On Numbing Out and The Passing Of Time

Praying At The Alter Of Untold Things   limited series by Crystal Marie (neubauer)

My mind is screaming "Stop! Stop!" "Everything is going too fast! Everything is taking too long!" My sense of shame and self-condemnation is amped up today. My inner critic, self-saboteur, is in full on hyper-control mode. 

That's an interesting connection, I don't think I would have made it if I wasn't watching myself write these words on this page. The numbing place, it is about control. The feeling of safety.

When I am afraid, I hide. What am I afraid of?

I've disconnected from myself. Pulled in. Hiding in an effort to find relief from the finger of accusation - the one that chants "you're not good enough. you're not good enough. you're not good enough." whenever I slow down enough to tune in. 

It stings in spite of it's familiarity. It's too much to confront it. To look at it head on leaves me vulnerable to all kinds of things I'm not sure how to face. 

So I numb. 

Feed it the lollipop of the 21st century - my phone. What a soothing sensation it is when I scroll. 

Scroll. Scroll. 
Inner scream. 

Scroll. 
Scroll.
Scroll.

Until gently I numb that thing to sleep. 

It wakes me this morning before I am ready. Bouncing on the bed, eager to remind me of my inferiority. My status beneath. It pokes my cheeks, tries to pry my eyes open. Fake whispers "Are you sleeping?? Wake up! You're not asleep! Wake up!!" 

I hand it my phone. 

Two cups of coffee later, I am ready. I take the phone away and pick up a pen. Determined to get to the bottom of this, I write until the passing of time slows to a pace that matches the heartbeat of my own rhythm. 

Write. Write.
Astonishing insight and connection. 

Write. 
Write.
Write.

I write until the numbers on the calendar no longer serve as a cruel wake up call to how much time I've lost in the numbing. 

Here in this place, is a celebration of just how much I've lived. 

The One That Will Go Deep - And The One That Will Uncover Your Voice

Collage Work In Progress  by Crystal Marie (neubauer) 

Listen, I’m going to level with you. Normally when I plan a workshop, I get something like a long drawn out stage fright in the months leading up to it. A sort of performance anxiety. Deep deep dread. I am truly an introvert.

But this one, this one is different. It’s only 3 weeks away and I’m not nervous. I’m anxious to be there, and excited, but it just occurred to me, like seriously, just now, that I’m not nervous even a little bit. And you know why? Because the closer it gets, the more the ideas I want to share keep pouring in. It’s like inspiration on steroids!

I mean, yes, I plan these things. I don’t wait until three weeks before the class to develop content, but I do continue to gather scraps of thought, and relevant information right up until the first day of a class. I want each one to be fresh.

Yet, it isn’t even just that Tsunami of inspiration pummeling the shores of my being. It’s that I planned this class to be everything that I live and breathe. We are going to go deep! There will be writing- but not to read out loud like a writing workshop, maybe another time we’ll do that. It’s writing to clarify. Writing to listen. Writing to hear your own dang voice. Do you have any idea how much that thing has been covered up over the years?

And the funny thing is, it isn’t even a writing workshop. Writing is just another tool we’ll use, along with the art of collage. Cause you know Collage is my first love, right? Ask my mom. I might have established myself well into my 50’s in the last decade, but she’ll remember, she’s pretty sharp. 

My bedroom walls were the first place I practiced this love affair of mine. My ceiling sloped, almost all the way down to the floor on one side, and I plastered that thing with posters and snippets of magazines, and Disney characters that I was partial to drawing. And my desk? It was built-in; a well curated visual feast of teenage delight, ABBA stickers, and rainbows everything and trolls, so many trolls (it was the start of the 80s!)

Yup, that’s where the whole thing started, but then it took me a while to get from that place to where I’m at today. Some decades under my belt, and a whole lot of life experience.

When I first came back to art in my 30’s, it was hard. After many moons of somehow living my life as if I wasn’t an artist, my voice had a lot of scar tissue attached.

A. LOT.

But when I first opened the cover of that magazine- you know the one, I talk about it every time anyone wants to hear how I got started pasting trash together and calling it art. That magazine someone walked by my desk at work and handed me when I was just on the verge of mental collapse. A lifeline.

I opened its cover and saw pages filled with the art of collage. And I nearly broke down weeping over it there at my desk. I knew what I was seeing was a vital part of me. My heart, my very essence laid out in the thick glossy pages of that spread. And I knew it was what I was really meant to be doing.

Leaving the safety and security of that 9-5 job behind was hard. I made a good salary, had worked my way up from the hand bindery to the front office as project manager. It had taken me years to get there! I was proud of my accomplishment. But then Collage came along and wrecked me.

Somehow it showed me a part of myself I hadn’t even realized was lost. A part of me that was living, alive, more alive then I knew was possible. And I couldn’t not have it. So I set out on a journey to learn what to do. In the process, I encountered road block after road block, and countless obstacles meant to deter me before I even got started. Every single one of them was all in my head.

All that life experience I had, all of that scar tissue that had formed, it was all manifesting it’s way into my studio time with loud angry voices wanting to know just what the hell I was doing. It’s called resistance. And that sucker is strong.

So I knew if I ever wanted to create like those people whose art I saw in those pages, I was going to have to do something about it. Not just teach myself how to glue, but how to identify what voices to trust, and which to tune out, and who to kick to the curb altogether. And because there was nobody there to teach me that part of the process, I had to teach myself.

Which paper goes where? Should I really use that fancy one? What if I screw it up? Maybe I should wait until I’m better? The work I’ve done to get to where I am as an artist today wasn’t all just learning techniques and composition skills, nope, half the battle was learning to listen to the right voice- the one called intuition.

Intuition is vital to the creative process. It represents all the good you carry inside. It’s what connects you to your own one true authentic voice. It doesn’t matter if you work in collage or oil paint, if your work is abstract or representational. It’s the most important part of the game.

Really without intuition, you can still paint a pretty picture, but it is a little like cotton candy. Give it a bit of pressure and that thing just goes flat.

Your intuition is your guide, your informant, your very very best friend. You need it. Trust me!

Trust me? Nah, intuition is about learning to trust you. You trusting you. Me trusting that still small voice inside.

So here I am, after yet another burst of inspiration for that class, getting really excited to be there and sitting up waaaay past my bedtime, because suddenly it occurred to me that I actually want every one of you to be there! Yes it’s only 3 weeks away, but Southwest usually always has great deals and you can’t beat the two free bags when you are going to a workshop!

So what do you say? Grab one of those last few seats and let me show you how to uncover your own intuitive voice? You won’t be sorry (unless you miss it): Follow this link for more information. 

Is It Intuition or Is It Fear?

How do I know the difference?

I've had a number of conversations with people recently concerning the inevitable changes encountered in life. No, not talking about "the change" as we women tend to discuss in our own circles, though this certainly does bring us to a place of having to reevaluate life and how it works for us. And certainly, that one qualifies as a major milestone in a woman's life- so maybe I'm not really not talking about it. 

When I used to work in the print industry, the pace of the job was intense to say the least. It was common to hear the phrase "running with your hair on fire" in reference to what it took to maintain the workload we project managers were expected to juggle. That company's motto, as they began to recognize how different the landscape was becoming for the print industry as the internet became the norm and digital media began to replace actual printed material, was "The only thing constant is change." I hated that slogan. What it meant to me as a project manager back in the day was nothing but an increase in the workload as we took on more and more forward thinking accounts, and began to shift the burden of the bottom line away from what was no longer reliable, to that of what this strange new way of living was demanding. 

Looking back, I realize how savvy the leaders were to make those changes, despite the extra work it took to shift the balance from the old to the new. The company is still thriving today, when many of it's competitors have closed their doors. Certainly, many of the recent conversations I've had were along this same vein, the old guard clinging tightly to the old ways, the new guard demanding a seat at the table, stirring up the status quo with it's new ideas and new ways. The tension between the two.

On a personal level, I feel it, the yin and the yang. The comfortable lull of how I've always been, how I've always managed to be, yet how I am always being challenged to grow and to change. All at once inside of me is this tension between the old guard and the new. 

Talking with a loved one on the phone this morning, I hear it again. Not in specific words, but in the undercurrent of fear versus curiosity. And another touch of it shows up in a Facebook post, and a question someone asks over how it is possible to learn to trust ones intuitive voice over the voice of fear. How do you suddenly stop listening to one and start listening to the other? I feel the pressure to appease each of these people with a pat answer, an immediate solution. At the heart of each question was the true question- how do I just change? 

I have to admit, that what I know to be the truth, the one realest answer I have to that question is less than satisfying. How do you just change? 

You don't. 

See, the truth about change is, it never really looks like change, as much as it looks like total chaos; someone running down the hall with their hair on fire. There is no such thing as a true overnight success. Only in the fairy tales, is someone snatched up unwittingly out of one life and plopped down in another life completely different then they were the day before. Overnight success stories simply mean that the outside viewer wasn't privy to the work that it took behind the scenes.

Whether that work be on a personal level, with a counselor, a doctor, a support group, or on the scale of a large corporation, shifting to the new way of thinking, doing, being, requires deep intentional work that has to happen right alongside the old way of thinking, doing, being. One doesn't normally have the luxury of a chasm of nothingness in between. And to the outsider, and even to those going through it, it quite often looks and feels like complete chaos.

To some who were comfortable, this chaos seems completely without purpose and is unwelcome. The old guard will batten down the hatches, seeing this chaos as something to be weathered, stubbornly refusing to let go. At the very core of this old guard thinking, is a sort of unspoken fear. Fear of what will happen if they make way for something new. Do you know what the remedy is for being afraid?

Being curious. 

Curiosity allows for what might be possible. Curiosity invites the new guard in to listen to its newfangled ideas and strange new ways. Curiosity allows that what once worked beautifully may no longer serve. Curiosity sees that there may be more then one way to get from point A to point Z. In fact, curiosity knows that it is more about the journey then it is the destination, but it also knows that the destination may be clear, while the journey is what seems so uncertain.

Curiosity takes the journey anyway. 

Back to that question that woman asked on that post today - How?? How does one go from being afraid to trusting their intuition? How does one even know what intuition is? And more specifically, how do you even learn to trust it if you can't really know for sure if you're hearing it?

My answer after all this ruminating is, like any skill, you have to practice. Each day, each step of the way, you have to learn to lean in and listen hard. It works the same way in life, as it does in the studio. Yet, it is in the studio where I have made the most progress in teaching myself what it looks like to tune into the voice of curiosity and identify the voice of fear.

Curiosity vs Fear. Old Guard vs New Guard. 

This is what we'll really be doing in my workshop coming up this march. Yes we are making art, and plenty of it. Students will walk away from this class with, seriously, a significant body of works on paper. But this class will be every bit as much about learning what it feels like to dig in and listen. Think of it as life training. Skill building that goes beyond paper and glue. It won't be heavy - it will be profoundly joyful. As connections are made, to the art, to each other, to the written words in our journal exercises, the one thing that I see more than anything in my classes is a stirring towards joy. Often there will be a few tears shed, as someone connects to something they hadn't recognized in the past, but it isn't the scary kind, where a professional needs to be called in to assist. It is the bountiful, beautiful, illumination of the truth of what is possible when we are finally able to identify that voice. You know the one. It tells you to - 

Be curious. 
______________________________________________________________________

I've got a lot of news to share, on workshops, with the studio, the art, and so much more. Check out my current newsletter with all the details, including an opportunity to share my studio. Follow this link, and if you aren't on my newsletter list, you can sign up there at the link in the top right corner when you do. 

Belong: A 2020 Reflection

Detail: The Face She Shows  from the Shields Series by Crystal Marie

January 1st, 2020

It seems surreal to write that date. Yet isn't it just a few numbers on the calendar? A mere place marker in time? So many resolutions and intentions being set by the metaphors that number brings to mind: 2020. To some, it is about the years they've lived so far, in hindsight, taking stock of the events that have shaped them. For others, it is about clarity, entering a new era with wisdom, seeing with 2020 vision what lies before them. And then there are those who are reviving the slogan from the same decade in the previous century - the beginning of the roaring 20's. A decade of innovation, revelation, and rapid change.

Here on the home front, I've been quietly taking stock of the last 20 years of my life. From the monumental decision to move away from the Midwest corn country where I was born and raised, bringing my kids to live in the suburbs of the big city, just 3 hours north but an entirely different culture away ,that summer of '99. To my subsequent remarriage, just a few years later, and all the years since that time, of letting go, little bit, by painfully little bit, of who I thought I was, and who I thought I was supposed to be. 

I didn't know it then, at least not on the surface of things, but that move represented a search for something that had always eluded me. A place where I truly belonged. 

If you would have asked me at the time, I would say that I wasn't running toward something, but away. Away from the sexual harassment in the workplace, away from the habit of joining my father at the bar so frequently at night, away from the fruitless searching for his approval and affirmation, away from the messages that I was too sensitive, too flawed, too late to ever expect anything more. 

My lot in life, from the stories I was told, was to find the right man. That if I could just change myself enough, and just lower my overly romantic expectations enough, if I could just accept what I could not control enough, if I could just try hard enough, be forgiving enough, playful enough, sexy enough, compliant and agreeable enough, I would somehow fit in. Be acceptable. Find my place at the proverbial table. 

Storyteller and behavioral researcher, Brene Brown writes that fitting in is becoming who you think you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging is being your authentic self and knowing that no matter what happens, you belong to you. 

Such a simple wonderful explanation of what it means to belong. The first time I was introduced to this concept of belonging to myself, of carrying within me the sense of belonging that I was searching so hard to find outside of me, was about 15 years after that big move. The one where I had identified what it was I was running from, but hadn't quite figured out what it was I was running to. 

A friend explained having had this revelation of understanding - of being able to walk into any room, any space where people had gathered, and feel connected, not to someone outside of her own body, but to herself. So much so, that it didn't matter if the people widened their circle to invite her in. She brought her own sense of acceptance, of belonging. 

I remember smiling, making noises of agreement, nodding as if this concept made perfect sense to me. Mind blown. Wow! What a revelation! But behind my smile, was the feeling of not quite grasping what it was she was telling me, as if it were another language I was struggling to comprehend. The scene from a recent explosive fight with my husband still freshly playing out on the screen of my mind. Of having been taunted, belittled and raged at, until I broke- returning fire for fire, until I found myself locked out of my own bedroom, in my own home, screaming and pounding on the door in protest that I did not deserve to be treated like that. Begging through my tears to be let in. 

It seemed I'd spent a lifetime begging to be let in.

Later, in describing this scene to my counselor, of the indignation, the humiliation, and the shame that had consumed me in the aftermath. Of my regret for allowing myself to be triggered, for the way I'd handled my end of the fight, for those words still hanging like a cloud in the air: "let me in! let me in! This is my home! I belong here!", I felt a discernible shift of the earth on it's axis, as she cocked her head and replied: 

"It sounds like you're the one that wasn't convinced."

I wish I could say that was the moment that changed everything. So fond we humans are of a neatly wrapped package. Those stories of overcomers we adore and share: underdog overcomes false beliefs and negative circumstances and just look at her now! Superhero- an overnight success! All it took was one wise line, perfectly spoken, at just the right time. Glenda enlightening Dorothy: "You've always had the power. Close your eyes, tap three times." 

But you see, that kind of awakening really only happens in the movies, limited to the 90 minutes allotted to the thing. Those words were not so much an epiphany, as they were an invitation. The tilt was not of the activity of the earth, but of the seismic shift in my own mind. Whatever it was that I needed to find wasn't out there. Not in the size or shape of the perfect house, not in the perfection of my own behavior, or the security and approval from finding the perfect man. Not in all the achievements, or the clicks and the likes, and certainly not in any one perfect moment. 

It was more like a series of moments. A yellow brick road of moments that led me around and around. Looking. Searching. Seeking. 

Is this the place? Is this where I belong? 

Until finally that moment when the layers of all of those moments fell into place and the scales started to fall away. The layers that obscured my vision, the messes, the shields, the masks, the shells, all that I designed to protect me, were revealed to be the very things that were keeping me from the truth of it. 

I already belonged.

Belonging. To belong. In the telling of her own long slow awakening to what it means to truly belong, Brene' Brown spoke of an interview she came across, featuring her hero, Maya Angelou. In it, Ms. Angelou shares of her own understanding: "You are only free when you realize you belong no place, you belong every place, no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great. . . More and more, I belong to myself. I'm very proud of that. I am very concerned about how I look at Maya. I like Maya very much." 

As I sit here on the brink, looking back over the course of the past 20 years, running from what didn't fit, searching, seeking, begging for a place that did, on this 1st day of the year 2020, with both hindsight and clarity, it is this word that I've decided to claim as my focus for the New Year. Belonging. 

Belong. 

I belong no place. I belong every place. 

I belong to Crystal Marie. 

I like Crystal Marie very much. 

Sorry, Not Sorry

To say that this year’s health diagnosis, and subsequent realization that the number of days I had left here on this planet may not be as many as I’d planned shook me would be an understatement. Many times in the days since getting that phone call from the doctor, I’ve thought about the what if’s of an early demise knowing that the turmoil of the last, oh decade or so, of my life has left me a little more disorganized then I’d like to admit. 

I’ve settled into my new home over the past six months quite nicely. The closets and cabinets are neat,  and I take great pleasure in how peaceful it feels to be here. I can tell you where just about anything is- as long as it isn’t  written down on a piece of paper. The one place I’ve manage to ignore since the move has been the office- and the contents of those few boxes left stacked behind the rocking chair. A jumble of my financial affairs, health records, and all the whatnot and fodder we gather with the daily mail. 

So I bought myself this book to help get me started, and I’m spending the last few days of the year trying to get a handle on things. I bravely opened the boxes and started sorting, trying not to get too lost in old journal entries and the memories, good and bad.

This is just a scratch in the surface of the mess there is to untangle- yet it feels good to finally be looking at it at all. Good in that way of peeling a bandage off of a wound to let the air and the light finish the job of healing it.

Part of my new year’s resolve is to start looking at self care as less indulgent- bubble baths and special treats, and more forward thinking acts of responsibility. To lay the groundwork for more stability, to deal with all that has been ignored in this mountain of unresolved, unaddressed, unwieldily overwhelming paperwork at my feet. Taking ownership of my life in a way that gives me hope for a better future, and peace of mind knowing that if, god forbid, my last days were to come sooner than I’d like, that my children won’t be left wondering what to do with my mess and where to find the information they’d need to close up the virtual shop and physical spaces in my charge.

Maybe it sounds like a grim way to wind down the year, but really it feels like a celebration. Sorry For Your Loss? Yup, the loss of the weight of this chaos. Actually when I look at it like that, I’m not sorry at all.