by Heather Plett | Jan 19, 2012 | Creativity, mandala, Uncategorized
Since I began my year long commitment to my mandala practice at the beginning of this year, a number of people have shown curiosity about it, so I thought I’d write a little about why I make them.
The best way to answer that question seemed to be a mandala, so I started with the question “why do I create mandalas?” at the centre of the page. Writing whatever came to mind round and round that circle helped me clarify some of my thoughts on it – and it opened some brand new ideas I hadn’t even considered. And that is the first answer to the question “why do I make mandalas” – because the process helps me get closer to my own truths.
It’s difficult to define the value of a creative process such as mandala-making for one primary reason. The act of creating art of any kind requires me to step out of my analytical meaning-finding left brain into my intuitive, wordless right brain. When I try to analyze and explain what value I’m deriving from it, I have to carry it all back into my left brain. It doesn’t always translate well, which is why I’m often left without words.
But let me give it my best effort…
Here’s the unedited version of what showed up on the page when I made the above mandala. It’s an attempt at integrating my right and left brain thinking. Each ring of the circle represented a unique but intertwined part of the inquiry for me. The lines emerging from the centre represent the way that the three rings are intertwined and support each other (an explanation I only understood after they showed up).
Circle 1 -What do mandalas represent?
It starts with a circle, the shape of our earth, the shape of a tree, the shape of the smallest atom and the largest planet.
It is the shape that nature offers us when a flower blooms or a mother gives birth.
It is a feminine shape, bringing us back to womb and cycles of life.
It is the cycles of the seasons, the returning back to the place we started, bringing with us our baskets full of new stories.
It is the rings of memory we add to our history, like the rings of a tree.
Circle 2 – What is their value for me?
The mandala is my centring practice.
It grounds me in Mother Earth.
It reminds me of where my wisdom comes from.
It gives me a way to access my subconscious and that place too deep for words.
It lets me play and let go of logic and linear thinking.
It shifts me into my right brain, a place where ambiguity and wordless wisdom are welcome.
It brings me closer to Sophia, the feminine nature of the Divine.
It lets me experience Spirit in a kairos space that is outside the order of chronos time.
It is my meditation and my wordless prayer.
It lets me access wisdom I didn’t know was buried in my subconscious.
It asks nothing of me but my presence and my willingness to engage.
It is not based in rules or convention.
I can do it my way.
Circle 3 – What might mandalas represent for community?
Circle is the shape of community.
It is the place where we gather and have meaningful conversations.
Mandala starts with the fire at the centre-point, giving us energy and light.
It ends with us holding the edge of the circle, holding space for each other.
Real change begins when we face each other in community.
Mandala is the shape that brings us back to those essential elements.
It reminds us that there is great capacity for beauty when we are in circle.
Mandala as a community practice has the potential to heal us and to remind us of our birth, our connection with each other, and our grounding in Mother Earth.
Mandala can revive our spirit in community and give us a shared way of accessing those deep stories that our words do not want to touch.
Mandala can be a part of our story circles, giving us a place to paint our journeys to wholeness.
Mandalas can loosen our resistance and can grow our hope.
Mandalas can offer us new ways of framing old stories.
*****
The following quote resonated for me when I heard it yesterday.
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
I believe that mandalas serve a purpose in helping us find the “simplicity on the other side of complexity”.
As you can tell, I’m very excited about this process and believe that it can have significant implications for my work, both in helping individuals with their self-discovery work and in helping communities get to the heart of whatever is emerging.
Something new is growing out of this for me. I’ll be doing some one-on-one mandala coaching sessions with people in which I coach them in developing a personal mandala for whatever is emerging in their lives. This offering is in the development stage right now – once it’s ready, I’ll let you all know.
In my one-on-one sessions I will:
– help clients explore something that is present for them right now – a problem, a birthing, an inquiry, a fear, etc.
– based on whatever emerges for them, I will coach them in developing a personal mandala, based on a number of mandala-processes I have designed.
I will also be developing a course or group coaching program based on this work. If you’re interested, I’d love to hear what would appeal to you most.
If you want to book a one-on-one session, please contact me. I anticipate that the price will be approximately $100 for a half hour session, with options for follow-up calls.
by Heather Plett | Jan 13, 2012 | Creativity, criticism, faith, Giving, growth, journey, Joy, mandala, Passion, Wisdom
Recently I was asked to reflect on the greatest learning that I took away from 2011. “Patience and trust are the biggest lessons that showed up,” I said. “They’re lessons I’ve had to relearn a few times in my life.”
It takes a lot of patience to build a creative business, especially if you prefer to follow intuitive pathways and ask a lot of deep questions instead of crafting foolproof business plans. And it takes a lot of trust to believe that the path you’re following is the right one when there are lots of bumps and curves and the destination continues to looks so blurry.
Last year’s word was “joy“, but sometimes, when I’m being honest with myself, I wonder if the word that best defines it might instead be “worry“. I tried to follow joy, but in the process I did a lot of worrying. Did I do the right thing quitting my job? Is this dream really going to pan out? Do people value my work? Are any of my efforts going to pan out? Am I ever going to make enough money?
Recently, a question has popped up in my mind repeatedly when I’ve started to take the worry path.
What if the outcome is not my responsibility?
What if I am only responsible for sharing my gift and not how people respond to that gift?
What if my only duty is to follow my muse and I don’t have to worry about whether or not people like what I produce?
What if the only thing I need to do is be faithful to my calling, show up and do the work, and then trust God to look after the rest?
What if all the striving I do to be a “success” is wasted effort and I should instead invest that effort into being as faithful as I can be to the wisdom and creativity that has been given me to share?
When I take that question seriously, it gives me a great deal of peace. When I let go of the outcome or the sales or the response of other people and focus instead on being faithful to the process and my own commitment to excellency, the knots stop forming in my stomach and I can breathe more deeply.
My mandala practice is helping me learn this lesson. I make mandalas for nobody but myself (even though I’m willing to share them). For me, they are about the process. I show up on the page, pick up the pencils or markers that I feel drawn to, and let whatever needs to emerge on the page. What shows up is almost always about something I need to learn or be reminded of or discover. It’s not about the art. The outcome is not my responsibility.
A few months ago, I was supposed to do a community-building workshop for a leadership learning institute in my city. Only three people registered for it, so they decided to cancel it. I was able to let it go at the time because I was already overbooked and needed the breathing space. They were still interested in the content, though, so they rescheduled it for January 23rd. This time, there are already 14 people registered, ten days before the event. I had to let go of the outcome and trust that, if I was faithful to what I felt called to share, and did my best to let people know, the right people would show up who need to hear what I have to say. The outcome is not my responsibility.
So far, my Creative Discovery class only has 3 registrants, even though I’ve promoted it more broadly than the last class that had much better registration. It doesn’t matter. I feel called to do this class and I know that it will be what those three people (and I) need even if nobody else shows up. The outcome is not my responsibility.
I’m putting the finishing touches on my book and writing a proposal to try to get it into the hands of agents. When I start reading books about how to write a proposal and how to land an agent, I can get my stomach tied in knots over whether I’m doing things the right way, whether I’ll ever be successful, etc., etc. But then I have to pause, take a deep breath, and make a mandala like the one above. It doesn’t matter if I’m a “success”. I feel called to share this book with the world and I will do so even if I have to self-publish it. The outcome is not my responsibility.
Letting go of the outcome doesn’t mean that we should get lazy about the product, or that we shouldn’t work hard to let people know about what we’re doing. But once we’ve worked hard to follow the muse and been diligent in offering the gift to the world, we need to let it go and trust that the people who need to find it will.
I love the principles of Open Space, an Art of Hosting methodology for hosting meaningful conversations.
* Whoever comes are the right people
* Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
* When it starts is the right time
* When it’s over it’s over
In other words, the outcome is NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY!
And now it’s your turn… what do you need to let go of?
by Heather Plett | Jan 11, 2012 | Uncategorized
One of the great blessings of this past year has been the many opportunities I’ve had to partner with other people and to contribute to some beautiful products. Here’s some news about a few products I’ve contributed to, and a few other things you might like to know about:
I’m honoured to be a contributor to Shahrzad Arasteh‘s lovely book Nourish Your Career. Shahrzad is a holistic career counselor and a beautiful person who’s been gracious enough to share her wisdom with the students in my communication classes a couple of times. Her book is full of great tips not only about your career but about your life. One of the fun things I love about it is that she asked contributors to share career tips AND a favourite recipe, so you get lots of good advice, and then you get to nourish yourself with great food. You can order it on her website or on Amazon.
I was thrilled when Ariane Hunter (a talented photographer and lovely person) invited me to contribute to this beautiful free e-book. It’s full of inspiration and insight that began with the question, “What is the key ingredient to living an inspired, purpose-driven life?” My contribution is about two of my favourite things, mandalas and questions. You can download it for free here.
As many of you know, I walked 100 km. with Cath Duncan, largely because we became bonded through our shared grief stories. Cath and I have had a lot of conversations about the journey through grief and about how we can help other people through their own unique journeys. Together with Kara Jones, Cath has created the Creative Grief Coaching Certification and I’m thrilled to be one of their faculty members. I’ll be sharing a lesson on body art journaling and will be interviewed about some of the creative processes that I’ve developed for walking through grief. If you work in any helping professions (coaching, healthcare, therapy, chaplaincy, etc.), I’m sure this course will be immensely helpful for you.
I’ve been streamlining my products a little and decided to offer all of my e-books for the same low price ($15), or $35 for all three of them as a package deal. All three books are labours of love and I’m quite proud of them. Click “shop” to check them out. (And… please let me know if you have any trouble with the purchasing process. The first person who made a purchase after I made the changes found a few glitches – I hope they’ve been worked out.)
I’d really love to have a few more people sign up for my upcoming creative discovery class, so if you’re in Winnipeg and you need a creative boost, some life-changing self-discovery, and a whole lot of fun, come join us.
I put together a list of all of the topics I’ve developed workshops, classes and keynote speeches for, and the length of the list was a surprise even for me. If you’re planning an event, retreat, conference, etc. and you’d like to include any of these topics (or anything else I write about on my blog), I’d love to talk to you about how I can be of service to you.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Teach Now is one of the best investments I’ve ever made. The wisdom I gained from it is put to use every time I teach (and I’ve been teaching quite a lot since I first took the course). The people behind it (Jen Louden and Michele Lisenbury Christensen) are some of the most beautiful, authentic people you’ll find online. I like the course (and the people) so much, in fact, that I signed up twice and then was a teaching guide the third time it was offered. It’s being offered again, and if you do any teaching, or dream of doing any, I’d encourage you to check it out.
by Heather Plett | Jan 9, 2012 | Creativity, mandala
This past week, I have been mired in discouragement.
It’s not uncommon for this time of year. The holidays are over and the dull days of winter are settling in.
It hit me hard this time – right after the excitement of the labyrinth at New Year’s Eve. Add to the seasonal blues a few pieces of bad news, some dreams that didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped, an argument or two, some money stress, and a little rejection I hadn’t anticipated, and I was stuck in the middle of a serious case of the doldrums.
There was a big ugly cloud hanging over my head and I wasn’t pleasant to be with. It’s not completely gone yet, but it’s getting better.
A silver lining to that black cloud turned out to be the mandala practice I’ve committed to for 2012. Despite my lack of energy or enthusiasm, I was committed to making a mandala every day. When I made that commitment, only a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t anticipate how much I’d need it so soon. It turned out to be my saving grace.
Yesterday, in the middle of one of my darkest moments, when I was questioning my worth because of the rejection I was taking way too seriously, I snuck away from my family, put my head on my desk and cried.
After the tears dried up, I picked up my mandala journal. And then I did something I’ve never done before – I made a mandala completely void of colour. If you’ve seen my other mandalas, you know that colour is important part of me, so this felt like a significant departure – and yet it was one of the best things I could have done.
I made a lament mandala. Lament is one of those old words that we should reclaim in our vocabulary. According to dictionary.com, a lament is “a formal expression of sorrow or mourning, especially in verse or song: an elegy or dirge”. Laments feel too depressing to celebrate or honour, and so we mostly ignore them or hide them in our own private journals. Unlike the writers of the Old Testament, we rarely publish our laments for the world to see. Our discouragement is kept in the closet.
And yet, because I know that many of you suffer from the same kind of discouragement that attacks me now and then (we’re all wonderful flawed humans), I’m going to share my lament mandala. I love the process and I love the result. I think it’s a powerful tool for anyone who needs to find a path through their discouragement.
I started with the word LAMENT in the centre, grey on grey, and then drew a winding path, representing my journey through discouragement, loss, sadness, pain, etc.
After my lament mandala was complete, something significant happened. I fell in love with it. I fell in love with it as a piece of art, but more than that, I fell in love with the big ball of humanity that is my discouragement, my sadness, and my rejection. I felt like a mother, nurturing her own child through the dark places.
And then I wanted to make another mandala. It felt like an unfinished process. My lament child was urging me to birth something else.
I opened another page and drew a circle. Inside the circle, I started writing my thoughts in random colours all over the page. At first, the things that were coming out were quite dark. “Why so much pain?” “Why so many road blocks?” “How do I deal with rejection?” and “Do I need to find a job again?”
But then, almost like magic, the words started shifting. The mandala-making was shifting my mood. I started to write more hopeful things, starting with the things I need, like “I need a miracle, Sophia”, and then moving on to a recognition of the importance of what I’m doing, “my work is important” and “I need to keep doing this work” and “I want to teach creative people.”
When it felt like there were enough words, I picked up the pencil crayon that felt the best at the moment. Surprisingly, it was orange – bright, cheery, hopeful orange. And in the centre, a glowing circle of yellow.
While I finished it, my observer-self showed up, looking on as if from above, witnessing myself doing my creative practice, recognizing the shift, and knowing how incredibly important it is and how much I need to continue to share it.
Like I said in my last post, THIS is important – this doodling, this mandala-making, this creative practice. THIS is my gift to share with the world. This isn’t just something I’m doing for fun – it changes people. It changes communities. It changes paradigms. It helps people enter the chaos, disappointment and lament, follow the paths where they lead us, and eventually emerge into new light.
This is too important not to share.
And so I will do my best to share it, starting with my upcoming workshop, Creative Discovery. (This one is an in-person class in Winnipeg, but I’ll create future online versions.)
If you want to learn more about mandala-making, laments, and other forms of creative practice, let me know in the comments. I want to hear what you need. I want to know how I can serve you in this work. I want to offer things that will help people work through whatever they need to work through.
Because THIS is my “original medicine” (in the words of Gail Larsen).
If you want to join me in this journey, please sign up for my newsletter (on the right side of the screen) to stay informed about future offerings.
by Heather Plett | Jan 4, 2012 | Creativity, mandala
Yesterday while making a doodle mandala (above) I had a flashback to all of those lengthy board meetings where I used to sit doodling through endless discussions about program parameters, policy adjustments, partnership agreements, and balance sheets.
Back in those board meeting days, I felt a little silly doodling – like I was an oddball at that table full of highly intelligent people with my pages full of childish scribbles – and yet I was management so I was expected to be present and the doodling helped keep me awake and semi-engaged.
It’s not that I wasn’t good at my job or that I didn’t fit at the table – I was and I did. I was really good at communicating about hunger and I knew how to lead people in doing the work of fundraising and educating. What I wasn’t very good at though, was feigning interest in programs, policies, and financial columns.
And so I doodled. At the very least, my right brain thanked me for keeping it happy.
Yesterday while I doodled and remembered those board meetings, I had a sudden epiphany. “What if THIS is the important stuff? What if the doodling – the stuff we all tend to dismiss as silly and trivial while the more important work is being done – is actually just as valuable as the programs and policies?”
Maybe we’ll get further if we throw doodling, art, play, and silliness into our conversations about policies and programs.
Maybe the world really needs coloured markers and vision boards as much as it needs perfectly balanced financial columns.
Maybe we’ll get better at solving the world’s big problems if we bring artists and dancers to the table along with the economists.
Maybe I would have served the board of directors as much (or even more) by teaching them to play and doodle than I was able to serve them with my carefully written reports and proposals on fundraising and social marketing.
Maybe the corporate world needs as many play sessions as there are board meetings.
Maybe the experts and decision-makers at every organization need to pair up with children and play games and have story time in between work sessions.
And that, my friends, is why I no longer sit at those board meetings. At first I thought it was because I wanted to make a living as a consultant, peddling those same skills that convinced that board of directors I was competent and worth what they were paying me.
But the truth is, I’m not there anymore because I chose doodling over policy discussions, creativity over branding, play over work, art over strategic plans, stories over annual reports. Not that those other things aren’t necessary – I just knew I could serve the world better if I followed my true passions and taught people how to make mandalas or tell stories instead of managing another strategic planning session.
Now, if I were to be hired as a consultant by a board of directors like the one I once worked with, I would hand them coloured markers, make them sit in a circle, and tell them to play, create, and imagine themselves into new stories. I wouldn’t sit through endless discussions about the way things have always been done – I would pass a talking piece around the circle and insist that they tell me their real stories. I wouldn’t make an action plan, I’d get down on the floor and paint a growing tree.
I don’t wonder anymore – I KNOW that doodling is important stuff.
