My Painting Thoughts | My Body Isn’t Consuming Too Many Calories…My Mind Is!
Remember a few weeks back when I wrote about how I was struggling to find time to calm my stressed-out mind through doodle painting?
Well, my treadmill crashed on me at the end of April, exactly five weeks ago today.
I cried my eyes out, because my time on the treadmill before the kids wake up for the day is truly a sacred and magical time for me.
I sweat out all the heavy and overwhelming and chaotic energy that feels stuck in me from the past 24 hours while I dance walk to some of my favorite UPlifting EDM concerts on YouTube.
It truly helps UPlifts me and it makes me FEEL SO GOOD!!!
And it reminds of my younger, pre-mom self, who ALWAYS went to live shows and misses it greatly! I love how it pulls me out of being a mom for a bit and back to who I am at my core…a music lover who LOVES to dance to LIVE music at shows (without interruption! Ha! ;) )
So when it crashed, I was REALLY upset!
I couldn’t stop crying the entire day and weekend. I was a mess…over a treadmill. Oh my gosh! Ha!
Before I called the company to see if I could get it fixed…
During a pandemic!! Another reason why I was crying buckets…I thought it was going to take months for me to get it fixed! OH….and I just bought it 5 months ago…another reason WHY I was crying buckets!! I had my other one for 14 years before it crashed on me….so, yeah, five months and it does the same exact thing my 14-year-old treadmill did when it crashed…I was CRYING BUCKETS!!!
I started thinking to myself that there’s gotta be a deeper reason WHY it crashed on me right now.
And then I immediately thought…
“Well, I’ve been trying to figure out a time to get some doodle painting in when the house is quiet, so maybe this is the time!! Maybe the Universe wants me to paint instead of walk!!”
And then I went back in forth in my thoughts for quite some time…
“But first thing in the morning! This is gonna be hard!”
“I like to move my body when I first wake up…not sit still in meditation and doodle painting is meditation for my mind.”
“BUT…now that the treadmill is broken, I can’t leave the house to go for a walk while the kids are home because they don’t like being left alone AND it is quiet first thing in the morning, so I’ll try it!”
“OK! I’m gonna do it! See how it feels!”
So on April 29th, 2020, I got up at 6 AM, before the kids woke up, took a shower and then sat down in my bathroom to paint (while Luca was still asleep in my bed!)
And here’s what happened!!
AGAIN! Just like when I painted my last doodle flower, it’s a GOOD one!!
When I first sat down to paint all over the white (I’ve got to document my process more…soon!!), my thoughts were ALL over the place (or, what I really should say, my left-brain thoughts were ALL over the place!).
“I feel stuck!”
“I can’t believe I’m stuck in my bathroom doing this!”
“I’m nervous that they’re gonna wake up and interrupt me…like I can feel it me to rush so I can get it done and I feel like I just want to cry.”
“I also feel hungry so I’m not sure if this is going to work.”
“I should just exercise at this time for sure!”
Then a slight (very slight!) shift started happening!
“It’s hard doing this with the kids home all day, but it’s nice having my shower done and I’m ready for the day.”
“I feel like any little noise I make is going to wake Luca up so I’m tip-toeing around…not fun!”
“I don’t feel free!”
“I feel constricted…big time!”
“TIGHT!”
Then SHIFTS started occurring!
As I kept painting while thinking all those left-brain, worrisome and analytical thoughts, I started to HEAR a little bit of my right brain voice herself.
“There really is no slow in my life.”
“I can feel the rushing because I want to do this SO badly and I want to do it all without interruption.”
“I’m really tense and constricted.”
This is DEFINITELY her right here!
“I love going over that purple again and again” (while I was going over the background again!).
“I feel like crying.”
AND HERE SHE IS AGAIN IN HER AMAZING RIGHT BRAIN GLORY!!
“Just slow down!”
“Slow…slooooooow.”
And in that moment, I could feel my emotion and my inner connection to those two little words that were just said to me.
And then I thought, “I wanna cry so hard because I am not slow and I want to be SO badly!”
“I’m painting fast because my kids will wake up soon and I’m running out of time.”
Then my right brain self said to me…
“This will slow you down.”
“Just breathe!”
Then I thought…
“I haven’t been slow in a long time!”
“Stuck, yes!”
“But slow, no!”
“This is amazing!”
“My mind hasn’t been slow in a long time!”
Then my right brain self said to me…
“It’s OK!”
“You’re going to be OK.”
“Slow down and breathe.”
“Release your emotions.”
Then I had more inner thoughts and connections…
“Life for me has been nowhere near slow, even while I’ve been exercising.”
“I am not slow!”
“My mind is and has been all over the place.”
“My mind has not been slow.”
“I’ve been going a mile a minute, even when I meditate and when I do Essentrics, my mind has been all over the place!”
“It’s out of control multi-tasking with the kids.”
“My mind is in major need of stillness!”
“And with everything I’m doing, it’s worse because I have NOT been painting!”
“My mind is nowhere near calm.”
Then I started seeing how I shifted as I was about 15 to 20 minutes in of painting my doodle flower…
“I was very anxious at the beginning.”
“I still am a bit, but it’s calmed.”
“I see that my mind is in major need of slowing down.”
“Even though I walk and meditate and stretch and JOY journal and blog…my mind is still extremely out of control.”
“Wow!”
“I didn’t realize how out of control it is till now.”
“I will do whatever I need to do to continue to calm my mind through painting!”
“And I just want to keep playing with this flower! (hello, right brain!)
“The more I play, the more I mentally slow down and the more realizations I get.”
“I love my kids, but I miss slowing living so bad!”
“Just being!”
“Just relaxing!”
“Just being able to take a breath!”
NOW!! Here’s where even BIGGER shifts started happening…
“I just keep feeding my mind…always on my phone, always reading something…always trying to figure something out!”
“I’m never quieting my mind…ever!”
“It’s running 100 miles a minute!”
“It’s time to take a break and do things that will slow it down!”
“Do all the things that will slow my mind down!”
“#1…Get off of Facebook and stick to IG!”
Because I feel like there’s SO much more to be pulled into of FB with articles and everyone’s opinions, whereas IG, I’m just looking at pictures and not so many words and news headlines and such.
“#2…Get off my phone!!! Too much thinking!!”
“#3…Paint and CREATE!”
“Continue meditating!”
“Continue stretching!”
Then I thought to myself…
“I’m not feeling a pull to walk…why?”
Then I heard…
“Because you need to slow down!”
“You need to slow your flow!”
Then my left brain fears started coming up….
“I’m afraid that I’m going to get snappy and feel low on energy if I don’t walk in the mornings.”
Then I heard…
“It’s your mind that needs the attention.”
“You need to calm your mind!”
“The body will follow!”
“Your emotions will follow!”
“Keep calming your mind!”
“The walking is good, but it’s not what you need right now!”
“Slow!”
And then when I was finished with the entire painting I really started going back and forth in my mind as to what I truly wanted…
“I still feel a bit scared, like no more walking…hmmm…I don’t know!”
“But, I know my mind is 100 miles ahead of my body and walking isn’t helping that!”
“And being a mom isn’t helping that and what I want more than anything is to have a calm mind and right now my mind is nowhere near that!”
And then this AMAZING shift occurred…
“It’s time to stop consuming and filling my mind up so much with stupid stuff, but, also, good stuff, too!”
“My mind is maxed out…it needs a break!”
“It doesn’t need to read any more information or see what others are doing.”
“It needs stillness!”
“It can still read romance novels but not all the stupid stuff it consumes on my phone…”
THEN THIS!!!…
“Wow! No wonder I can’t lose weight!”
“I’m feeding my mind way too many calories!!”
“Like thousands and thousands of calories…non-stop!”
“All day long!”
“My mind is never in a calorie deficit…ever!”
“Until today…when I painted!”
Then I asked myself…
“What am I feeding my mind?”
“And, how is it moving, too!”
“I exercise for an hour but my mind is being exercised by consumption for all the hours that I’m awake!!”
“I am never meditating my mind…stretching it (through painting!)”
“My mind is consuming and running a mile minute all day long…way more than I eat and exercise my body!”
“My mind never, ever, stops or slows down!”
“It’s maxed out!”
“No wonder I can’t lose weight!”
“I’m feeding my mind all day long…non-stop…good and bad…how to’s, gossip, social feeds, news, spirituality services, TV shows, movies, books, articles, recipes, YouTube videos, the kids needing stuff when I’m in the middle of something, calling my mom, thinking about the past and the future.”
“My mind is never in a calorie deficit! EVER!”
“It’s always, ALWAYS, consuming and running 100 miles a minute…way ahead of my body!”
Then I had another HUGE a-ha connection…
“I know why I get so moved emotionally when I’m out in nature!”
“Because nature reminds me to be still and to move slowly and to be present!”
“Things I truly want for myself and things that I feel like I’m so far from feeling!”
“And that it’s going to be a long time before I feel it again because of …kids…I love them, but it feels like a constant spinning tornado and there’s no stillness while parenting young kids.”
“There’s no just be!”
“It’s hard to be still and I want to be so badly!”
“I’m constantly trying to figure out how to take care of me while I’m taking care of them,”
“And then when I figure me out, it changes again and again.”
“I’m constantly trying to figure out them, too!”
“So my mind is constantly trying to figure out things!”
“It never stops to breathe!”
“And nature reminds me to stop! To smile! To be still! To breathe!”
“And that’s why I get teary when I’m out in nature for a second!”
“Oh, dear God, thank you!
“Yes!”
“I need to mentally slow down!”
“I’ve been very far away from it!”
Then I went back to my walking thoughts…
“I still miss walking.”
Then I heard…
“The walking will come back, but for now, you needed to be woken up because you weren’t calming your mind all these years and you needed to see that calming my mind is also a non-negotiable.”
“It really is #1”
“Because the walking feels like dancing and I’ll do it again!”
“But right now I need to paint and this is the only time, but soon I’ll see how I make time in other ways during the day!”
And I did start doing this…which is SO cool!! More posts coming on it!!
“Mind #1…body #2!”
“You’ll be walking on your treadmill again, but your mind will be calm when you do!”
“And what I was doing before wasn’t working in the calm mind department!”
And then as I sat there and took it all in I realized….
“This showed me how important it is to paint and that now I’m more motivated to make sure I do it and that I will find time for it!”
“It is a non-negotiable now!”
Because I always say getting up in the morning to dance walk is a non-negotiable and finding time to meditate and stretch is a non-negotiable, too! But, I knew I needed to paint, but I just wasn’t putting it on my non-negotiable list...till now! Ha! Thank you, God!!
“I needed to see this!”
“It’s a must now!”
“Just like walking in the AM…I have to doodle paint, too!”
“No more not painting and being unmotivated to do it.”
“Now I AM 100% motivated!!”
OH MY GOSH!!
All of that from one little doodle flower painting that looks like a kid did it!
OH YEAH!!
It truly is amazing!!
When the mind calms in this way, amazing things coming through!
A LOT of AMAZING, intuitive thoughts come through!
Just look at all those thoughts…
So cool!!
But, wanna know something that’s also SO COOL about doing this!?!
Check out how it helped me once I was back to being MOM again (and, I was able to get this all done before the kids woke up! Right after I wrote down my last word, Luca came in. So I was worried for nothing! Ha! But…isn’t that how most worries go? Yep!! Oh yeah!!)
Here’s what I wrote a few hours later…
“I just handled the kid’s sibling fight way calmer than I have in forever!”
“I didn’t feel my insides boiling up and I didn’t yell.”
“I stayed calm through it all.”
“And Luca wants a smoothie and while I’m getting it together now he says he wants green juice instead.”
“This is why I need to paint and why I get emotional in nature!”
“I can never focus on one thing at a time with the kids!”
“There’s always an interruption!”
“It makes my mind frazzle!”
“I must paint!”
“I must put my mind in a calorie consuming multi-tasking deficit!!”
“I’m always racing around trying to get so many things done at once!”
“I can’t just work out my body!”
“I have to focus on my mind, too!”
“I can’t just do a consuming deficit for my body!'“
“I have to do a consuming deficit for my mind, also!”
“But even though I walk, my mind is still going a mile a minute!”
“I am not slow and I am not calm!”
“If I had walked this morning, I would have had that boiling feeling inside of me when they were fighting and I would have gotten angry and I would not have dealt with it in a calm way, like I did.”
So looking back…
When I was trying to figure out WHY my treadmill crashed on me, after only having it for 5 months, I realized that if it hadn’t crashed on me, I would still be moving my body without truly calming my mind.
I still LOVE getting up early to dance walk on my treadmill and now that it’s back to it’s working self, I appreciate it more than I ever have now because I truly LOVE that ME TIME on it…it’s definitely one of my favorite ways to LIFT myself UP out of my funk!
And thank you, God that I (I mean, my husband! Ha!) was able to easily fix it at home during this global pandemic! THANK YOU, GOD!!
But now, I make sure that I find time to doodle paint in this way.
I still struggle to find that time daily, but I’ve been able to do it more than I ever thought I would while home all day with the kids.
Because now I know it’s a must do for my mind because it truly helps me BE the mom and person I want go BE!
I can’t wait to share!!
But what sticks out to me the most from this painting is my new awareness around how much my mind consumes on a daily basis!
I haven’t gained weight, but I also haven’t lost weight…even with all the daily walking, daily mediation and daily stretching I do!
And when I look up information on how to lose weight (because I keep telling myself I must be doing something wrong…even though I watch my portion sizes and I eat pretty much all homemade foods!) everything talks about calorie deficiency!
And I have been making sure (well, trying to make sure!) that I’m in a calorie deficiency for years now!
And I will say…I definitely eat a lot less than I ever have now that I’m in my 40s…I just don’t want that much food in my body anymore!
But now, when I look at my life in this way…
OMG!!
My mind consumes way too many calories!!
And it never stops!!
From the second I wake up till the second I fall asleep, I pretty much have my phone in my hand reading or numbing out to scrolling and just constantly filling my head with something on it.
It’s crazy!!!
It’s not easy putting my mind in a calorie deficit because I have very little me time and there’s a lot noise in my house…
And…it’s definitely a lot easier to make the choice to move my body than sit down and calm my mind! A LOT easier!
but man, when I do, especially when I give it a break in this way…my mind, body and soul are absolutely changed for the better!!
SO MUCH BETTER!!!
Because, yeah…my mind NEEDS a breather!! BIG TIME!!!
And it has for YEARS!!
And when my mind calms…my body calms and then my SOUL calms!
I AM SOUL GRATEFUL for this new awareness because I never, EVER!, looked at it in this way before!
I mean, do a google search for mind consumption…there’s hardly anything that comes up which absolutely blows my mind because there really should be more talk of this!! Our minds really do need less consumption more than our bodies right now! Mind consumption really is out of control these days! It’s nuts!!
But…thank you, GOD! You woke me up to this because now I don’t need to do a google search and fill my mind up with more information since I now know what I need to do for my mind from just giving my mind a consuming break by calming and stilling it with this doodle flower painting! OH YEAH!!
All thanks to calming my mind with mindless, kid-like, doodle painting fun (which IS the portal to my higher, calm, intuitive, creative, spiritual right brain self!!!!)
It’s that powerful!!!
The Universe definitely knew EXACTLY what it was doing when my treadmill crashed and I love it (even though I didn’t at the time! Ha!).
OH YEAH!! ;)
Until next time…
Why do I doodle paint? Because it easily calms my mind and soothes my soul so I can connect more to what my heart and soul truly wants and needs no matter how busy and stressful motherhood may be (something that's hard to do when my mind is running 100 miles ahead or behind the present moment).
Tools used: liquitex basics acrylic paints | canson mixed media sketchbook | michaels $5 pack of paintbrush set
Creativity CALMs my mind, ignites my JOY and slows me down so I can SAVOR everything I LOVE in my life.
Who I am is what I love...SAVOR it!