Just do it

I know. It's a Nike slogan.

It's also a damn good mantra.

The amount of things that can stand in the way of us and an idea, a prompting — even a life calling — are endless.

They're also pointless.

Stephen Pressfield was the first to introduce me to the concept of Creative Resistance.

In his book The War of Art, he talks about Resistance as a "universal, negative internal force that actively sabotages our creative potential and prevents us from doing our most important work."

Big yikes.

And big truth.

I've been sitting on an idea for about a year now, a thing I've been calling Signal Drift: part radio show, part booking shows. Earlier this year I started making moves and then Resistance got me.

Starting a new thing is hard. You'll hit obstacles, especially in the beginning, that's a fact. And when this happens you can either move through as a matter of fact or you can take it too much to heart and determine that your big, beautiful idea is not worth doing.

I did the latter.

But you know what I love about ideas that are meant for us? They keep coming back. They're like that neighborhood cat who appears in your yard, looking for a snack and some love. They show up, unannounced, just looking for a cozy place to curl up and nap.

Last week, I made a new logo for Signal Drift. I started reaching out to bands again. I have a venue that wants me to do some shows. And I'm reminded that when we just commit to an idea, when we, yes — (cough cough) JUST DO IT — the Universe comes to meet us in that. The doors may not swing open, but they start to crack just enough for a little light to get in.

Enough light to show the way.

I quit the class

Creativity is my favorite thing. My favorite topic. The thing that fascinates me the most.

A course called "Creative Breakthrough Lab"? It sang to me like a siren. Of course I signed up.

But two classes in and I knew I wouldn't be attending the third.

I was beyond bored.

How do you make creativity boring? I asked a friend.

Her response:

Study it, I guess. The moment it moves from the heart to the head it’s a goner.

She was right.

Some things just can't be explained, measured tracked, recorded or made sense of.

Sure, you can study the framework creativity sits inside. You can study its technical tools. But you can't study creativity itself because it's a living, breathing thing. A clash — of hair-brained ideas, wild experiments, deeply felt experiences. It's like trying to study the wind. You can study its movements, but the thing itself?

You can't see it.

Dreams are facts

Dreamt of a grassy beach and shallow ocean to swim in with large, friendly fish; a lofted art studio, somewhat hidden and cozy with just enough light; and an already fleshed-out chorus of song — jazz.

I woke up and hummed it into voice notes.

“Dreams are the facts from which we must proceed.”

Writing is witchcraft

It’s the thing I do when I don’t know what to do.

Even writing down “I don’t know what to do” opens up a gate, a portal to the next thing, the next thought, the next burst of creative energy.

Is it an invitation? To put words down on paper? Is it a conversation with Help? Is Help listening? Ferociously taking notes? Are our words its marching orders to assemble what’s needed? To support us in our unfolding? To meet us in the mess and mystery?

Ideas are like cats

Sometimes you need to invite them out from under the couch.

They’re hesitant, maybe even a bit scared of you.

You have to be patient. You have to show you’re committed to them, you love them, you’re willing and available to do the work that’s required.

Forget about them and they’ll go find another human.

Betray them and they’ll go somewhere they’re wanted.

Attend to them and watch out!

You are what you love

What I mean is, what goes in, comes out.

If you feed your mind a diet of news and negativity, guess what’s going to come out?

Your natural state is not anxiety. Your natural state is calm.

That other shit in there? The negative self talk, the worry, the racing, obsessive thoughts? That’s just a bunch of junk and it’s not yours.

It’s like the trash you find in your backyard. Candy wrappers, beer bottle caps. How did it even get there?

That trash isn’t yours.

You know what is yours? Love. Creativity. Calm. These are your birthrights and engaging with them brings you closer to who you are.

And who you are is what the world needs.

Get out of your logical mind

Here’s another way to say it:

Take a bird’s-eye view. 

From high up, details fade and we can access the big picture. This vantage point can lead to fresh ideas and inspirations.

From here we can: 

• free-associate

• harness our emotion + intuition

• feel our gut feelings

• access the creative well inside

I’ve been a bit under the weather. Yesterday I had just enough energy to make an ikebana arrangement.

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging. The practice roughly translates to “making flowers come alive.”

You could call these arrangements abstract. They aren’t trying to achieve a particular design or mimic something in nature. 

You could say they don’t “make sense.” 

And this is the exact source of their beauty.

They are unconventional, each botanical given the space to be, and, when successful, to also be in harmony with one another. 

Beauty doesn’t need to make sense.

Encourage yourself

Self-praise activates: 

• Love

• Trust

• Joy

• Excitement

• Oxytocin 

• Abundance 

Self-criticism activates:

• Fear

• Anger

• Disgust

• Shame

• Sadness 

• Scarcity 

Under praise’s spell, no one’s light can diminish our own. We need to bask in that shit.

On the other hand, criticism is contracting and makes us small. Small is not who we are.

Remember a time when you felt encouraged, seen, loved. Sit with that. How does it feel in your physical body? In your emotions? Mind? In your Spirit?

If you’re like me, you can feel it best in your physical body. I stand a little taller. Maybe my shoulders drop.

“Good job, Joce” I say to myself as I post this. 

Feed the Dream

Dreams aren’t for nothing. In fact, life gets fun when you allow yourself to embrace your dreams. Even a little bit.

Dreams:

• spark hope

• fuel creativity

• provide purpose & direction

• push you toward your best self

• make the impossible feel possible

Mostly, allowing yourself to dream brings joy into your everyday experience and - not sure about you, but I need a hell of a lot more of that.

Call me greedy but I want to enjoy my life.

I know what you’re going to say: who has time for dreams? In this absolute dumpster fire of a world?

Really, who doesn’t have time for dreams?

Why on earth are we here?

To be miserable?

I think we were put here to enjoy. TO BE IN OUR JOY.

Think of dreams like little seeds planted in our bellies. They can sit there dormant or we can feed them. A little sunlight here, a little water there.

A little goes a long way and what do you have to loose?

Manifestation vs Faith

In creative work, in life, we constantly walk the line between action and surrender. We put ourselves out there — we go for the job, we write the book, we apply for the residency.

And then we surrender.

It’s common to think that surrender is a type of inaction. But surrender is an action, too.

Surrender contains rest, trust, faith.

So make your vision boards, make your declarations.

But also do the inner work that moves you toward faith. Faith in self, faith in the Universe conspiring in your favor.

We are co-creators. We don’t work alone.

It’s a big weight off, don’t you think?

Sun and

clouds and

rain and

four full rainbows.

The sky —

abundant.

All this shit matters

I know it’s not what you want to hear but love is who you are.

Love is the essential reality.

Not hate. Not violence. Not division.

Love.

It’s almost impossible to believe it’s true. And even harder to believe that it’s not just true of any one person, but of every single one of us.

At our truest nature, underneath the heavy weight of it all, we are love.

Me, you, Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson, Jimmy Kimmel, the guy who makes your latte, the girl who bags your groceries, the neighbor who leaves their trash bins out 24/7, that random guy on instagram, the boss who picks on you — everyone, all of them, love.

Are we other stuff too?

Yeah. We are. We are a mix of shit, a beautiful and strange concoction of love and hate and everything in between and all of it is okay but what’s not okay is letting the hate win because it doesn’t have to.

Hate doesn’t have to win.

When hate wins, it’s because we have forgotten who we are. That’s it.

And it’s not always our fault. We get distracted by lies the world tells. Lies like I am better than you or getting revenge will feel good or even I don’t matter.

I have news: you matter. All this shit matters. Have you heard of the butterfly effect? How a butterfly flapping it’s wings can cause a tornado? Seemingly minor changes in events can have massive, rippling consequences - for better or worse.

But isn’t that what we do? It’s the lemons into lemonade, some kind of alchemy where instead of raging and making more rage, we direct that energy into something-else. Something holy. We summon our better side, the one that loves and keeps loving and we call out the dangers of not protecting the vulnerable among us, the dangers of using fear to divide. These hands that make the world are our hands. Our mark in the soil. What are we making? What are we leaving behind?

Unhelpful opinions

Did you see the viral video of the artist painting a city electrical box get fussed at by a passerby who called his work a “waste of tax payer dollars”?

Aside from being beyond rude, this is just plain inaccurate.

Art:

lifts spirits

makes us happy

releases actual dopamine + endorphins

improves thinking and empathy

lowers stress

is life

It’s funny how so often things that are essential to life and well-being get little-to-no credit or acknowledgement as such. Things like:

art

beauty

community

empathy + a listening ear

self-care

friends

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. [Pablo Picasso]

Worth every fucking penny.

When it rains

Well, you know, it pours.

It’s been windy this week. I regularly drive by the coast in Ventura, CA. When the wind picks up, so do the tides. They become choppy and white-capped.

I don’t love the wind but we need the wind, I heard myself saying.

Wind in the spring:

• disperses seeds + spores

• drives ocean currents

• powers renewable energy sources

Wind has purpose. Like rain.

Like bad art.

Like “failure”.

Taken figuratively, the idiom suggests a wave of bad luck. It can also be used to suggest a wave of good luck.

Either way, it’s a wave we ride to get from one point to another.

Good or bad, growth is what we want.

Let it rain.

What you notice you create more of

What you focus on expands.

If what we really want for our lives is the same as what we are telling ourselves (and others) we want, things can happen in our favor. 

Strong intention (what we want) + sufficient action (acting on what we want) = greater chance of things moving in a good direction.

Put another way, our intentions are strongest when what we want in life aligns with our life choices.

Aligning the head and the heart isn’t easy. 

An action/vision board can help. So can writing about what you want. 

But here’s the thing: you have to be honest with yourself.

In my life as a freelancer, if I don’t tell people I’m looking for work, I stand no chance at finding work. 

The same goes for—anything. 

“I’m officially looking for my dream man!” my friend declared over coffee the other day.

We have to:

• imagine 

• focus our attention

• alert the Universe

• ask/act/declare

Our brain-bodies don’t know the difference between sitting on an actual beach and imagining we are on that beach. Our physiological response to these is the same.

It’s like they say: dress for the job you want.

Actions are signals.

Tara Swart:

When you allow your brain to be conscious of and focus on what you want in life, the raised awareness that results will work in your favor to automatically bring opportunities into your life. It’s not magic —it’s just that you are able to see the possibilities to move forward with your dreams in a way that your brain was hiding from you previously.

It kind of does sound like magic. Worth a try? 

Just get the words down

This came to me in a dream. 

Process > perfection 

Here’s another one: 

Failure > Not having tried

Taking a risk is like anything else: it gets easier with practice. 

Letting go of perfection allows the process to unfold in beautiful and unexpected ways. 

Just get it down:

• the idea

• the words

• the drawing 

SFDs, my daughter calls them. 

Shitty First Drafts. 

You gotta start somewhere.

Why not here? 

Be a self-enthusiast

Nothing grows without delight.

Growing up I was taught that pride was bad. It is when it tips over into arrogance or disregard for others.

But pride is not actually a sin. Pride is neutral and an important human emotion.

At its basic, pride is the natural sensation of delight in growth. We delight ourselves because we did something we didn’t know we could do.

Gardeners know this feeling. Artists know it. Friends know this, too.

Last week I had coffee with a friend. At the end she hugged me goodbye and said “I delight in you.”

The feeling was mutual.

Showing delight in someone gives that person fuel to keep going.

Pride and gratitude are bedfellows. Both give us courage.

Enthusiasm for our own progress might be the most powerful motivator we have.

• When have you felt most proud?

• What makes you hold your head high and stand up tall?

• What makes you want to share your good news with others?

• What makes you proud of you?

Let’s feel good about feeling good.