resolve to have more… resolve

Welcome to Tuesdays with Chel.

Each week Chel Micheline of gingerblue dot com offers her perspectives on our Bliss Habits. Please enjoy the wisdom and clarity she offers.

“We don’t have a lot of control in life, but we really do have control over the objects in our homes. So when the world is spinning too fast and you feel completely crazed, just get the things around you settled.”
— Peri Wolfman

About six weeks ago my family went on a vacation for a week, and when I came home I was overwhelmed.

I often feel this way after leaving home for a bit- I’m very organized and tidy as it is, but after several days in a barren hotel room, even the smallest pile in the corner can seem like Mt. Everest. It’s a good thing, in the long run, but it sort of upends life for a while until I can get enough stuff out of my closet (or my living room or my bookshelf or whatever area it is I target) so that I feel like the area is refreshed.

This time the target area was my art studio. Even though i clean it out weekly and work really hard to keep it tidy, I couldn’t stand to be in it.  So I spent several weeks REALLY going through it- every bin, every drawer, every nook and cranny. I do this often, but rarely have I been so ruthless and quick about what was staying and what was either being trashed, donated, or sold on eBay.

I have to admit, it felt amazing. Probably more rewarding than any of the other clean-outs I have done. I spend most of my time in my art studio, so to suddenly have just the essentials, just the things I really enjoy using on a regular basis, just the things that I enjoy owning on a very deep level, just the things that I’m immediately drawn to when I come in here… well, it’s had an enormous impact on my overall well-being.

One side effect I wasn’t expecting was that as I purged unused and unloved materials, the mental clutter from the projects associated with all those materials disappeared from my head.

For instance, as I boxed up my collection of resin molds and sent it out to its new owner, all the plans of having a resin-based jewelry line went out the door with it. When I sent the big bag of glitter and pigment powders off to Gracie’s art teacher, all the projects I had in mind for those things went “poof!” from my brain. When I piled up the giant stacks of crummy scrapbook papers I hoarded years ago, all the unfinished scrapbook pages went along with them. When I bagged up all the old clay color blends that I haven’t used in ages, all the unmade beads and jewelry got taken away along with that clay. The emotional and mental relief from that “unburdening” was sort of astonishing.

The flip side of that was the awareness of what I was choosing to hold on to. All my “good” watercolor paints, my colored pencils, my stencils, my paper punches, my white clay, my dyes and inks. These were the things I used often, the “old favorites”. Things that I gravitated towards and that brought me great pleasure.

As I became aware of what was going and what was staying, my focus began to narrow. A new sense of resolve began to grow. The huge, overwhelming question of “how best do I use my time in my studio?” that I have wrestled with for years started to finally make itself clear to me. What a relief!

I had been doing this in every area of my life, not just in the art studio. For years I had been collecting possibilities like a person collects baseball cards. And for each possibility, I had been accumulating stuff, of both the physical and emotional variety, to try and bring all those possibilities into fruition.

I think at some point I started to believe that every idea I had, every possibility, was an obligation. That I had a duty to each thing that flitted across my brain to see it through, to give it life. I wonder how many of us feel this way without even knowing it? I don’t know why or when that started, but it’s clear that’s what I have been doing.

So maybe it’s time for *less* possibility. Maybe it is time to scale back, and focus on the things that I want to do, the things that call to me. Stick to old favorites. Stop trying to hard to expand my world (both creatively and in day-to-day life) and focus, instead, on settling into it.

Maybe instead of adding layers, it is time to start peeling them back to find the good stuff, the stuff that really makes me happy and really feeds my passion, and my well-being.

So my new “resolve” is this: I have vowed to eliminate extraneous possibility.I vow to focus on the really good, hearty stuff of life. I vow to approach every moment of life with that sense of resolve, that commitment to what is true and real versus what *might* be.

For instance, as I was swimming the other day, I started thinking about some stencil designs I wish were available. Then my mind started entertaining the possibility of buying blank stencil material and craft knifes and templates and making my own stencils… *bam* instantly, my new sense of resolve shut it right down. Making stencils sounds great, but it’s not part of my focus right now. I’m not looking for another area to branch out into, another set of materials to invest in, even if it would be useful for me. I need to focus on using what I already have.

The resolve was like a gut reaction I never knew I had before. I loved it, I loved the instant relief from something *else* to add to my list.

This is all very new, but I wanted to share it with you because I know there might be some of you out there that are struggling with a sense of balance in life, trying to figure out how to maximize your time, find the right rhythm in life.

My advice to you? Resolve to have more resolve when it comes to your life.

– Figure out a few things that are “keepers”, whether in your closet or your entire life, and resolve to make every decision with an awareness of whether or not the outcome aligns with those things.

– Focus in on what truly matters, and not what entertains you or looks kinda interesting or what you feel you *should* be doing.

– Narrow your focus, and resolve to let that focus, those “keepers” determine your direction in life.

I promise you, the instant relief that comes from resolving to clean out the mental clutter will change your life.