Creativity

Music, song, art, poetry, nature, practical creative….

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what do I ‘do’?

I am in the process of re-organising my files, books, papers, computer files and all the material I have collected over the last 16 years in this home, plus the ‘stuff’ that came with me in the previous four moves.

I always find it hard to make up a file title let alone a snappy title for an article, blog piece or book.  Definitions of words have to be checked out for my ideas and they can often give a clue to something quite profound.

My journal writing files are full of typed documents, scribbling, sketches, photos, film clips and music.  How did someone who wasn’t much of a writer at school come to begin pouring out poetry and prose when I was coming up for thirty years old?

Therapy.  Therapeutic. Downloading swirling emotions into words and drawings and onto pages. Better out than in.  Better than clogging up my inner world.

I found this link whilst trawling the internet: http://welldoing.org/article/expressive-writing-for-mental-wellbeing

It was a blog post published Feb 27, 2015 by Dennis Relojo with tags of  anxiety, creativity, depression, wellbeing.
I get anxious, depressed, I am creative and am attempting some form of wellbeing by writing to aid my mental health.
Thank you Dennis Relojo for being able to explain what I ‘do’ and what I have been doing for 35 years!

 

 

Majestic wonder

Majestic

Photograph Vancouver sunset taken by Rob Newey http://www.robneweymusic.com. February 2014.

Seeing this scene filled me with awe at the majesty of nature, but also the technical skill that Rob employed in composing and taking this shot. He is a skilled and talented musician and song writer who also has this creative talent.

The shot is artistically beautiful and well composed with a clarity in the photograph difficult to attain. The colour combinations and the texture of the trees and mountains, the movement in the sky was thrilling. Just to meditate and stop to gaze at this picture took me out of myself and my little world of doings and endless ‘stuff’.

On another level, Vancouver was a special place for me as it was where my long lost half brother had grown up. We met when he was 33 and I was 44. I went to visit with him in this country that my mother and I weren’t taken to by my father when he emigrated. Years ago of course…. I was three when he left.

Crossing the border from USA to Canada was a watershed in that I had been given to believe I wasn’t legally allowed to go into Canada. Funny how things can come into your mind that aren’t at all true! I wonder who put that thought there… Hmm.

So, I may have grown up a Canadian had things been different. Would I have been so impressed by the countryside and scenic beauty of the land had I lived their always? Do I remember to look at the South Downs where we live and appreciate what is around me?

A reminder to me : Embrace all you see Sharman and let it into your soul and spirit so your body may vibrate with the wonder of it all.

A place of serenity, cleansing and escape.

A place of serenity and escape.

A South Coast Beach ( taken by Steve Jenkins): we all need a place to go to ‘be’, to think, to explore our inner world. Living near one of these beaches 15 years ago, the beach was that place for me and for our children. They still come down here from wherever they are living now and recall those times of hanging with friends, chilling, crying, escaping from being ‘grounded’.

All my senses loved the place: the salty smell, the sounds of lapping waves and seagulls calling on a calm day or the crashing of rollers at high tide on a stormy night, could all match my mood and draw me inside myself.

Such a vivid place could also draw out the emotions I didn’t realise were lurking beneath my surface and, as the seaweed and rubbish werer left visible after the storms and tides, so were my deep hurts, confusions and pains.

The cleansing and visibility of what needed to be revealed, no longer stored up clogging my emotions and thinking, would leave a peace, freshness and joy.

It is probably time for me to take a trip there again or to find another such place…

Maybe it is ALWAYS time?

“Don’t ask your…

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

― Harold Whitman

I found this quote in an old Filofax.  Then found a quote that says “getting excited about an idea is not much of a plan”.  Mm

yup, I am good at excited but need a more focussed thinker to help me with my plan. So it’s TEAMWORK folks!

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Peace Roses, aging and a mind that is like a Zoo

A Peace rose, lavender and thyme in our garden (C) Sharman Jeffries 2013

A Peace rose, lavender and thyme in our garden (C) Sharman Jeffries 2013

Everything in our home says ‘calm, rest here, be at peace’ – it was designed that way as we renovated our old property.  Even the roses in the garden are ‘Peace’ roses and there is a Quiet Room (summerhouse) at the bottom of the garden.

People come here, walk in the door and say “It’s so peaceful here.  Wonderful.”  Guests come to retreat with us and remark of the restfulness of the entire property.

I am so blessed to live here and offer the serenity of our home to others.  Do I feel that way though?

Not always!  It can be busy running a home and family, several businesses and the retreat.   But the busiest place has been in my mind …

I have attention deficit hyperactive asset (according to Dave Gilpin – see his Twitter page and Hope City Church UK) and have some amazing gifts and abilities but these need some good support to keep them positive.

The actress Betty Davis said: “Getting old isn’t for wimps” and how true that is!  I am now able in the UK to get free prescriptions (very useful – read on…) but have to wait another year and a month to be eligible for free bus pass and state pension (ouch – now you know how old I am!).   Things don’t work as well as they used to.  My slightly off beat brain needs a bit of support, my body needs regular exercise and it likes pretty sensible food and levels of alcohol.

Anywhere, where was I?  Oh yes, that happens too… the old cognitive processing systems seem to need a bit of oiling. I have always had ‘dyslexic moments’ where I could tell you the first letter of the word but not recall the word itself until after four or five shots of trying different ones out.  Now that has increased to a word or a name itself.

I don’t think I am at the stage yet portrayed so honestly in the film about literary and philosophy genius Iris Murdoch.  That was quite upsetting to watch yet so beautiful at the same time. I don’t think my loving spouse need worry about having to run down the road after me quite yet!  

However, back to main topic.  A busy mind, neurodiversity for the aged, and revelations…

I am planning to write up some academic papers long outstanding to submit for publication.  Am I up to the job given my present state of mental health?  Here is where the free prescriptions being so helpful comes in…  I take medication to calm my brain down and medication to calm myself down.  I am not however in a state of lethargy or vagueness… I feel more… LIKE ME!

Unlike Kay Redfield Jamison the fine author of a fine book, “Touched By Fire” (her autobiography “An Unquiet Mind” should also be read -or listened to as it comes on audio book also), I do not have to take and balance levels of Lithium for manic depressive illness (also called Bi polar disorder).

Stephen Fry has done excellent programmes on this illness, which he himself has, interviewing celebrities like Robbie Williams and Carrie Fisher (others are listed on Google: Vivien Leigh, Catherine Zeta Jones, Jean Claude van Damme,  Van Gogh to name a few ) .

I am not having the level of struggles of those creative wonderful people. I am hopeful that my support strategies and my medication can offset my busy mind, my post menopausal weird hormones and my tendency to collect gadgets and any form of information and knowledge indiscriminately – and thus I get all my filing systems, book cases, computer filing, email accounts clogged up.

Stephen Fry also collects gadgets … and sports cars apparently… out of my league!

I am very hopeful and quite excited to enter a new phase in my life and would offer you a poem written about my life without my strategies and supports:

My chattering mind.
It does seems to me that strange animals live inside my brain:
Some are woolly, jittery and ‘tiggerish’, others are still and wise.
 
It’s a funny thing to hear them chattering away to me, some contradicting the other.
There are times they all manage to be still when I’m without distraction or urgency
 
But this doesn’t happen often and extremes of noise or quiet may cause some of them to take fright, some become tired and confused, others begin to rant and rave.
 
Those tell me horrid, depressing things about myself that I don’t think are true. But they do make me doubt and I begin wonder if I am as awful as they say.
 
If I could choose, I would have just one animal in my head, perhaps an owl crossed with a worker ant: one useful, helpful creature instead of the cacophony of my zoo.
 
Imagine how wonderful a person I would be if I just had one crossbreed of practical and wise in my conscious mind, and not this contentious menagerie?
 
Ah well, I suppose I should just accept the diversity of my personal zoo and make sure I don’t pay attention to the wrong animal at the wrong time in the wrong situation. 
 
(c) Sharman Jeffries  19.6.02
 
 
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perception and bucket lists

Image

This I saw on Facebook.  I like the idea of seeing myself positively don’t you?

“What about realism though?”  you argue.  Well, yes, that would be good, but how many people have an over-inflated view of themselves?  Not that many, I would suggest, as many people I have counselled over the years see themselves as much less than they actually are.

This morning, while putting archive boxes for our business in our already heaving loft, I dropped a lid of a plastic storage box farther back than I could easily reach.  Annoyed because its dusty up there, getting down on my knees I saw a cardboard box and – as I often do – got distracted.  “I wonder what is in there?”

Lifting up the lid I saw several colourful lever arch files and two box files. The lever arch files contained journals written as therapy during my struggle to do my PhD.  The box files contained: YES! my original copies of my poetry (some dating back 25 years or more), articles, short stories and my early attempts at writing down my personal story.

Excited?  Yes very, and intrigued because at Christmas my other half’s brother-in-law (i know, family links are confusing…) gave us his ‘old’ lap top in case any of our adult kids needed one or knew someone who would benefit by having a lap top.  This lap top had an ‘A’ drive – floppy disks.  Bear with me here; the last time I was in the loft, I came across a floopy disk storage box with two disks in it:  my archived poetry, writing, short stories etc.

Put the two finds together and I find my heart leaping with a sense of anticipation and intrigue at coming across the hard copies and the computer files of my non-professional, non-academic work.

Still with me?  One of the tasks given to me the last time I saw my ADHD psychiatrist was to write up a plan to breakdown the first of the academic papers I had outstanding.  Anti-procrastination exercise.  I mentioned that my back log of paper writing had been causing me concern because no matter how I thought I ‘must do this’, I never seemed to get going on it:  other more immediately gratifying tasks or crises got in the way.  I dutifully completed this task – I am paying the guy! – and furthering it to include other papers on my list of things to do at some point (I think it was becoming a ‘bucket list’!), I started to wonder about my creative, literary and therapeutic journal writing…  was I ever going to do that before I swanned off to Heaven?

Two things have miraculously emerged at almost the same time. I reckon this is a ‘sign’.

I have decided to view myself positively like the old girl in the cartoon.  I am more than capable of finishing my academic writing and now and then blogging my poetry, short stories and so on during that time.  I can treat myself with some creative blogging as a carrot to help me drag through some of the dry formal prose needed to get my papers published.

Later on after my list of projects have been done, I can address the issue of publishing more of my writing in a different format… unless Heaven comes first of course?

(C) drsharman.wordpress.com/ 2013

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Bubbling?

I’m so glad for my mate Godfrey Birtill’s songs – not bubbling myself this morning (viral thingy still around) but Godfrey’s Facebook link to the old traditional Pentecostal song he has updated (sounds like Lonnie Donnegan! – oops, age alert) made me smile and had me jigging around!  The old Pentecostals must have really enjoyed expressing their faith…

Music calms the troubled breast – as someone said.   It is also something that I forget when I am locked into a ‘downer’ or OTT time.  So, memo to self: “music is therapeutic, you know that Sharman – so PUT THE MUSIC ON!  NOW!”