Recently, I have taken up painting. Not the
painting of buildings type but the artistic kind, although not sure what I’ve
been painting could be called close to art, as of yet. I’m just six months into
this new experiment with life and I’ve produced some reasonable efforts. What
is even more interesting is that I have learned that I can draw. My birds,
people and objects approximate what they are meant to look like, the
proportions are good and others can tell what they are.
Since I was around 14 I have never tried to
paint or draw. I was wont to quip that I couldn’t draw a straight line to save
my life. The reason for this was that I developed an aversion to art when a
teacher gave me 5% for an art exam and basically suggested I do science
instead. I recall that day and I recall the painting that I did-it was pretty
awful, a deep brown blob. The mark I got may have been generous like the joke
about getting some marks for just turning up for an exam and writing your name.
I duly went off to the science labs and never destroyed a nice white canvas
again.
I have to agree with the teacher that I had
no aptitude for art at all, at the time. But, of course, that was not the
point. The complete lack of encouragement and writing me off as a dud had the
effect of keeping me from a wonderfully creative experience for over 50 years.
I suspect this is more true for those who have problems with being sporty and
who are left on the sidelines rather than included, then lose interest in being
active altogether.
I just love painting and, if left to my own
devices and not disrupted by the
Director of Nursing waving the list of jobs to do around the house at me,
will spend hours sitting at the easel. I am besotted.
What’s more, it is helping with other areas
of my life, such as writing. And I seem to be having more good ideas lately.
The evidence suggests that activating the creative parts of the brain will
cause them to be active for some time afterwards. I always use creative
activities to my workshops for this reason.
However, the point being that one does not have to be Renoir but just
being creative is enough to have positive effects on my life.
As a psychologist I very frequently meet
people who have self-limiting thoughts, usually implanted by an adult early in
life, and nearly always without conscious malice. The malicious undermining of
the self-esteem of another is a different matter, and it does happen, sadly. Some people I meet struggle with these
self-limiting messages all their lives. These are the ‘shoulds’, ‘musts’,
‘oughts’ and ‘cannots’ that get in the way of doing things that might
ultimately fulfill us.
I also think that this can happen to adults
too. Women in abusive relationships are a good example although they may have
had some experience of abuse early in life as a model, so they don’t expect
much else, although this is not true all the time.
As a psychologist, what interests me is how
powerful these messages are: that we would take the opinion of another and believe
it to be true. We are enormously fragile in a psychological sense. It behooves
us to be aware of this when we make comments, even throw away ones, to
children, family members, colleagues and those we manage at work.
The good news is that these self-limiting
thoughts can be reversed. See your friendly local psychologist or send me an
email and I can point you to some reading, if you are interested.
So, here I am, artist in the making. Still
can’t draw straight lines but the great thing about art is that you don’t have
to. Straight lines hardly exist in nature and they are boring anyway.
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