How Mindfulness can enhance your freedom to create your best work

Application

Use this tip to prepare for any drawing exercise.

Example

I use this technique when writing a word I plan to embroider. By making practice examples, I gain freedom to experiment joyfully and then choose one for my project.

Suggestions

Try this when writing a card for a friend or loved one. As you write their name on the front of a gift tag or envelope, focus on their loving essence and tap into heart coherence!

Steps

Set the stage

Assemble plenty of paper, drawing tools, and a music source with headphones.
Headphones on, cue up your favorite meditative music. Practice slow, mindful breathing.

Start to work

Begin writing your name in a script that is led by your intuition. Do what feels right, slowly and with acceptance.
If tension or the sound of your inner critic arises, take a deep, nourishing breath, relax the jaw, and write an affirmation such as, “I trust my intuition to guide me at all times.”

Mindfulness guides you

You will know you’ve tapped into your intuition when your hand feels led or pulled along rather than forced by the mental body.
You will know when to stop when you feel at ease in completion of the task.
Acknowledge your courage for opening your heart to experimentation, and for being willing to make mistakes in order to learn.

Takeaways

To remember and notice while practicing this technique

Slow down. Breathe.

Notice the breath and come back to it.

Cultivate an awareness of how I am in the moment.

Rewards

A beautiful effect of activating Theta brainwaves: I notice my softness sweetly escorts the perfectionist tendencies out of the room

To Try

Develop positive mantras to rely on and build resilience in your creative lifestyle. This one is a winner:

I am more easily in a state of openness—I am more open to being tender with myself.

Speak up!

I would love to hear the mantras you’ve discovered and found useful. Please post in the comments.

Coming in this series:

Level Up Your Listening: Beautiful beats

I’ll introduce you to accessing powerful creative energy by using some ancient techniques for boosting your brain’s peace and insight.

Practice Makes Projects: Turn your Drawing into a Stitching Guide

I’ll guide you through making your favorite name drawing into a pattern and creating your vision for the project.

-Step 1: Get headphones on and cue up some binaural beats. I found mine on Insight Timer. Binaural beats help me achieve a more mindful state while I’m working because they activate Theta brainwaves.

-Step 2: practice writing your name in a script that is led by your intuition. You can do what feels right, slowly and with acceptance. If you feel any tension creep in or any inner critic voices, take a deep, nourishing breath, relax the jaw, and write an affirmation like, “I trust my intuition to guide me at all times.” You will know you’ve tapped into your intuition when your hand feels led or pulled along rather than forced by the mental body.

-Step 3: choose one or two of your hand written names that and trace over them with a dotted line. Imagine you are sewing your name as you write it, going over your lines with stitch-like shapes. I use rounded rectangles that travel over the line and make it become a dotted line. It helps to have some embroidery experience to imagine this, but it’s not imperative.

Things to remind yourself and/or notice while practicing this technique:

-slow down, breathe—In my experience of embroidering letters, I know that the curves and swells of letters requires smaller stitches, so I vary the sizes of the stitch shapes as I travel along my letter shapes.

-cultivate an awareness of how I am in the moment—notice the breath and come back to it—

-The most beautiful thing about when the Theta brainwaves are activated is that I notice my softness sweetly escorts the perfectionist tendencies out of the room.

-I develop positive mantras to rely on and build resilience in my creative lifestyle. This one is a winner:

I am more easily in a state of openness—I am more open to being tender with myself.

“I am more easily in a state of openness—I am more open to being tender with myself. ”