Refresh Your Outlook on Life
What do You See in this Willow Tree?
Today let it be your Rorschach inkblot test
Each day as you look out into the world:
What do you always, always expect to see?
What do you expect to look for?
What is your outlook today?
When you woke this morning
did you look forward to greeting the day
or did you want to pull the covers back over your head?
What do you see in this Willow Tree photo?
If it could talk to you, what story would it tell you?
What you see is your daily Rorschach inkblot test
What do you think my vision of the
Willow tree is saying to you?
What if you could learn to reset your perspective before you start your day? It can be done.
I've learned to reset how I see and think through doing art. When I sit with a photo image like the willow tree above I unlock my eyes and my mind to allow the images of spirits and characters in the photo to appear. When they show themselves I simply pen them in without judgment.
This process of sitting quietly to unlock my eyes and mind, allowing me to refresh what I see, occurs over and over again taking me deeper into an unthinking free flowing experience.
When we engage in 'flow activities' like art, play, poetry, music, yoga, journaling, dance, or a walk in nature we're able to change our perspective on life. When we get into the flow of one of these activities we let go of thinking and judging and just breathe.
And when we return to a conscious state after engaging in a flow experience, we discover we've been freed to reset our outlook and JUST BE.
We can adjust what we focus on by consciously choosing to reset our questions and our eyes, and we can engage in flow activities before we ease into the day.
How is this picture of the Willow tree different from the first?
What do you think it's telling you?
STOP AND START OVER
In creating this second picture I stopped and started over by starting with a fresh pair of eyes and a freed mind to again look into the Willow Tree photo to see what I could see. I let go of any preconceived idea of what I was looking for.
When I came out of the artistic flow experience I asked myself what I saw. I discovered many of the same spirits were present but they had changed positions and their relationships with one another.
This is the purpose of stopping and starting over: to break the cycle of rut or negative thinking, and to move your position and relationships ever so slightly to refresh your outlook on life.
Every day our inner thoughts color how we see the world.
By catching and acknowledging early morning discouraging thoughts we can choose to pause to "stop and start over" to turn our perspective around.
When we choose to stop and start over, we can begin to transform our daily outlook towards a more positive one, and guide ourselves towards an outlook for more effectively dealing with life.
QUESTIONS TO REFRESH YOUR OUTLOOK
Is today going to be a good day or a bad day? Choose.
Is today going to be an extraordinarily ordinary day or an ordinary day? Choose.
Is today going to be filled with challenges or stress? Choose.
Am I looking for uplifting experiences or discouraging ones? Choose.
Lee Bryant
The Willow Goddess
One More Perspective
This is what Lee Bryant, my co-artist, saw when she looked at the Willow Tree photo--a Willow Goddess. Same photo, different perspective. How she chose to bring out her Goddess was using a different technique from mine.
This is just like life.
We all see and experience life differently. There are many different ways to create a beautiful life. How are you going to create yours today?
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