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Monday, March 23, 2009
Kindess Comes Back at Ya!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Runnng Down a Dream
Yeah running down a dream
That never would come to me
Working on a mystery
Going wherever it leads
Running down a dream
Tom Petty
Recently, at the YMCA benefit golf tournament, I was the high bidder on a Wild West Tour Package to the Pinnacles National Monument provided by Jim West. Talk about widening your horizons! We (Jim, Sheril, Dwight and Me) travelled in style in an open Model A .
I love to travel Highway 25 . In fact, one of my favorite drives is from Hollister to it's terminus at Highway 198. The beautiful scenery and isolation helps clear my head. Each time I drive, it's a different view. How much I actually see however, depends both on external conditions, and my state of mind.
That crisp fall day, our destination was the Pinnacles. Once you get up to speed, conversation in an open car is difficult at best. That suited me fine. I just wanted to absorb the experience, not talk about it. I would have grinned the entire way but I was soon reminded that I had no shield from the bugs. So I grinned inwardly, with my mouth closed. OK well most of the time.
Right now, the tarantulas are on the move. And though we saw few that day, this time of year you can see them in packs crossing the road. (Do they call them packs?) We thought there was some major migration/ homing pattern going on. However the ranger at the Pinnacles explained that they were simply looking for mates.
Oh.
Once at the Pinnacles, we had a great lunch catered by Victoria's Italian Deli. Victoria creates wonderful dishes just like Noni used to make. After lunch, Sheril suggested we take a hike and we all agreed. We chose a trail that took us to the caves and reservoir. A decent hike but not too strenuous. It was a perfect day for hiking. not too hot and not too crowded and wonderful, wonderful company. There's a special bond that develops between people when you spend time in nature together. The four of us became fast friends.
On the way home my thoughts drifted toward the Culinary and Hospitality Foundation. People who don't know me are wondering why on earth I am devoting so much time to this Foundation. Old friends and family see this as a really good fit. You see long before painting, there was food. And somehow, I've always worked with kids. Remind me to dig up those photos from back in the day when I taught pre-school and they called me Miss Shannon...
While there are no photos of me with my first painting, there certainly are photos of me with my early culinary creations. I just found a great one of my Grandma with her homemade raviolis. Grandma was quite a character. We had a putting green in our back yard and I can still see her putting in her high heels. But I digress, that's another blog...
Mentoring children is so rewarding. Their fresh approach to life is inspiring. I'm happy to help them gain focus and life skills and am grateful for the Culinary and Hospitality Foundation for providing vehicle to travel that road.
I'm engaged in running down my dreams. I want to show our youth that it's not only possible but vital that they follow their own.
No the dream doesn't come to you. But you can go to it. And listening to it's direction is important. I never could have guessed that the focus of my art business would be licensing, television and books but there you go. My canvas just gets bigger and bigger. The Foundation shows the children that there are infinite possibilities.
Other than sock monkeys, I've done more paintings of food than any other subject. And like the finale in an orchestral piece, I can see all these subjects merge together in my future to create a fresh new symphony.
Enjoy the visual accompaniment...
Me 1977
Yep, I'm a brunette! Think I need some work on my presentation skills!
Grandma and her Ravioli
(Pauline Cordone)
Jim and Sheril
Jim, Sheril and Dwight emerging from the caves.
View from Jim's Model A on Highway 25
Another view of Highway 25 from Jim's Model A
Labels: art, Culinary and Hospitality, Dream, Eric Maisel Ten Zen Seconds Shannon Grissom, Jim West, Painting, Television, The Pinnacles, Tom Petty, YMCA
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
TEN ZEN SECONDS interview with Eric Maisel
Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is a licensed family therapist, creativity coach, and trainer with a doctorate in counseling psychology. Eric's insightful coaching has been instrumental in transforming my business. I'm really excited about his latest book. It's a phenomenal tool for everyone. I am so excited about the book and this interview! I am posting this interview on both of my blogs:
SG: What is Ten Zen Seconds all about?
EM: It’s actually a very simple but powerful technique for reducing your stress, getting yourself centered, and reminding yourself about how you want to live your life. It can even serve as a complete cognitive, emotional, and existential self-help program built on the single idea of “dropping a useful thought into a deep breath.”
You use a deep breath, five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale, as a container for important thoughts that aim you in the right direction in life—I describe twelve of these thoughts in the book—and you begin to employ this breathing-and-thinking technique that I call incanting as the primary way to keep yourself on track.
SG: Where did this idea come from?
EM: It comes from two primary sources, cognitive and positive psychology from the West and breath awareness and mindfulness techniques from the East. I’d been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years as a therapist and creativity coach and wanted to find a quick, simple technique that would help them deal with the challenges they regularly face—resistance to creating, performance anxiety, negative self-talk about a lack of talent or a lack of connections, stress over a boring day job or competing in the art marketplace, and so on.
Because I have a background in both Western and Eastern ideas, it began to dawn on me that deep breathing, which is one of the best ways to reduce stress and alter thinking, could be used as a cognitive tool if I found just the right phrases to accompany the deep breathing. This started me on a hunt for the most effective phrases that I could find and eventually I landed on twelve of them that I called incantations, each of which serves a different
and important purpose.
SG: What sort of hunt did you go on?
EM: First, I tried to figure out what are the most important tasks that we face as human beings, then I came up with what I hoped were resonant phrases, each of which needed to fit well into a deep breath, then, most importantly—which moved this from the theoretical to the empirical—I tested the phrases out on hundreds of folks who agreed to use them and report back on their experiences. That was great fun and eye-opening!
People used these phrases to center themselves before a dental appointment or surgery, to get ready to have a difficult conversation with a teenage child, to bring joy back to their performing career, to carve out time for creative work in an over-busy day—in hundreds of ways that I couldn't have anticipated. I think that’s what makes the book rich and special: that, as
useful as the method and the incantations are, hearing from real people about how they’ve used them “seals the deal.” I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.
SG: Which phrases did you settle on?
EM: The following twelve. I think that folks will intuitively get the point of each one (though some of the incantations, like “I expect nothing,” tend to need a little explaining). Naturally each incantation is explained in detail in the book and there are lots of personal reports, so readers get a good sense of how different people interpret and make use of the incantations. Here are the twelve (the parentheses show how the phrase gets “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:
1. (I am completely) (stopping)
2. (I expect) (nothing)
3. (I am) (doing my work)
4. (I trust) (my resources)
5. (I feel) (supported)
6. (I embrace) (this moment)
7. (I am free) (of the past)
8. (I make) (my meaning)
9. (I am open) (to joy)
10. (I am equal) (to this challenge)
11. (I am) (taking action)
12. (I return) (with strength)
A small note: the third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.
SG: Can you use the incantations and this method for any special purposes?
EM: As I mentioned, folks are coming up with all kinds of special uses. One that I especially like is the idea of “book-ending” a period of work, say your morning writing stint or painting stint, by using “I am completely stopping” to ready yourself, center yourself, and stop your mind chatter, and then using “I return with strength” when you’re done so that you return to “the rest of life” with energy and power. Usually we aren’t this mindful in demarcating our activities—and life feels very different when we do.
SG: Is there a way to experience this process in “real time.”
EM: By trying it out! But my web master Ron Wheatley has also designed a slide show at the Ten Zen Seconds site (http://www.tenzenseconds.com) that you can use to learn and experience the incantations. The slides that name the twelve incantations are beautiful images provided by the painter Ruth
Yasharpour and each slide stays in place for ten seconds. So you can attune your breathing to the slide and really practice the method. The slide show is available at http://www.tenzenseconds.com/test_photo_slide.html
SG: How can people learn more about Ten Zen Seconds?
EM: The book is the best resource. You can get it at Amazon by visiting:
http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Zen-Seconds-Eric-Maisel/dp/1402208537/sr=1-25/qid=1167239458/ref=sr_1_25/102-5337867-2282549?ie=UTF8&s=books
Or you can ask for it at your local bookstore. The Ten Zen Seconds website is also an excellent resource: in addition to the slide show that I mentioned, there is a bulletin board where folks can chat, audio interviews
that I’ve done discussing the Ten Zen Second techniques, and more. It’s also quite a gorgeous site, so you may want to visit it just for the aesthetic experience! I would also recommend that folks check out my main site,
http://www.ericmaisel.com, especially if they’re interested in creativity coaching or the artist’s life.
SG: What else are you up to?
Plenty! I have a new book out called Creativity for Life, which is roughly my fifteenth book in the creativity field and which people seem to like a lot. I also have a third new book out, in addition to Ten Zen Seconds and Creativity for Life, called Everyday You, which is a beautiful coffee table book about maintaining daily mindfulness. I’m working on two books for 2008,
one called A Writer’s Space and a second called Creative Recovery, about using your innate creativity to help in recovering from addiction.
And I’m keep up with the many other things I do: my monthly column for Art Calendar Magazine, my regular segment for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, the trainings that I offer in creativity coaching, and my work with individual clients. I am happily busy! But my main focus for the year is on getting the word out about Ten Zen Seconds, because I really believe that it’s something special. So I thank you for having me here today!
SG: You’re welcome!
For information on Eric Maisel's books and services
please visit http://www.ericmaisel.com
for information on Ten Zen Seconds,
the next step in mindfulness practice,
please visit http://www.tenzenseconds.com
415 824 2113Labels: Eric Maisel Ten Zen Seconds Shannon Grissom
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