on a chair, lying on the floor, whatever feels comfortable. Lying on your bed, closing your eyes, and just starting to breathe deep and trying to listen for what's underneath all of that monkey mind chatter and not expecting anything specific or in particular. Sometimes the messages that would come for me while I was doing this project were very surprising. Or the message that seemed like it wanted to come through seemed really too simple, but it was just right. I remember one day the word breathe came through, and it sounds so cliché. But I noticed that I hadn't been breathing like my breathing was stuck in my chest very shallow. That was just the perfect reminder for myself in that moment that all I had to do is breathe deeply, and that would help me and let go of some of the stress that I was holding onto. Your message that comes through might be a simple word some days, and that's great. Meditating is a great way to starting to listen a bit more deeply to that voice. Another simple way is to just doodle. Sometimes if you're doing something else while you're thinking about this, but it's not something you have to concentrate much on, doodling, folding laundry, doing the dishes. All of those kinds of things where you're staying busy, you're occupied, and your mind has room to just explore, and spin out into its own imaginative spaces. Where you are occupying your thinking mind, so you have access to that deeper mind. Another way might be in the shower. I often get weird messages in the shower when I'm washing my hair or shaving my legs or something, and all of a sudden, this message will pop in, and I'm like, "Where did that come from?" Also driving. Driving or walking around my neighborhood, those are two surefire ways. If I'm trying to figure something out or if I'm trying to hear which direction I'm supposed to go on something, I'll often just hop in my car because I have to pay attention to the road. So that part of my mind is occupied and that deeper part of me has a little bit more room to come through. Moving your body is a great way to start tuning in. If you need to shake up your energy, if you're feeling stagnant or stuck, do some jumping jacks or some sit-ups or run in place, just something to shake up the energy so you get out of that regular mind that you might be stuck in. That can shake some things loose and help you start thinking in a different way. Another really fun way that I like to use all the time is oracle or tarot cards, asking the cards a question and then shuffling the deck and seeing what answer you get, seeing what card you get and what that might mean for your day or your experience or how to interpret a situation. I like to think of oracle cards and tarot cards as helpers like spirit helpers, inner guide helpers, intuition helpers, if that makes sense. Maybe this is something that you're already well-versed in. But if you've never used oracle cards or tarot cards, they can be a really fun way to get some answers and to interpret messages that you might be getting from yourself. But that feel a bit unclear and that you just need a little bit of assistance with. Those are some ways that I would recommend trying to tune into your intuition. Throughout these 14 days, if this is all new to you, try any or all of these methods and see what works the best for you. Maybe there's something that you normally do to tune in, maybe it's yoga. There are so many different ways to tune in and get into your body and into your own experience and calm down and quiet down so you can actually hear yourself. There are no rules, these are just some suggestions. But in the next video, when we get into actually starting on the series of steps that you're going to go through every day, keep these in mind as we move forward. I'll see you in the next video.
6. Begin. Let's Make Some Art!: Let's begin. The way this is going to work is I'm going to outline what you'll be doing each of the 14 days, and then in the next series of videos there are going to be 14 prompts, one for each day, and you do not have to do them in order, you can jump around, use your intuition to feel into what feels right for whatever day you are working on. You could start with day number 9, day number 4, day number 1, whatever, there are no rules. Just listen to yourself. If a specific prompt isn't speaking to you at all, just skip it, and make up your own. Do the same prompt for 14 days. There are no rules. These prompts are just some guidance to help you ease into the exercises if you need it, and if not, and you just want to show up on your own for 14 days, that is totally fine too. Here is what you are going to do, on the steps you're going to follow each of these 14 days, you're going to do the same things. At your designated time, you'll sit down, or stand, or whatever you're doing, with your art-making tools, and you will choose a prompt from the prompt list, which you can see the prompts over in the videos, or in the resources section, I have a PDF that you can download and have on your phone, or on your computer, or printed out, or whatever. Then you're going to choose whichever way you're going to tune into your intuition, and you're going to listen for your message. You'll sit and you'll meditate, or you'll do yoga, or you'll go for a walk, or a drive, or you'll fold some laundry, or you'll just start doodling and listening, or you'll just sit and look at a blank screen or a blank canvas, like I do sometimes, whatever way you've decided to tune in, you're just going to sit and you're going to listen for that message. You're going to reflect on your day, and what has happened, and try not to judge it, try not to get sucked into that monkey mind, that judging mind, and listen for what's bubbling up from within, from deeper, that quieter, calmer voice. When the message comes, you're going to start making your art, you're going to grab that pencil, you're going to grab the paintbrush, the iPad, the collage, the stack of magazines, whatever you're working with, and you're going to start making your art. I want to encourage you to not overthink it. The intention here, is not to create something that's stunningly beautiful, that's sellable, that's a perfect work of art, like a masterpiece, or something that's even necessarily shareable on social media, even though I know that's, we're all about these days is sharing everything. This is about listening for that message, hearing the message, and then expressing it, in a way that feels meaningful and personal for you in this moment, on this day, in your life. This is not for anybody else. Even if you're going to be sharing everything that you create on Instagram, it's still just for you. The seed of this is within you, and you're not creating this for anybody else. Tune in, listen to your message, create your artwork, and then, there's one magic piece that I haven't talked about yet that I would like to encourage you to add into what you're doing every day, and that is, reflecting and writing a bit about what you've created once you're done making your image. When I did my project, I shared it on Instagram, every day, and that meant including a caption. I found that it was really powerful to sit and write about the image that I had created, and what was going on for me and what it helped me work through, and that, that really helped me seal that message into my being, if that makes sense. I would encourage you to write a little bit about it, whether you'll be sharing it on social media or not, maybe it's just a little blurb in your journal or in your sketchbook right next to the image, however you're working, and the last step is to track how this is all going for yourself. I created a feeling chart, basically, that you can download also in the resources section. I want you to pay attention to how you're feeling when you sat down to create your artwork, how you felt while you were creating it, and write down what your message was that came through also. Then write down how you felt, or how you feel, after creating the artwork, and just see if you notice any patterns emerging. Maybe when you sit down you're feeling antsy, or you're feeling resistant, or you're feeling low, or you want to procrastinate, and then when you're finished, maybe you feel relieved, or you feel joyful, or you feel proud, there are any number of ways that you could feel. Just track that, and see if you notice any tangible difference that this process is making in your day-to-day life. Then each day, for the 14 days, just go through that same series of steps. You'll sit down, you'll have your tools close by, you will choose your prompt, you'll sit and/or walk, or whatever you'll choose how you're going to tune in, you'll listen for your message. When you have your message you'll create your artwork. When you're finished, you'll write about it for a few minutes, and then you'll track your feelings. I will see you on the other side of 14 days, and we'll talk about what to do next.
7. Name A Feeling: Prompt number one is naming a feeling and this is a great place to start if you are somebody who tends to stuff things down and aren't really noticing what is necessarily going on inside of you. This can be a great way to start tuning in just to get clear on what's actually going on for you. How are you feeling about everything that's going on in your day-to-day life. Once you've pinpointed something, you can turn that into any message for yourself. Perhaps you've noticed today you feel stuck. Maybe your messages let yourself feel stuck or let go of the stuckness or it's okay to feel stuck. What can you do with that feeling? What positive message can you give to yourself around your feeling of stuckness? That is prompt number one, just sit and try to see if you can pinpoint a feeling, something that could use some loosening today.
8. A Message In One Word: Prompt number 2 is a message in one word. This one I think is pretty self-explanatory. You're just going to tune in and listen for one word that wants to come through for you today. I have all sorts of examples that I could give, but I'm not going to plant any words in your mind. Just tune in and listen for one powerful word that wants to be given to you from you today.
9. Respond To Your Day: Prompt number three is respond to your day. As you are sitting and thinking about what your message might be, run through how your day has gone and what's happened in conversations you've had. Things that have gone well, things that haven't necessarily gone well, conflicts that you've been a part of, successes you've had and just listen internally for anything that kind of gives you like that ping, "Oh, that's where my message lies today." Maybe it's a conversation that you had with your mom or with a friend where there was some nugget of wisdom or helped you see things in a different way. Just scroll through your day and just see what you take the most notice of and use that as kind of a starting point for what your message for yourself might be today.
10. Addressing Unkind Thoughts: Prompt number 4 is addressing unkind thoughts. These can be unkind thoughts towards others. Unkind thoughts towards yourself is what I had in mind when I wrote this prompt. That might just be because I personally tend to have unkind thoughts about myself. I expect a lot of myself. I give myself a really hard time. I'm judgmental towards myself in ways that I am not judgmental toward other people. Let's work on messages that have a bit of self-compassion or compassion, if your thoughts are unkind toward someone else or a group of people or something, compassion toward that person or that group of people. What kind of message can you come up with with unkind thoughts at the root? How can you flip those unkind thoughts and turn it into something compassionate and powerful in that kind of way?
11. Allowing Your Own Experience: Prompt number 5 is allowing your own experience. This is all about empowering yourself and tuning out all the other noise that is anywhere and everywhere except right here in your own body, your own self, your own experience, your own life. This is giving yourself permission to trust yourself. This is telling yourself that you are worthy, that you are capable, that you actually can find the answers for yourself. You already have the answers for yourself. This is a day of empowerment. With that in mind, what message is coming through that's going to make you feel good and I've got this, I can I'm good. I don't need anybody to tell me, I am the boss of me. Maybe that's your message. I am the boss of me. Empowering messages today, owning your own experience.
12. Active Listening Throughout The Day: Prompt number six is active listening throughout the day. This is something I mentioned a little while ago in a previous video when I was talking about how sometimes in yoga class I would listen to what my teacher was saying at the beginning of class and it would often prompt me to think about something that ended up turning into my message later that night after my kids had gone to bed. I want you to be thinking about this throughout the day today, listening for, could this be my message? Tuning into your intuition all day long, as often as you can possibly remember to. Listening like tuning into your intuition while you're talking to other people. Tuning into your intuition while you're listening to other people. Tuning in all day long as much as you can and seeing how that might impact your message today.
13. Giving Yourself Permission: Prompt number seven is giving yourself permission. This could mean any permission, giving yourself permission to rest, giving yourself permission to take a day off, giving yourself permission to be kind to yourself, giving yourself permission to want something that seems crazy and like it will never happen, giving yourself permission to love someone, giving yourself permission to be vulnerable, whatever it is, give yourself permission today, and let that be the root of your message.
14. (Complete This Sentence) It's OK...: Prompt number 8 is a really fun one. I want you to complete this sentence, it's okay, blank. It's okay to feel happy. It's okay to feel angry. It's okay to sleep all day. There are so many options. I don't want to put any more ideas into your head, but this is a really fun one, because it can go so many different directions. I feel you could use this prompt for 14 days, and it would be great. Complete the sentence, it's okay to, blank.
15. What Would A Best Friend Tell You?: Prompt number nine. What would a best friend telling you? This one is so powerful, you guys. I think many of us, most of us, I know I do this. I talk to myself in such unkind ways, in a way that I would never talk to my best friend. I treat myself in ways that I would never treat my best friend. I'm so hard on myself in ways that I would never be hard on anybody else. If you were having this conversation with your best friend, what would he or she tell you? What advice would he or she gives you? Then taking that one step further, consider that you are your own best friend. That inner voice is your best friend. So that inner voice always wants the best for you, the way that your best friend wants the best for you. So consider that you are your own best friend and give yourself the love and compassion that your own best friend in real life, another person outside of you would show you, would give you, would offer you and see if you can give that to yourself, and what message comes out of the idea today.
16. Reframe With An Affirmation: Prompt Number 10. Re-frame with an affirmation. So pinpoint an unkind thought that you're having or a judgment that you're having and see if you can flip that today. Turn it around into something positive. If you're feeling tired and grumpy, maybe a way to turn that into an affirmation is, I allow myself rest and feeling my feelings. So how can you flip whatever negative experience or feeling you're having and turn it into something positive and useful. So re-frame with an affirmation today.
17. Change Your Tone Of Voice: Prompt number 11 is change your tone of voice. I haven't really a specific example of this and I'm a little bit nervous to share it with you because this is not who I am in my normal life, but just for it this is a powerful example from myself. I'm going to share it anyway even though it feels uncomfortable. One of the last days of my 100-day messages to Myself Project, the message that came through for some reason was Fuck the noise. That's not how I speak to people, that's not how I speak on the internet, that's just not the normal tone of voice that I would use for my message, but for some reason it came through and I thought I can't say like that it can't be my message that I share on Instagram or that's not a message that I want for myself. That was the message that's why I said, you know what? I'm going to go with it, this is my message, I'm going to write it out, I'm going to share it on the Internet and I'm going to own it, and it's going to be what it's going to be. It felt amazing, you guys. I changed my tone of voice, my inner voice changed its tone of voice and allowed me to access something different. There was some anger there, there was some letting go of the nice girl that I often am. How could changing your tone of voice change your message? How could it shift things for you and allow you to access something different that you may not have access yet up to this point.
18. Cheer Yourself On: Prompt number 12 is cheer yourself on. Be really nice to yourself today. Tell yourself great things like you are doing a good job, you are going to be okay, you are awesome at this, you are killing it. Like what is a nice message that would just make you feel so great to hear from yourself today to keep you going and to pump you up.
19. Use Your Wounds: Prompts number 13 is use your wounds. There is so much good inner work that we can do with our wounds, wounds from today, wounds from last week, wounds from our childhood. We are all imperfect humans who've had a lot of things happen in our lives, good and bad and ugly, and everywhere in between. What's something that's just been eating at you for a little while that you think maybe there's something that's there that you could offer to yourself to help you maybe shift the way that you're experiencing a memory or an experience that you've had, that you've been kind of stuck in thinking about one way? Where could you use that wound to move yourself forward out of stuckness and let go some of that bottled up stuff and move it out and through you so you can start to experience something new.
20. (Complete This Sentence) You Get To...: Prompt number 14 is another fun fill-in-the-blank one. So complete this sentence. You get to blank. What do you get to do? What are you not allowing yourself to do? Who are you not allowing yourself to be? You get to be an artist. You get to change your career when you're 50 years old. You get to have a baby, even though you're not married and not partnered. You get to move across the country. You get to take a day off. You get to sleep on the couch if you are uncomfortable in your bed. You get to eat chips for dinner. Like whatever it is. What can you give yourself permission to do or to feel or to be today that you're currently not allowing yourself? What can you give to yourself today in the construct of that sentence, you get to blank?
21. Questions: Some questions might come up before you get started or as you work your way through the 14 days or even afterward and some of those questions might be, what if I can't hear a message? What if nothing comes? What if my mind is just blank and I waste my time and I end up feeling like a failure? Totally plausible question, totally legitimate fear. Some other questions might be, what if I don't like what I create? What if I said I wanted to share it on the Internet, but then I decide I don't want to? What if I shared things for five days, but then I hate what I created on day six and I don't want to share that? Can I skip a day? What do I do if I want to quit? These are all legitimate and valid questions and I think these all just come down to one root issue and that is just fear of the unknown. What I would encourage is that even if and when these questions come up is to just keep going, try not to judge your process for these 14 days, if at all possible. If you create something that you don't like, you created something that you don't like. That's awesome, you created something, so that's great. I had a favorite professor in college who always used to say, "You have to be willing to make the bad work in order to make the good work." I think of that all the time, not just in art-making, but in life. You have to be willing to slog through the crud to get to the joules. You have to be willing to go through that day where the message doesn't come or your message feels lame, or maybe it doesn't feel like quite the right message. It didn't get quite to the heart of what you needed to hear on that particular day. That's all just part of your process because the more you know about what doesn't work, the closer you're actually getting to what does work. So if you discover on one day that doodling to get your message to tune into your inner voice just really doesn't work for you and you didn't get a message at all, that's awesome. You just know not to try them again the next day or that that didn't work that day and it could have not worked for a variety of reasons and you can actually just leave it at that, you don't have to take it so seriously. While this is all big inner stuff, it can also be approached in a really light-hearted way and it doesn't have to be approached that way every day, but it's a possibility and that always exists that you don't have to take everything quite so seriously. I'm also talking to myself as I'm sharing this with you because I am somebody who tends to take things very seriously. But when it comes to creating something that I don't like, it's easy after a lot of practice now for many years for me to say, "Okay, I created something that I don't like. I'll have another opportunity to try again tomorrow or in five minutes or whatever." If you're on day four and the message just isn't coming and you're sitting down at your designated time and it's just not working, do it differently that day if you want to or if you need to, there are no rules. I just want to be crystal clear that everything I'm sharing here is just my own personal experience and what's worked for me and I offer all of this as a guidance for your own project. But if it doesn't work for you or if there's something I've said or recommended that doesn't work, don't do it and do it your own way. If you have a way that works better for yourself, that is awesome. The key is tuning in to whatever is right for you and that might be something different every single day. I only know what works for me every day and it's up to you to know what works for you every day and that is the process that we're starting to dive into during these 14 days. So I encourage you to allow yourself to do this imperfectly. To allow each day to be its own experience, to allow yourself to suck at it if you're going to suck at it some days. I sucked at it plenty of days, I still suck at it plenty of days. Just allow yourself to be wherever you are and try not to judge it and just see what happens and when these questions come up, just do your best to not use them as a way to quit on yourself, especially if your question is, what if I want to quit? I don't like this. Do your best to just keep going, prove to yourself that you can do something for yourself for 14 days, it's two weeks. This could be as quick as five minutes a day depending on how you've designed your project, just do everything you can to not let these questions or fears of the unknown or of things being uncertain or not knowing how it's all going to look or turn out. Do your best to let those types of things not the barriers to you completing what you set out to complete when you decided to do these 14 days of creating powerful messages for yourself.
22. Final Thoughts: I have fun creating artwork in this way, creating messages for myself that are deeply personal, to be so powerful and so transformative in my own processing of things that are going on in my life. I hope that you find that you're having or that you will have the same experience as you work your way through this class, or as you move beyond this class and continue practicing making art in this way and tuning into yourself in this way. I hope that it helps you cultivate more self-compassion, more self-love. I hope that you, through this class, learn how to listen to that inner voice and to really trust it as your inner guide as your own best friend. I think this is one of the most powerful practices that we can do as humans, is to learn to trust ourselves and to really truly believe that we have the answers for ourselves and that the answers are not somewhere outside of us, and that we actually are whole and complete as we are and all we have to do is listen and the way will be shown to us. I hope that this class helps you believe that, and feel that, and know that, and trust that a little bit more for your own self. I hope your nervous system calms down a little bit the way that mine does when I'm making art especially in this way. I hope your skills improve, whatever those skills might be. Or I hope you let yourself just make a beautiful disastrous mess that is not intended to be beautiful or skill-building whatsoever, if that feels freeing for you. Over all, I hope that you feel better as you work your way through this class. I hope that you notice after these 14 days, that you feel a little bit different and it might be subtle. But I just hope that paying close attention and giving yourself the gift of time and attention to spend tuning in to your own self, because you are your only you. You're living inside your body, and yourself, and your mind forever. For the whole rest of your life, this is who and how you're going to be. So, it's a gift that you give yourself to get to know yourself even better than you already do know yourself. So I hope that you feel better. I would love, love, love, love, love to see what you are working on. So, in the next video, I'm going to tell you a little bit about your project and then you're going to be off and running. I hope that it's as impactful and meaningful, this practice, for you as it has been for me. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you've enjoyed this class.
23. Your Project: Your project obviously is to create messages for yourself in whatever medium you choose for 14 days. But I would love to see what you're creating and if you are up for it, you can post your daily artwork here so I can check it out and help to cheer you on and see what an amazing job you're doing. But at the minimum, I would love it if you could share at least four of your 14 messages. I'd love to see one from day one, your first message that would be great and then a couple from the middle of your journey, maybe somewhere from days 5-8 and 9-12, somewhere in there. Then I'd love to see your final message from day 14. At the minimum, please share four of your messages, at the maximum, share all 14. I would love that too. We can help cheer each other on, and I just cannot wait to see what you create, what you uncover for yourselves, the impact this has on your lives and your well-being. I just can't wait to hear about your journey and I hope that it's as impactful and meaningful this practice for you as it has been for me. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you've enjoyed this class.