Kindness

[vaneramos]

I have enrolled in a course, "We Are Go For Launch", offered by Guelph School of Art. Today is the second session. I spend two hours in a room with four women scheming how to get our creative projects off the ground. I hope this will help me develop new art for Net.Works, the LiveJournal group show in Denver this August. We talk about the things that stop our creativity. I spend most of the two hours doodling, filling a page with lines and colour. It helps me concentrate on the conversation.

Why is it so hard to show kindness, most admirable of virtues, especially to myself? I mean greater kindness than indulging in momentary pleasure, though a little pleasure can serve as incentive to get things done.

Discipline is a sort of kindness. One sets aside immediate gratification for the pursuit of goals that might infuse life with a sense of meaning and worth. Putting time toward the envisioning and creation of new art is like saving money toward a dream vacation, and I've never been good at that. I'm operating, like many people, from a place of poverty. If you're afraid in the deepest pit of your mind that things are going to get worse, it's hard to refrain from spending that extra $10 on feeling good right now.

Kindness means giving something up with the sole intention of seeing the beneficiary flourish somehow. It's alright to do it to yourself.

Though I ought to stay off this foot, it doesn't hurt today, and I enjoy being out and about downtown. The air is damp, fragrant and pleasantly mild. I withdraw $40 I don't really have, but that's all my spending money for the week. I use it to buy epsom salts and Canesten cream, soya milk and Kettle chips, two small artists' canvas boards and a tube of antique gold acrylic paint, old white cheddar cheese and a loaf of whole wheat bread.

In St. George's Square a man plays a banjo. He wears a brimless canvas hat over cinnamon scruff and a ponytail.

Back home I add three drops of lemon oil to the tub of salt water and soak my foot while knitting another row. Then I dry off and apply fresh socks. I have to do this three times a day for at least three weeks. A lesson in kindness, all this attention looking after the smallest digit on my body.

Next step is to clean this untidiness, exorcise the ghost that has haunted my office and sucked up creative energy since February.

Comments

[apel.livejournal.com]

I find that being kind to myself develops naturally when I practice self-compassion. It works the best when I try to act as if I were my own ideal parent. An ideal parent looks to both the long term and short term happiness of their child. It's hard though. It's taken me years to get to the point where I don't automatically slide down into impatience, self-neglect and abuse when I don't consciously think about how I treat myself. But that way lies depression and anxiety for me.

Good luck with helping your foot to heal.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Strange, you came to mind in an abstract way when I was thinking about writing this. I'm surprised how often this happens. It wasn't written for you, but perhaps I was on a wavelength today with some wisdom I've read in your journal.

I like your suggestion about acting as a parent to yourself. A similar concept came up in last week's art class, when the facilitator suggested, "Imagine what your ideal family would be like. How would it support you in your creative endeavours?"

[missprune.livejournal.com]

Oddly, just yesterday I was commenting to someone that though I haven't got life figured out (at almost sixty) I have at least learned to be a little kinder to myself...

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Well, if kindness is what it's all about, I'd be happy with that. :-)