Friday’s cup of tea

I invite you to invite yourself for a cup of soothing beverage. Spend time with yourself. Not just to kill time. To observe. Listen to your mind, your heart. What have you noticed?

My cup today is filled with ideas of Pilote Automatique. I thought I don’t have enough discipline and persistence. I was wrong. I kept looking in the wrong places. Through the persistence and discipline of a soldier, I build up structures in the mind. Strict, harsh, and overly critical.

It is quite tiring to listen to that kind of mindset most of the time, but one can get used to it and then creates the reality around it. This time I am trying a more gentle approach to change it.

First, just to observe:

What do my thoughts sound like? To quote: “ Who do I think I am? Right, it will end as it always does! Why do I think this time it will be different? Why would anyone want to look at my art? Why would anyone read my articles? Oh! You are trying to lose weight again!? If only you could lose kilos like you lose your keys.”

What color and tone do they have? Like the weather outside - gloomy, grey, misty, cold, windy. Even during sunny days.

When are they louder? When I am hungry. When I don’t finish something. When I keep the mess in my office. When I am exploring new techniques in art I am very vulnerable to feedback. So when I share what I did for the first time, I am extremely sensitive and explosive (even before a person has a chance to tell me anything).

Is there any pattern? Oh yeah! One of the patterns I discovered quite late in my life, is that I tend to think more harshly about one week before the period. I know it’s basic biology, but I never connected the dots.

That’s it. For now, just observing is enough. No five-step plan today. No to-do list, nothing else. Just observing. Melting away into the weekend and warming up my mind.

What is your “cup” filled with this week?