Determined to be hopeful

Reminder: Creativity is the Point

I gave an introduction at a family painting class this morning and I think I struck a chord with the kids and parents there.

I hadn’t really thought about what to say, hadn’t actually planned on doing an intro, so I ended up talking about how the fun of creativity was the point of the whole thing. And if the kids (or the adults) we’re getting stressed about how their painting was going, it was ok to turn it into a whole different thing. In fact, they could just smear paint around on the canvas if they wanted – as long as they enjoyed doing it.

I swear I felt a sense of relief in the room.

And when I went around a little later, several kids had done their own thing – some making delightfully glorious messes and others just veering off on their own course. I was delighted to see it.

And one kid was struggling through the process of creating the planned piece so I helped him take a break from the project and try something else.

I felt like I made a connection, did some important work, like what I said had mattered.

I love this feeling.

Snail Friend

Image description: a close-up photo yellow-gold snail shell (with a snail inside) affixed to a green maple leaf. There are other leaves and maple keys right behind the first leaf and in the out-of-focus background is a white plastic chair against my red shed.

Do I know that snails can be pests? Yes.

Do I love them anyway? Yes.

Last night while I was meditating in my backyard swing, I accidentally opened my eyes at one point and spotted this snail on a leaf across the yard.

I thought ‘I hope he doesn’t move before I finish meditating and get over there to take a picture.

Then I realized time was on my side because a snail travels at snail speed so I went back to focusing on my breath.

Working Outside

I can’t decide if it is easier or harder to get things done when this is my view.

A photo of potted flowers at the corner of a patio deck.
Image description: the corner of my backyard deck across from my chair. I stood up to get a better angle. The focus of the picture is an arrangement of pots of flowers, some are on a wire rack, some are on a table and some are on the deck floor. The flowers include begonias, a variety of dahlias, some marigolds and others and they include pink, purple, red, and yellow flowers. The corner of my blue yoga mat is at the bottom of the photo and my shed, trees, and some green grass with a large patch of sunshine in the middle is in the background.

Letting my brain off its leash

A few weeks ago, I watched a video from the YouTube channel ‘How to ADHD’ about how many people with ADHD have trouble relaxing.

One of Jessica’s comments was that even leisure activities require focus and concentration so when we are tired and need downtime we may not be drawn to a leisure activity because of the energy costs.

Her suggestion was that since we pour so much energy into self-regulation – masking, deciding where to focus, trying to stay focused, keeping quiet etc – our relaxation might come from ‘letting our brains off-leash.’ And just doing whatever our brains want to at that moment.

The comment made sense to me but it really only resonated this morning when I thought, as I often do, “Today, I just want to do everything in the order that makes sense to me.“

While it is tricky for me not to overthink my schedule and commitments, and hard not to ask ‘Is this the right time for that? Would it make sense to do it in a different order?’ sometimes I can manage it.

And when I can, it feels great.

I truly feel relaxed when I don’t have to fight my own thinking patterns – when I put it like that it feels so obvious! – I get lots of thinks done and I get to rest a lot.

I can’t do it every day because my brain can’t be trusted not to prioritize my laundry over a deadline but on days like today when it literally doesn’t matter when I do anything as long as I do it?

It’s so very good.