The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast
Welcome to the place where we, Mama Judy (bonus mom) and Jill (bonus daughter), have conversations all about art and the creative process.
We chat about finding inspiration for artistic expression, conquering the hurdles that hinder creativity, and empowering the creative spirit.
Along the way, we share techniques, tips, and stories from our experiences with fiber arts, mixed media, hand stitching, painting, and MORE!
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The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast
Episode 31: How Flexibility Will Fuel Your Art Practice
This week, Mama Judy and I unravel the power of flexibility in both art and your daily life to stretch your boundaries and discover a path to personal evolution.
Flexibility can allow us to do things that we normally wouldn't do, or we would resist in the beginning -- it's a simple concept, but one that we need to pay attention to in order to flourish in your creative practices.
We hope you enjoy our chat today!
Episodes mentioned:
#30: How to Choose An Inspiring Word for the Year
#25: Overcoming Creative Resistance
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Oh good, you made it. We are so glad you're here. Welcome to the Mama Judy and Jill podcast, an intergenerational chat about life, art and the creative process. I'm your host, Jill, and joining me is my wonderful co-host and bonus mom, Mama Judy. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us again today. Hi Mama Judy, hi Jill, good to see you Today. Mama Judy and I are going to be talking about the idea of flexibility in your art practice and, mama Judy, you came up with this idea. You thought let's talk about this. This seems like an interesting idea. Tell me about where you were thinking on this flexibility I would be happy to Jill.
Speaker 3:You know, we did one on resistance and it occurred to me that, as simple as it sounds, flexibility is the opposite of resistance and I thought, well, if we talk about resistance, maybe we'll just flip it over and talk about flexibility. And, as you can remember, when we were talking about the word of the year, if I can use that phrase I chose flexibility to be what I focus on. So, instead of word of the year, I think I like to call it my focus word and in fact, I'm going to show you, for those that are watching, how flexible I really can be, because I'm going to do something and put on a pair of glasses that normally I would not wear. And, for those of you who do not see me, I have put on a pair of sunglasses that are huge heart shaped lens and I look a little bit like Cruella DeVille right now. So I'm being flexible in my personalities.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they're black heart shapes too. They look very sophisticated, wild, interesting and flashy all at the same time. You look awesome.
Speaker 3:They're fun. I got the idea, before we get on the topic, from Wanda. Wanda Kat, she has great glasses.
Speaker 1:Yes, she got it, and.
Speaker 3:I thought you know that's a fun thing. It can totally change your personality. It can change. You can be somebody else. Yes, my mother was young. The color red was her go to color when she needed to armor up and take on the world. So my glasses are my take on the world glasses, so they're so cute.
Speaker 3:Getting back to flexibility, I just wanted to use those glasses as an introduction that in so many ways flexibility can allow us to do things that normally maybe we wouldn't do or we would resist in the beginning. Just to recap, resistance is about keeping the status quo in anything. It's comfortable, we know what's going on and in our art practice, most of us will get into something that we're very comfortable doing and I do it in my journals and so flexibility allows us to try new things. It also takes pressure off of us. What I mean by that is, if I'm doing something and I want it to be a certain way and it doesn't turn out that way, if I'm not flexible, I'm going to get upset. So flexibility, simple words, simple concept. But I would bet that a lot of people out there can find themselves in their art practice or their life being a little inflexible when things come up.
Speaker 2:Right, and also being flexible. You said that it takes the pressure off right. But I also see that you have to be a little bit brave to be flexible, or have some courage to do that as well. While it might be easy in a way, for some people, it might be a little bit of a struggle to be flexible, because it's hard to let go, and so you can kind of look at that both ways.
Speaker 3:Absolutely it does, because, like I said, I'm going to refer several times back to resistance. Resistance is keeping us with what we know and what we're comfortable with. Flexibility takes us out of the comfort zone often. So, yes, it does take courage to step into the unknown which is where flexibility can take us.
Speaker 3:The wonderful thing about flexibility is that from experience now this is not a money back guarantee, but from experience what I found is that when I am flexible, I'm less stressed, I'm more accepting of what happens, I'm less judgmental. Because I'm being flexible, I'm not trying to put things into a certain way of doing it or a certain art form, or a certain color or that kind of thing. Whatever your art form is, your creativity, I'm allowing myself to go beyond where I am. I think flexibility is a very important part of growth.
Speaker 2:I think growth, like you just said, is exploring new things. You might come across something as you're being flexible to be open to something, so that you are exploring new ways of doing something, Whether that's going and looking something up and going, I'm going to try that and explore and I'm being flexible because I'm going to learn from this person on YouTube or whatever. You have that kind of exploration idea. I have a question for you. How would you say flexibility is different? We've talked about when we're doing our art intuitively, without a real plan. What would you say is the main difference between flexibility coming into your process, being flexible, versus wanting to be intuitive?
Speaker 3:To me intuitive. There's no thought process, you're just doing it. It's coming from the heart, it's coming from your creative news. There's no thought process. Flexibility is something that can happen with intuitive art. Let's follow that vein. I'm intuitively creating, which means I'm probably in the zone because I'm just following my news. I'm not thinking about it. In that intuitive process, I do something I've never done before. What often happens is that when you do that, even when you're being intuitive, your consciousness will interrupt and go oh wait, that's different. Flexibility can happen even with our intuitive process, but I see them really as separate things. Intuitive is can I use the word mindless? Not that we're mindless, but we're not thinking about it.
Speaker 3:We're not consciously going. I need to paint this color here, I need to make this kind of a stitch. We're just allowing it to come. Flexibility is one of those things that pops up everywhere, or the need to be flexible. If you're interested in growing in art and creativity, I think you have to learn to be flexible. Flexibility, to me, is where I use the phrase roll with the punches or just go with the flow. Flexibility, you just follow that new thing that shows up instead of resisting it. Yes, it's not just in our creative practice, it's in our life too, and I think way back when we first started almost seven months ago, I told the story about how I had decided my focus for the year was going to be yes.
Speaker 3:And then you showed up and asked if I wanted to do this. The podcast, yes, the podcast. Well, I think, back before I did that, I was unconsciously resisting some things that were being presented to me, both in my creative practice and in my life, and I could feel, when I would, something would come up and I would resist it. It would almost be like your body would tense and you'd go well, no, I can't do that, whereas now that I've become more open and I'm saying yes, I don't find tension when things don't go as expected, because I know I need to be flexible. I wasn't always as flexible as I thought I was.
Speaker 3:I had to make a conscious choice to be aware and Stay flexible, not less that automatic no, I can't do that reaction. So that's how flexibility started to come into my mind. Even my consciousness, more in the last year, was starting with the word yes.
Speaker 2:Well, and it makes me think about, to the act of being flexible. Let's just say you do yoga, you, that is something you do on the regular and you know yoga, that is part of getting flexible, but you have to practice at it. You're not gonna throw your leg behind your head or what, or do a downward dog or whatever, not that you do that.
Speaker 3:If I throw my leg behind my head, you guys are gonna be calling the ambulance to get me in traction.
Speaker 2:But you know what I mean when you I do amazing after your yoga practice. If you do is you try to be flexible. You continue to practice and practice the more flexible and you'll be amazed. And so it's the same thing with our art practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable it is, the more, maybe, things you're gonna discover and understand what you love and don't love, and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. That's a great analogy and I want to come back to that. But I want to follow of what you just said what you'll find by being flexible. A lot of people are flexible without even thinking about it.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:I'm talking about those times when you need to make it part of your conscious reality. I need to be more open, I need to be more. I want to be more open, I want to be more flexible. You'll see over time the growth in your art, in your creativity and in your confidence. That's the other thing that I think Flexibility feeds into, because the more you put yourself out there, because you're being flexible and you're not Resisting, that you're not hiding behind your defenses Creatively and you're out there pretty soon, you're more comfortable and you'll see it in your art. And going back to the analogy of yoga, yes, I do stretching and yoga almost daily and it is again like flexibility. It's the old rubber band theory. You think that once you did yoga you would be flexible. But what happens to a rubber band? When you let it go? It goes right back to its old shape.
Speaker 3:So, it's something you have to do all the time and when you're in a yoga pose, even in that you have to overcome resistance, because in a deep yoga pose if you're resisting You're causing pain in your muscles. If you relax and become flexible and go into it, it's much easier. So flexibility is something that can make our art, I think personally and our lives Easier and more fun. Yes, I think about being flexible with the word yes. This last year I have had more fun with new opportunities that have been brought to me that perhaps, in my somewhat rigid Way before, I would never have had, and when you said the fact that you, instead of having the word for the year it could be, it's like a a.
Speaker 2:Framework, here a focus, focus, yes and so as you're listening to this today, if you didn't hear the episode that we just did on Creating a word for the year, go back there, because if you've never done this before, if you need a refresher, we go through how to do that and what that looks like, and it is powerful. I've been coming up with a year, a word for the year, forever, and we talked about that last week what my word for the year is. So I won't say it now, but in that episode and but I like the idea of a focus too, and being flexible with yourself with even choosing that word or that focus, and don't go easy on yourself necessarily, because I know some of the words or focuses for the year I've done in the past. I'm like, oh, I don't know about that. Like even your yes, you could have said that's a little too scary. I don't think I want to be saying yes to everything and decided to change it up.
Speaker 3:You know, okay, that's perfect, because that's exactly what happened. And I don't you know, sometimes you don't know where thoughts or ideas come from, but I you know it was after the first of the year and Of course, everybody talks about your New Year's resolutions. Well, I'm sorry, I still am waiting to lose that 15 pounds from 30 years ago on the New Year's resolutions. So I quit making resolutions because I found I set myself up for failure.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm but I was looking for a way to Kind of do the same thing, bring something new into the new calendar year. And I had noticed, when things were presented to me, a stiffening in my body and I thought, well, what is this about? And why do? When somebody asks me something, why is that? My first reaction, unconsciously, without even realizing it, and that's what got me going on the word yes, as a way to bring new things into the new year. But it was scary. My little voice inside said oh, wait a minute, that's new. Are you sure we want to do this? Yep, yeah.
Speaker 3:So you know, inside we go through all these things. We may not talk about them, but all these processes go in inside us all the time. Right, you know, I, you know how many thoughts do you have in a day? 60,000s, thousands upon thousands, upon thousands, and you're not even aware of it, right? And so I think that's what brought me to, instead of a New Year's resolution, what new thing can I focus on? And that then sets the framework for whatever comes my way for the next year. And I just happen to tie it to the calendar year because it's fun. It's always the end of one and the beginning of another one.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, I have a question for you. So say that I'm sitting here in my little studio art area and I've got some watercolors over here, some fabric over here, so I have a few options, right?
Speaker 2:So I could be flexible with. I could say, oh, I'm going to be flexible today because I'm going to incorporate some of this or that. But let's just say someone is sitting there and they always have done the same exact thing and they don't have other stuff and I know that there's. This might sound like a silly question, but I know you can for me for stitching, okay, try some new stitches or some new colors or whatever. But what could be a way that someone could practice flexibility? Maybe they're like what do you mean? How do I be flexible beyond a mindset thing? They might catch themselves as a mindset, which is something for sure that they could say if you feel yourself saying scared to do that, then change your mindset. But what's a real life way to look at this?
Speaker 3:Well it goes back to and what happened with me. The first thing to do is notice your body. Your body is going to tell you your mindset before your head does. If you feel that tension, then you can focus on, okay, what caused that tension, and maybe that's where I need to go. But let's say I'm sitting there with the fabrics and the stitching and I always do the same thing, I always approach it the same way. Well, it's the same thing. Like they tell you when you go to work, take a new route. You don't have to go to work on the same exact time, the same exact route. In fact, they tell you not to do that.
Speaker 3:So if you're sitting there, ask yourself well, why do I always started and do this, and then use my favorite phrase what if? Well, what if I started first with the thing I do last, Okay, or something like that. Well, what if I did this instead of that? So again, it comes back to awareness. What is it I normally do?
Speaker 3:Am I stuck in a routine? And, trust me, routines are nice, they're comfortable, I like them. I like to go in if I don't have the energy to do something new and fall into my routine. But you have to be very careful because they're also a trap. So if you find yourself in a routine that you cannot break out of, then you are consciously going to have to start working on it. Okay, well, normally I do this and this and then this. Well, there's no reason I can't do Z, C and A, so it can be something simple like that. Or if your neighbor comes over and wants to do this Lynn and I have talked about this because we're both rather introverted and somebody comes up to you and says well, let's have a play date, and it's a new person, Well my first reaction is no, thank, you very much.
Speaker 3:If you find yourself doing something like that, say yes. Just think of flexibility in terms of newness, and so what you're doing by being flexible is bringing new into your life, and even though we may very much like our old life, new is good too. It keeps us growing. You're either stagnating or you're growing, and we all want to grow, and flexibility, I believe, is a very important part of growing.
Speaker 2:And I think flexibility, at least for me right now, is just different mediums and that type of thing being flexible, which I already did, a little introduction of watercolor into my stitching stuff. But I'm thinking now I might want to even just look to something else, to be flexible and try something new, and it might even be drawing.
Speaker 3:And if you need that image of a picture is worth a thousand words let's use the oak and the willow when they come into a storm. The flexible tree withstands the storm. The rigid tree is the one that breaks. So if you ever need an analogy, just think of that flexible willow and that strong oak, and then something comes along and one of them breaks and one of them goes on.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, that's a really good point in your practice. I wanted to talk about, when we talked about flexibility was the emotional flexibility, and I wrote a little note here. I wrote something about helping to deal with criticism. How can flexibility help us through? Emotional flexibility I guess I would call it, I don't even know if that's our term but how can that help with criticism, whether that's external or internal criticism, because we talk about that a lot and that is something that is going on in all of our heads. If we're not getting it from the outside, we're definitely giving it to ourselves on the inside. Is there anything that you can think of that might be helpful to someone who is facing that right now?
Speaker 3:Yes, you just take and whack them upside the head and tell them to mind their own business, which maybe we want to do that to begin with. But that's an excellent point. Flexibility in receiving criticism can be critical to not breaking us. I'm going back to my little tree analogy again Flexibility in receiving criticism. If we're not flexible, we're going to take it and it's going to destroy us. We're going to feel unworthy because we got some criticism.
Speaker 3:I think flexibility allows us to look at that criticism differently and look to see if that criticism and maybe criticism is too harsh a word but that feedback that we're getting, that is less than we want. We look at it as if we're flexible. We can look at it as a learning process. There might be something in somebody's criticism that actually is of value. But if we're not flexible in understanding that it could lead us to a new area, then we're going to shut down because we've received negativity and it's hurt our feelings and we're never going to go there again because it's too painful.
Speaker 3:If we're flexible in receiving that criticism, that feedback, I think it can move us beyond getting shut down by what somebody says or what we say. Maybe the way to look at flexibility. Emotional flexibility again, is to understand, is to use the word new. Can this criticism bring me something new? I need to learn about my creativity. If we look at, let's say, the picture that I did, somebody critiques it and it's not what I was hoping to hear. If I can look at it honestly and say is there any legitimate feedback in what they said, I'm being flexible in receiving it. I'm not shutting myself off and building the barriers again because I got negative feedback.
Speaker 2:Right, that is a great way to look at it, To see is there anything new here? Because it takes away this thing if it's coming from ourselves or from someone else. What here can I take constructively and incorporate into my work or my life, or whatever that might be?
Speaker 3:It's okay to look at somebody's critique and go through that which I love that going through and I do it with myself. Well, is that legitimate? Could I do more of that? But it's okay to, when you do that, go. No, there's nothing they said that is of value to me, because criticism can also give value to you. Now, a lot of people do not know how to give constructive criticism, and so what we often get is people that just, oh well, why did you do that? That's the ugliest color. Well then, you have to understand that's on them, that's not on your work. But if you're not flexible in looking at it that way, you are going to get your feelings hurt. That little child within you is going to run home and hide under the bed. You don't want them to do that.
Speaker 3:You want them to face it straight on, be flexible and say, ok, well, let's see, let's take a look at what they said. Yes, oh, they're right. If I did that, then maybe this would pop a little more in my work.
Speaker 2:Right, and several episodes back, we talked about writing a word. Mine was going to be evolve. What was yours? Oh, you were going to write a word Bear, but the idea behind it, this is yet another one. If this is something like, oh, if you're listening today and you're thinking, I love this idea, put it on a little posted note, like stick it on your work area or something. So you're reminding yourself to be flexible, because sometimes we just get into things and we forget about these things that we want to pay attention to or focus on, and so think about that. If this is something of interest to you, or if this is something that's hard for you as a reminder to do, like doing our pushups, we got to remind ourselves to go do our exercise or whatever have that there so that you can visually see that, to remind you to do this, because you're going to benefit from it.
Speaker 3:You will benefit. It there is. I'll give you a money back guarantee on that. You will benefit in your art and your life by being more flexible. And yes, I have little sticky notes. Obviously I need them because I couldn't remember the word that I came up with above where I create, and a lot of them have to do with what people gave us on the couple of episodes before, when we talked about the feedback we got on the best advice.
Speaker 3:Well, a lot of what that advice that we got from respondents are words that I have stuck above my wall so that when I glance up they're there. Oh, that's right, I'm getting a little too tight, a little too anal over here. Be flexible, yes. So yes, it's very good to remind yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes, great. Well, I love that. Anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?
Speaker 3:No, I have enjoyed this. As always, I love our chats and, for those of you listening either visually or just auditorily, the reason we do this is Jill and I love talking to each other, and we have found a wonderful community on Instagram that we felt like we wanted to include you. So thank you all for being flexible and for being here with us today.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you All. Right, next week, at New Episodes every Wednesday. Please share this episode with a friend, if you would. We would love it if you would help spread the word about the Mama Judy and Jill podcast, and we love you all and we will talk to you next week too. Mama Judy, love you, love you too, okay, bye, bye.