Category: Side Notes to Life

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Breathe Deep, My Love

It’s bittersweetness was revealed to me
On many occasions.
I often wondered how it didn’t destroy me
Or leave me broken beyond repair.

I did feel useless often,
Like a distant memory, you tried to forget.
But I never forgot you
Or the pain of betrayal. Continue reading Breathe Deep, My Love

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35,000 Choices Revisited

Having a muse is kinda the bomb. You have this figure that ignites creativity in you. This person can also be seen as a trigger. Alas, that’s where I am. I don’t know if I like living like this. I can, however, attest that this fucking feeling has taken me across the country. I think that’s the biggest change in my life. Confidence. I started focusing on myself. I had spent years trying to help others. Grant it, some people don’t want help. Forcing it on them actually causes them to “hate” you. You are trying to do something for another person, but it is seen as controlling? Sigh. Continue reading 35,000 Choices Revisited

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Industrial Art Complex

The fatigue of complex emotions can leave you creatively exhausted. How many hills must you climb? How many sleepless nights must you endure? Where does creativity come from? It is so difficult to piece together, where everything starts and ends. In all of that calamity, there is a beginning.

Continue reading Industrial Art Complex

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5 Ways Meditation Can Increase Your Creativity

Meditation has been found to be extremely effective for many of our modern problems. Studies have shown that it can help increase your creativity. If you have ever tried meditation, you understand the benefits of how it relaxes and centers you. Seen as more of a spiritual practice in the past, it is clear that it can be extremely helpful in our day to day lives.

Creative business coach Mark McGuinness meditates for 20 minutes a day before he starts work. He focuses on his breathing while doing so. He has found that he gains focus, patience, calmness, clarity, and insight. He isn’t the only one in the business world using meditation. The likes of Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, and many other highly successful people that depend on their creativity use meditation before they start their workday. Here are 5 ways that meditation increases creativity.

Meditation and How it Works on the Brain

There are three parts to the brain that work together in order to get your creative juices flowing. The reptilian part of your brain is your oldest part. It covers breathing and automatic things. The limbic system is where your empathy and emotions can be found. Then there is the Neocortex which is the newest part. It is the most advanced part of the brain. We are capable of being aware of ourselves like no other species. This is why we can learn language, paint, play music, and write screenplays.

The limbic and Neocortex system will both activate to search for solutions. The limbic looks to past experiences to find the best solution. The Neocortex analyzes everything and is looking for a rational answer. Interesting, the limbic system comes up with answers faster even though the Neocortex would perhaps come up with a more rational answer.

1. Effects on the Neocortex

Meditation is a work in progress. It trains you to be aware of yourself and your surroundings. It trains you to be in the moment. The Neocortex is the part of the brain that controls your awareness. When you meditate, you train this part of the brain to become stronger. Meditation on a daily basis will allow you to make better choices. You can see bad habits and analyze the things you’re doing right in your life and things that don’t serve you. It is the newest part of the evolution of our brain. It is in charge of things like:

  • Creativity
  • Solving problems
  • Visioning
  • Strategizing
  • Visionary

By strengthening this area of the brain, you will be better able to reach that creative aspect of yourself.

2. Managing Emotions Continue reading 5 Ways Meditation Can Increase Your Creativity

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The Way We Raise Our Children

​A child who grows and has difficulty making decisions, is probably a child who got that taken away from him.

I believe there is a choice in the way we raise our children. And one of the most important things we give to them is the freedom of choice.
Our children are either taught from young how to make decisions or they aren’t. Many times the choices are made for them. What results from this? These children often grow not knowing how to make a choice. Many times they go with the flow, or they settle for anything when they are rendered indecisive. And this is never a good thing for they will struggle for a voice in the world which demands them to make choice unlike the child who was taught from young to say what they wanted. Sometimes, we can blame it on being an introvert which makes it difficult to speak up when we’re an adult, but at the end of the day, it is our upbringing which contributes and affects the choices we make.
I am an example of a child, now adult who very much finds it difficult to make a choice, and I wish I was given more room to be more independently me. I wish there was room to speak and not be shut up by a stare for saying a wrong sentence or for not doing the right thing. However, I am learning everyday how to make decisions. I am learning what I should’ve learnt since I was young. But the going isn’t easy, it gets tough because an introvert and empath, I still battle with indecisive moments. And I must say, these moments aren’t comfortable. It’s breaking comfort zones everyday.
By: Soshinie A. Singh, Author of The Phoenix Letters and The Phoenix Letters Return
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12 Month Check-In

I felt absolutely shook to the core. Obliterated by words that once spoke niceties…now these syllables are placated lullabies lobbed together with “um’s”. How pathetic to have thoughts of yesteryear to come forth bearing any fruit. All rotted to the core. Studded with “we are only friends”…that friendship cost you our love. Alas, you say you were miserable and you were giving me time. Time? Where was this time? Was I to assume where you stood? Speak up.

Your words would cut like a knife. Now suddenly that cat has got that tongue. What type of creature are you? Vial belittling monster masquerading as a lamb. I look over lids to peer into dark pools in which I drown. There is no lifeguard on deck. All the floating bodies serve as rafts and I am not able to swim.

 

@christinamariewatkins

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Confessions of a Pendeja: The Art of Letting Go

This week I didn’t feel like painting anything new; that happens sometimes as an artist.  This week was a trying week, a week in which the decision of a ring-a-round habit that needed to end. I won’t get into too much detail but its a bittersweet feeling letting go of your addiction.  Right now I’m going through withdrawals (NO, not from drugs!), but from something else.  Have you ever been in a SHITuation that feels so good at the moment, yet even in the moment you know it’s not good for you? Yeah, same. Continue reading Confessions of a Pendeja: The Art of Letting Go

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Tequila, Doodles, and Jamiroquai

My alone time is so precious to me. Being able to immerse myself in my solitude and actually find comfort in it is a beautiful thing, I highly suggest it. Add a little bit of tequila and good music and I end up with this doodle.  Yeah, I was pretty tipsy and in the zone having a million thoughts cross my mind, but even with everything that was on my mind I was able to center myself to create. You have no idea how grateful I am to have this creative outlet.

Definitely one of my favorite solo activities, having a drink and drawing as I let go of my long day.

-ZaiOhmy

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Pendejaism: Confessions of a Pendeja

Pendeja or pendejo is a Spanish word commonly used in Puerto Rican culture that would describe an individual that does dumb shit.  As of late, I’ve been such a pendeja 🤦.  No, I’m not out here committing crimes, muffing babies, or running into walls. I’m going through a MAJOR transitional period in my life in which a lot of personal mistakes are happening due to growth and my previous reluctance to life’s uncomfortable lessons. I don’t know if turning 30 this year is a factor but I want to face myself and my demons.  Here is my thing about this growth, I refuse to change my essence I only want to enhance it towards a positive light. What makes me who I am is why I have an ignorant laugh and why I can take a joke and throw it right back at you but I must admit some parts of my essence needs a tune-up. Shall we discuss the levels of my pendejaism? Continue reading Pendejaism: Confessions of a Pendeja

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The Blood

She is born with a naturally occurring third eye, nestled within the softest place on earth.  If you do it right, it might just wink at you.  Waiting is a cycle.  Stillness is a cycle.  Regeneration and resurrection?  Both are cycles.  She wants no parts of your war – no parts of the blood you spill.  (She often twitches at the day men were allowed into labor rooms.)  The blood she spills is of living water; not of slain innocence and not of combat, campaign, or crusade.  Yes, pay close attention to whom God granted His living water.  It’s been said that it’s just too much.  Too crass, too saturated, too heavy.  Too brand new.  The blood.  Of cyclical possibilities with a scent of untouched earth waiting to be sown (or not).  Rain on the horizon.  Seeds taking root.  Her insides – the great outdoors.  It is her space and mine.  Immense pain and immense pleasure.  What of true life doesn’t birth both?  Charged with the permutation of unadulterated first breaths!  And we let them shame…tax…shun us for it.  A gift.  An offering.  A safe space that everyone has at least once been familiar with.  And we let them shame us for it?  A built in clock synced with the moon, ocean tides…with her who stands with me and for me.  And we let them shame us for it?  Born with everything we need.  To carry life.  And we let them shame us for it?  Phenomenal soil – watering itself from the inside out.  And we let them shame us for it?  Worth bleeding for.  And we let them shame us for…the blood.

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Hey there Kid…

Hey There Kid

Hey, kid–kid with the kinky thick hair. The kid with the name everyone pronounced wrong. The bubbly chubby kid who loved to sing. One kid who’d run around with her portable speaker and mic and perform like a little preacher. Kid who loved climbing the trees in the backyard. The kid with a bottomless imagination. A kid who’d daydream all day. Hey there, kid, who loved bubble baths with her mom and would sing, “You are so beautiful….to me, can’t you see?” Continue reading Hey there Kid…