79. Art as a Human Right

The United Nations recognizes the right to artistic experience as a fundamental cultural right, and it's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They also acknowledge the importance of artistic expression for the human spirit to create democratic societies and vibrant cultures. Art and artistic expression is a fundamental human and cultural right. This starts off today's episode and we are talking all about ease and flow and using your fundamental human creative right to show who you are, express yourself and learn from yourself. 

Transcript

 The United Nations recognizes the right to artistic experience as a fundamental cultural right, and it's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They also acknowledge the importance of artistic expression for the human spirit to create democratic societies and vibrant cultures. Art and artistic expression is a fundamental human and cultural right. This starts off today's episode and we are talking all about ease and flow and using your fundamental human creative right to show who you are, express yourself and learn from yourself. 

Welcome in modern creative woman. I'm delighted you're here. We are talking all about the art and science of creativity. I bring you 30 years of experience as a art therapist and a psychologist, and I'm here to uplift and give you the opportunity for self-expression and the tools that you need to make your everyday a better, more creative experience. 

Have you ever considered how art and writing and theatre and dance is a human right? That it's a cultural experience? It's really essential that we avoid putting censorship on artists or banning what writers have put down. These are incredibly important documents that allow us to change as a society in deeply meaningful ways. It's powerful and it's relevant. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 27 is the one you want to have a look at, stating that everyone has the right to enjoy the arts and participate in cultural life. There's also the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, article 16 that you want to have a look at and that one's that states and Nations should respect the freedom needed for creative activity. I've got one more for you the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 19 states that freedom of expression includes the freedom to receive, impart and seek information and ideas in the form of art. The United Nations finally recognizes that importance of artistic expression for the human spirit, that artistic expression can challenge people and change their perspective. It can also highlight injustices and inspire opposition. It allows people to express their fears and grievances in a non-violent way, and it helps people develop resilience after traumatic experiences. I want to encourage you to share this information with other people and remember that art and books, music, dance, theatre make up our culture and we all have a right to these. It's part of the human condition. Last week we talked a lot about dropping the struggle, and that's that added layer that we can put upon our experience that causes us to feel worse. So if we're feeling bad and then we judge ourselves for feeling bad, that's then an added layer of struggle. And really pain is a necessary part of life discomfort. Is a necessary part of life. But that added layer of struggle is really optional. Have you ever been around someone that if there's a stressful situation, their reaction is very big and can make the situation worse? Maybe you work with someone that when something unexpected happens, it really throws them off. That's like this added struggle that we layer into our minds, and there's a lot we can do to take off that optional layer of struggle. I gave you some suggestions in the last episode, making contact with the present moment, dealing with what is instead of what you think it should be responding to what is, observing your thoughts, taking action on your values. 

I have this amazing quote from Michelle Obama, and she's talking about how to act essentially from her values and what's important, rather than having a knee jerk reaction to whatever's happening in the moment. 

Here's the quote. “Sometimes I give myself a break, so I will retreat in a moment from the fray just to breathe. Because what I've learned is that my immediate reaction cannot be the deciding reaction. So sometimes I step back a second, and while I'm stepping back, I talk. I reach out to friends, my mom, my girlfriends, event, a release, I have sounding boards. Then I get back in. We each have to find our own coping mechanisms, and this just isn't in terms of the hesitation of finding our voice, but in how we deal with our own stress.”

Where she said she's learned that her immediate reaction cannot be the deciding reaction, and we might feel uncomfortable in the moment, but that's not the fuel we want to use to take action. We want our values to fuel our action and what we find important and how we want to be. I want to share a couple of concepts that I think will help illustrate this. It's ease and flow and effort and surrender. So ease and flow really are the hallmarks of a woman who has learned to relax, let her hair down. And the definition of ease is a state of being where things feel natural and unforced. Of course, there will be unavoidable challenges, and we can still have ease. When there is distress, we can challenge ourselves, push ourselves and still be at ease on the inside. The goal really is about approaching challenges or change with a calm mindset, and we can let go of that added layer of struggle flow you know about from making art and being creative. It's the state of being fully immersed and engaged in what you're doing. Artists know that as time seems to disappear and the art seems to take shape somehow without so much conscious effort. It's really defined in psychology as the sweet spot between challenge and skill. We have enough skill to do something, but we're working at a level that has a challenge for us, and when we meet those two levels, we move into flow. So ease and flow really do help us when we're pursuing our purpose, when we're aligned with our passions. And I'm talking about when we're able to connect with people we care about, do something that feels relevant, take care of family, be in a relationship, do our job. Everything can become more fulfilling when we're in a space of ease. We gain satisfaction, better sleep, enthusiasm, energy. We tend to attract more authentic friends, and we engage in less artifice or posturing, or we wear less masks. Another real benefit of taking it easy on ourselves is we get more creative. We have more fresh ideas, and that's so good for us artists. There are things that we lose, however, when we connect with our purpose and we we move with more ease when we drop that struggle. 

There are other things that often we drop as well. We can drop sometimes boredom or a taste for frivolous things. Another possible loss is defensiveness or impatience. We might lose perfectionistic thinking or victim thinking. Self pity, blame. We might also lose friendships that don't fit with us anymore. We might also lose passive communication strategies or avoidance strategies. I want to propose a few questions that you can reflect on this week about ease and flow, and how they can work in harmony. So what thoughts and actions give you a sense of ease? What places help you feel most comfortable? Is it in nature in your home? Going for a walk? Where do you feel that sense of ease? And then what are you doing? When you experience flow, you can have flow doing the dishes if your present moment and things are fully in contact with the present moment that your thoughts are where they are. You will enjoy doing your dishes more. There's research on staying in the present moment, even if you're not in that sweet spot of flow gives you a better sense of satisfaction, even if the tour is unpleasant. Driving in rush hour traffic has been researched as less unpleasant when we do it while making contact with the present moment. Let's shift now to the idea of effort versus surrender. Now, effort is active energy, and it's the focus we put into achieving a goal or completing some kind of task. It requires some external action and some persistence. We have to keep doing it. It's based on a goal. We want to accomplish something. It requires a certain amount of discipline to continue and a bit of resilience to navigate any obstacles. So that's effort. Surrender, on the other hand, is the act of letting go of excessive control and just allowing things to unfold naturally. And surrender includes things like trust, where we have to have faith in the process, really trusting that things will unfold in the right time, even if it doesn't go according to plan. It also includes acceptance, and that means we're open to outcomes that might be different from the original idea, and we're dealing with what is instead of what we want it to be. Surrender also includes relinquishing control strategies. It doesn't mean we're out of control. It means that we're not trying to exert control over our thoughts and every detail that we give ourselves space for spontaneous thought, creativity, and intuition. Surrender also means focusing in the moment, not on future results. Even though we're working towards a goal, we're doing it from the moment. It's a much more flexible and responsive approach than only focusing on the goal. Something I often ask the woman I work with is what is worth your effort? What in your life is worth your effort? Are you worth your effort? Is your own self-care worth your effort? This is the kind of work we do inside the Modern Creative Women membership, where we talk about your values and what is worth your while and worth your time. And are you doing that? I'd like to balance that question with what's worth your surrender. What part of the struggle can you give up and trust that things will work out the way that you want them to? Or even better, here's a question if you're making art this week, how might you show in your artwork a lighter attitude about your value and what's important? So your values might be working on your painting because you want to engage in the creative process? Do you have room to do that with a lighter, easier attitude? I have definitely been engaged in making art, and when I finally made contact with the present moment, I realized I had clenched my jaw. I was thinking. A lot of judgmental thoughts. And then I was in the present moment. I could ease up on what was happening and I could deal with what was in. By removing that added layer of suffering, by judging my saw. That added layer takes our attention away from the present moment. It distracts us. It moves us in a way that isn't really our initial like wish. We want to move towards our value of being creative, and we have that sort of intrusive, knee jerk reaction like that quote from Michelle Obama. We don't want to take action from that. We want to take action from what's really important. I hope that gives you a little fuel for your creative process. And if you haven't made art in the last week or even the last two weeks, it really is time to be creative. This is essential. It's part of who you are as a human being, the desire to create, the need to create. I mentioned earlier the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights includes this, but it's part of your biology and the the satisfaction we get from making art is incredible. We move into that space of ease and flow. You can choose things that are soothing to you. Remember, flow is about something that you have a little bit of skill and a little bit of challenge. Doesn't mean you have to have high skill, high challenge, just appropriate amounts of skill and challenge. If you're a beginning surfer, you don't go surf the great big waves, right? You surf waves that are a little bit of a challenge if you're a very beginning painter. The challenge is mixing colors. Understanding the color wheel so you can figure out how to apply the paint in a way that gives you the light and texture that you want. If you ever find yourself judging your mind or judging your performance, just remember your skill needs to be matched with the challenge. I'm not saying don't pick big challenges. What I am saying is that in that moment as you are working, remove the suffering by aligning your skill with the challenge. You can have a great big goal to surf those big waves, but in the moment you take the next step, the little challenge and then the bigger challenge. I hope that you will keep considering the human rights aspect of Artmaking, and that you will advocate for free expression in the arts. And I also hope that you'll focus on ease and flow to remove one layer of suffering that we put on ourselves in our mind to by just noticing what's going on, making full contact with the present moment, dropping that additional struggle, dealing with what is happening in the present moment, whether it's thoughts or feelings or making art or getting on a surfboard. Have a wonderful rest of your week. 

Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? 

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