Inspired by the following from “Notes to Inspire” by Simon Sinek, author of the truly wonderful Start With Why:

“Pulling back, physically and philosophically, is an amazing practice. We see things we can never see when in the middle of it. Instead we see solutions and opportunities.”

Back soon. x.

“My smile is voluptuous, juicy & expressive – independent of size. Actually, the larger the better! People always compliment me on my smile & I wear it with pride & joyfulness!” ~me.

While in NYC last month for RHH Live, it was my fortune to be a part of the bodyheart campaign photoshoot. Bodyheart celebrates the ART of the female form & was founded by the beautiful heart that is Amber Kryzs.

What lit me up about the bodyheart experience:

• Photographer, Courtney Lindberg, introduced herself by saying, “I’m here to make you laugh.”  Why thank you very much. Perfect way to disarm & shift energy from head to heart!
• In trademark bodyheart style, a lovely little heart was drawn on the body part that each woman loved about herself.  Mine:  my smile.
• Haven of female inspiration: a painter who loved her hands, a fashion stylist celebrating her stomach & my girls: Kate who grounded the strength of her legs in warrior yogini style and Cassandra, her core. Definitely dive into this gallery of gorgeousness at Facebook.

The traditional headshot process in my past focused on: wardrobe styling, makeup artist, waxing eyebrows, getting a facial, cleansing, detoxing & ensuring rest–damn it. Being a girly girl, I have to say… who doesn’t love a touch of sparkle & feeling utterly spectacular in gorgeous hair, glowing skin, glamour & a slammin outfit?

The difference this time was I had fun, I was fun, I was relaxed. It was a relief to simply “show up & just be.” I breathed, I was in my body & actually fed off the energy of freely expressing confident-silliness… if that makes any sense:). It was an opportunity to actually connect with, meet & learn about / learn from other creative women – an experience which I honestly do not have the chance to do often, unless it is already within my network-tribe-village. There was zero space for comparing, feeling less than, greater than. Why nurture separation when the vibe was good & the photographer prompted you with “what makes you super happy?” (As an fyi, my 3-year old son, Killian, was totally the catalyst behind my main pic above.)

My process of seeing my black+white bodyheart photos: Love at first sight. Alas, from 0 to 60, my conditioned response (a.k.a. Ego) went to that place of critiquing & immediately thinking of ways to free-transform or smudge edit in Photoshop. Le sigh. Thankfully, by allowing/listening first and then outing myself/ego – Stinkin Thinkin Thoughts had nowhere to hide, fester & grow.

This is what I scribbled out in my journal:  I have a round face, my brother does and so does my son — unless I take out some cheekbones, maybe a part of my jaw. And my skull. Also, when I smile, my eyes crinkle up — if you’re a human being, that’s what they do!!!  Typing this, I chuckled to myself because it’s… funny. And all these thoughts describe a reality — that just isn’t real.

For the record, I love love LOVE my round expressive face & the pure character & BLiSS of my smile lines!!!+1

Having completed the bodyheart bootcamp (which I cannot recommend enough) — yes, my ego’s voice had her say, but she organically wasn’t as loud. And she definitely did not hijack the joy of my photo shoot memories, nor the celebration of Me seeing Me.

Mr. Expressivista on the piccies:

“I love it. It’s so you. Reminds me of Snoopy doing his happy dance, his eyes pointed toward the sky & all you see is this big smile.”

Ladies, if you’re in Los Angeles, Sunday, December 4th, 2011 – come be a part of the LA bodyheart campaign photo shoot & experience the awesomeness live. I’ll be there with my little one & Mama Expressivista.

So. Which part of your body do you love / celebrate / adore? (& keep it classy, yo )

x.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” 

~Apple, Inc. 

The following commercial was never aired by Apple…

If you haven’t seen it yet, press Play & gift yourself with the following 61 seconds:  Steve Jobs’ voice parallels a selection of history’s most significant visionaries and teachers:

• Albert Einstein
• Bob Dylan
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Richard Branson
• John Lennon
• R. Buckminster Fuller
• Thomas Edison
• Muhammad Ali
• Ted Turner
• Maria Callas
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Amelia Earhart
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Martha Graham
• Jim Henson & Kermit the Frog
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Pablo Picasso

The commercial ends with a young girl opening her closed eyes — to possibilities, perhaps and ultimately, fades to:

  Think different.

In 1999, I was forced to buy a computer. The catchphrase-slash-bane of my existence was “check out my/our/their website dot com.”  I had no clue what www or dot com meant, but I did need to book a massage at the Chopra Center in San Diego & the only way I could view the spa menu was, as the chipper reservationist suggested, to “look [them] up on the internet.”

The obvious choices? A big square beige PC or… a tiny beige rectangle of a Mac.

Along came a girlfriend who possessed a bondi blue iMac and matching scanner. Nirvana.

Instant love at first byte hit me in strawberry. 32 MB of RAM, a 4 GB hard drive, a sexy beast  of a 24x CD-ROM. My one complaint: where did the floppy disc drive go?

EiNSTEiN, as she was called, soon met her fate & was slated to be gutted & converted into an aquarium. Other lovers to come & go included titanium & aluminum PowerBooks, a 1st generation intel-based iMac, MacBook & MacBook Pro. As a graduate student in Expressive Arts Therapy with predilections toward the cello, modern dance, piano, languages, world literature — I had no idea what possessed me (other than drinking the Apple Kool-Aid) but as time passed, I taught myself graphic design & digital art with a Wacom tablet and Painter, Studio Artist, Photoshop & Illustrator software. I learned HTML, CSS, Perl and PHP for the heck of it so that I could hand code blogging platforms such Movable Type and Expression Engine and circumvent frustratingly limited WYSIWYG editors. Most impressive, but all long since forgotten during my bout with pregnesia, I was utterly obsessed with my computer’s brain & driven to figure out Terminal commands, resetting library permissions & ultimately, how to hack my Significant Other’s mac.

The expedient means (immature lure of a sparkly pink computer) created value by transforming an artsy book nerd with zero computer classes into a technologically semi-literate chick with kinda cool bragging rights, at least in geek circles. Making technology pretty and palatable to a girly girl made a new way of learning & seeing myself outside my own box a delicious possibility and challenge. Although today it takes me 5 million years to create an Excel spreadsheet, if necessary, I can bang out a fun graphic for my kid’s Facebook album. #LifeskillsThatReallyMatter

In 2007, the mister (my husband, then boyfriend) went gaga over the 1st generation iPhone. Again, I was like, “I need buttons — I can’t type on this.” Also, “what good is this? …all the sites I need to see are in Flash.” I dealt with the former & though I understand rabid mac purists’ plea on the latter, I still want my Flash. Regardless, as dramatic as this sounds, once I went iPhone I never went back: I phone home, check email, surf the web … it’s a kitchen timer, an alarm clock, a digital Filofax/Franklin planner, a sketchbook, a notepad & a diary with a key (a.k.a. password).

On past travels I could bring my iPad which housed 20+ books in a sleek package, rather than lugging 20 books in a bulky suitcase. Since then, the family iPad has been seized by our 3-year-old (on twitter: @MovableTyke). Though tiny in stature, little dude is no joke in multi-tasking: he turns it on, switches from screen to screen & picks between his fave apps Talking Carl, Santa Claus, or Monkey Lunchbox in the “Killian” folder. He has also acquired a hybrid Bostonian/British/Tagalog (filipino) accent, not from momma & daddy but from YouTube videos where kids assemble Lego structures & discuss minifigures.

Our world is a different palette — thanks to fierce, often unapologetic ingenuity that elegantly bridged technology with beauty in design. Yes, there were failures along the way (the one-button “hockey puck” mouse, the Newton MessagePad, ROKR) but Apple kept chuggin’ along, a macro corporate lesson applicable to the micro You and Me. Counterculture to a society that mildly revels in schadenfreude, regarding All Things Apple, what we mostly remember, focus upon and know about is the Good Stuff. Imagine that.

Envision a mission, your mission, any mission. Lacking moxie? Get inspired by digging into some of the firestarters from the video listed above. Invoke all of your senses, begin with your dream already fully actualized… then work backwards: see your film in a theatre and feel yourself sitting in a chair in the audience, touch/swipe your iPhone app on an iPad, hear your song/voice resonating from your car radio or concert hall, taste those organic superfood cupcakes in the bakery with your name on it and smell the insane fragrance of lavender fields from your cycling tour through Provence, Tuscany…

My creative / expressive arts process: this post took 6 days from conception to publication. By stream-of-conscious-izing it, it was written in 45 minutes. Then came days of editing/re-editing the life out of it, adding/resizing the “perfect” images. After that, hijacking what my mentor psychotherapist, Terri Cole, calls the Mafia Mind — the critical voice saying “it’s too late, you missed the boat on posting this” — and just pressing the “Publish” button. Otherwise, this would’ve been yet another post banished to queue purgatory for eternity.

As my 2nd favorite mac geek said during a sober conversation on October 5th:  ”Just throw spaghetti on the wall. Some will stick, some won’t” and “Just Nike it.”  

Start with “     fill in the blank       (create, write, compose, play…) from the heart” let go and be open to whatever transpires next.

 I want to put a ding in the universe.  ~Steve Jobs

That, you did, sir. In celebration of innovation and inspiration, thank you Mr. Jobs for putting a ding or two in the universe.

Good night.

Los Angeles weather for yesterday:  Thunderstorm, sun & the end of a rainbow.

Instead of a gazillion things Things To Get Done on a Saturday, I listened to my sage Inner Guide & ditched the To Do’s. Perfectly content staying home in my PJ’s, my son was equally thrilled to ditch preschool for Legos. Working with the element of rain vs. against it (getting in the car, complaining about slow traffic, etc), I stopped, dropped, took a breath, got rewired (meditation) & got inspired:

Today’s #108meditate practice: Cooking, or un-cooking, as a form of Expressive Arts Self-Therapy.

Usually for most people, the culinary arts have such therapeutic de-stressing & zen focus powers, in addition to hidden lessons in problem-solving, creativity & self-confidence.

2 main principles:

• Simple is best
• Use what you have on hand

After foraging through the fridge & pantry, we were well stocked for…

Ta-dah! Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Only 4 ingredients – optional 5
9 minutes, including preptime + zero baking

• 3 avocados – the riper, the better. Meaning = mushy.
• 1/2 cup agave nectar -or- 1/4 cup agave + 1/4 cup liquid stevia (we didn’t have enough stevia in the house)
• 1/2-1 tbsp pure vanilla extract or {ÜBER vanilla: Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Bean Paste: deep rich vanilla with seeds/grit to it. I got mine at Sur La Table but they also have them online, as well as Williams Sonoma}
• 1/2-3/4 cup cocoa powder {we used TerrAmazon Raw Cacao with Maca Root Powder, but Trader Joe’s Cocoa in the cute brown & pink tin works great as well}
• *Optional, but oh. SO good:  1 tsp almond extract

Equipment:

• mixing bowl,
• hand mixer/food processor/spoon,
• glass ramekins or cute-shaped baking cups like the above for serving

Peel avocado & toss the pit/skin. If the avocado isn’t as ripe, be sure to dice it into small chunks – easier to blend. Using a food processor is best, or hand mixer or simply a spoon, which is fine if you’re just making it for home & don’t mind the lumps & bumps. Add agave, cocoa & vanilla to taste using the above as starting points. If you love almonds, or dig an exotic flair, add a teaspoon of almond extract. That’s it!

Chill in fridge for 30 minutes if you like, though you can certainly eat right away if you’re feeling the calling. Chilling in the fridge for several hours is fantastic alchemy: the cocoa seeps in & becomes richer. The agave settles in with the avocado & cocoa ripening into a deeper, darkish sweetness. As for the avocado — you forget you even used a green fruit in this concoction.

Top with a sprig of mint, a dash of marmelade or pair with fresh berries. Serves 2-3. Bon Appétit!

Note: Killian & I used what was in our kitchen/alchemy lab, hence the random 3 avocados… if you’d like recipe conversion tips, let me know!

Arts Process:

Expressive Arts is huge on ‘process over product‘. I gotta say… the end product is pretty darn delish. You neither realize it’s vegan, nor packed with avocado’s nutrients of vitamin K, fiber, potassium, folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin C…

That said, it’s easy, quick & something you can whip up by yourself or teach a child. My little guy loved mashing the avocado, measuring almond extract (with help. he’s 3;), making a beautiful mess pouring cocoa & squeezing the agave bottle – science, math & motor/vision/coordination skills. Things we adults take for granted: (take an avocado, mix it up, voilà!) & breaking it down like teaching a child, slows our brains down & expands our appreciation levels and our sense of wonder.

In short:

• keeping things simple,
• working with materials you have on hand,
• collaborating & opening your mind to seeing/experiencing things AS IF for the first time

are creative tools that work whether you are making an 18-vegetable stew with everything but the proverbial kitchen sink in it, or creating that vision board that never gets done (huge props to those that do) : get computer or construction paper and 1 magazine, start ripping words or happy visions or styles that you love… the glue, tape, stapler will come later and exactly what you need for the project. …I’ll post another journal when I heed my own advice. Seriously.

Extra credit: your kitchen isn’t a kitchen / your studio isn’t a studio, it’s an alchemy lab & you’re an alchemist. According to wikipedia, Alchemy “was said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver, and also act as an elixir of life” – Honor your creative space as a place to create magic and invite & be open to miracles. This energy alone is waaay different than a kitchen where you do dishes or your studio where you slave away at Photoshop, a script, an article on deadline. It also conjures up hope & wisdom that when moments of stuckness arrive, you have all that you need to unstuck the muck & get out of Writer’s block, un-inspiration & re-energize creative flow. Another meditation, for another day… but just wanted to plant the seeds.

So. What’s in your kitchen sink recipe?

Love love love comments & questions & equally love responding. If you enjoyed or have questions, please comment, like, +1, tweet (hashtag #108meditate) & spread the love! Much Gratitude. xx.

About Me:

Jennah Ferrer-Foronda is an Expressive Arts Therapy Advocate, Educator and Consultant. She received her graduate training at New York Expressive Arts/Glass Lake Studio; European Graduate School, Switzerland as well as the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, NY. Currently under development: curriculum for a psycho-spiritual arts flagship program in Los Angeles focusing on women and children, as well as a book synthesizing neuroscience, creative arts and healing. Social media is Queen: connect at Facebook & Twitter: @expressivista. #108meditate.

Free yourself & just let go while creating. Free your art by creating… & then let go.

I was working on an 80′s art project, one specifically: doodles on PeeChee folders. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, this is what they look like before & after tween angst & classroom boredom:

I had envisoned something like Thrasher Skate & Destroy or classic “Martha Stewart meets Motorhead” Bake & Destroy.

Along came Killian who started in on rainbows (bottom left corner) a heart and asked for “a fairy. with socks and wearing mommy’s black nail polish.”

Ballpoint pen, liquid paper, vintage Chanel vamp nail polish, #2 pencil, chalk & metallic Sharpies later – I totally dropped the whole skater-punk -ink vision. Admittedly, it was totally relaxing doodling like back in the day “not trying” to make Art… and I had one of the best Artist Dates with a preschooler ever.

Tibetan Sand Mandala -  over several days, Buddhist monks painstakingly create incredibly detailed spiritual circles (mandalas) with the sole purpose of destruction. A lesson in impermanence.

This is akin to facepainting, a group canvas at an art party, or sidewalk chalk drawings. There’s creation, emotion in the process (joy, relief, frustration) and release… without a look back.

Applied to the arts:

Writers: Writing a piece takes forever to carry through because you press the edit + save button. rinse + repeat… this blog that you’re reading most likely was a victim of this. Feeling stuck in the process includes not starting because you can’t find the perfect quote or image to accompany it… not enough time, etc. A huge benefit of committing to this 108-day Expressive Arts Meditation of Happiness As A Habit for me has been giving myself a deadline: by midnight. No matter what, show up & create… and, let it go.

On to the next day’s writing/art piece. Because when you have a three-year-old, chaffeuring, storytime and cooking/washing and 10 minutes of yoga, there ain’t no time to labor in the SHTUFF.

Performers: After an audition, an actor might beat him/herself up with “if only I did it this way” and be surprised to get the part… or the opposite may happen, one leaves the audition sure that s/he nailed it and for reasons out of one’s own talent/etc – was passed upon. As a musician, my cello, piano, voice would be so on one night & another night a lyric would wander off on it’s own or the the instrument’s wood/strings were arguing with the elements. Above all, it never ceases to sidestep one when one person comes up to you & says, “thank you, I was really moved.” And you feel it by looking in their eyes or by the way they put their hands on their heart for that split second. It was the co-creation process of performer & audience giving and receiving that’s the magic.

Today’s #108meditation in thought is simply: Creation as a spiritual divine delicious process.

We already know about writer’s block, fear at getting our work out there & fears that our work isn’t being seen – why not flip it and explore being in the journey, having a human/spiritual creative experience In The Moment. And letting it go.

Thank you immensely for your presence.  Enjoy 1:21 minutes of Sand Mandala being built & eradicated. Peaceful, beautiful, liberating.

#108meditation Right Action: See + Receive. Whether it’s this video, or you see people in line at the grocery store, or you’re looking at a collage, watching a basketball game – experience it – and whatever your response, if any, let it go.

Love love love comments & questions & equally love responding. If you are so inclined, please comment, like, +1, tweet (hashtag #108meditate) & spread the love! Much Gratitude. xx.

About Me:

Jennah Ferrer-Foronda is an Expressive Arts Therapy Advocate, Educator and Consultant. She received her graduate training at New York Expressive Arts/Glass Lake Studio; European Graduate School, Switzerland as well as the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, NY. Currently under development: curriculum for a psycho-spiritual arts flagship program in Los Angeles focusing on women and children, as well as a book synthesizing neuroscience, creative arts and healing. Social media is Queen: connect atFacebook & Twitter: @expressivista. #108meditate.

Day #2 of “#108meditate: 108 Days of Happiness as a Habit” post is coming to you gloriously late! because in closing my eyes to center & meditate before creating, I crashed. Hardcore 90-minute nap.

“When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.” — Anaïs Nin

All day I was a Zombie, albeit a happy one, with the inner chatter of:

• “Dude, you started  a 108-day meditation, yesterday. People are waiting for Day #2″
• “You’ve got to get this piece out by 8am PST so that it gets read 11am EST (as the day progressed, this translated to, you’ve got to publish this by 1pm EST before the whole entire East Coast goes home from work & misses this!!!)
• …balancing my work (for $) + mommyhood + making sure there’s some greens & tempeh in the house for dinner

I had/still have a fantastic art & journal piece co-created with my 3-year old son, Killian, scheduled for today, BUT in aligning with Expressivista’s mission: Create + Collaborate + Elevate

and

Expressivista’s Values: …that any Expressivista-In-The-Know loves S.W.A.G = Spirit. Wellness. Arts. Glam. (still working on that one, but you get the gist)

I realized I’m just typing at my  Mac & being guided that today’s 2-parter Expressive Arts meditation is this:

sometimes, the body needs to express itself through rest, nap, sleeping in. 

“Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the futre that the present is reduced to a means of geting there? Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there,’ or being in the present but wanting to be in the future.” ~Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Three morsels I learned today:

1) There is nothing glam in being a zombie. (True, that’s only part true, but for the purpose of this journal, let’s talk about creating when you feel like you’ve got the life sucked out of you.) Art that’s forced, constricted & coming from force, constriction, pressure is what is circulated & received by your audience, tribe, client, buyer. The energetic flow infused in brainstorming, creating, performing, thought-creation, writing is its’ Essence. Ideally, the so-called “goal”  = Creating from Inspiration over Perspiration.

2) “Wherever you go, there you are,” said Confucius. As a self-diagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactive Divine — distraction from email, IM, text msgs, twitter, Facebook & the iPhone, BlackBerry & androids that . Takes us away from our focus & feeling scattered seriously does not bring on the happy. If you’re working/writing/painting, turn off distractions & give yourself the gift of 90 minutes solid, uninterrupted distraction, then take a BREAK: close your eyes & breathe, get fresh air, stretch, go take a nap — just make sure you set your alarm.;)

3) My inner mean girl is my most worthy sparring partner in my 108 Days of Happiness As A Habit. Oy. Amy Ahlers & Christine Arylo brilliantly coined the I.M.G. in their Inner Mean Girl Reform School. Mine nagged me with all of the bullet-points in the 3rd paragraph above. Thankfully, her cranky arse got narcolepsy & took a much-needed nap, because we had an excellent dialogue after dinner & these were my bulletpoint responses to counteract hers:

• “It’s #108meditate. It’s the 2nd day. There are 108 days of this, dude. You can post it at 6am, 3pm, 11:45pm & whoever reads or lands upon this blog might read it on a Saturday or 2 years from now – this is not HuffPost or the NY Times on a pub deadline. The mental migraine of self-pressure from “Time” (btw. a man-made invention to organize life getting busier) detracts from creation.  The spirit of Expressivista is connecting to & expressing one’s spirit. If my nap is done, my meditation commitment was met. Nuff said.”
• …Along those lines, you do the work/live/embody the content that you are sharing FIRST & modern technology/social media: WordPress, twitter, fb, StumbleUpon are just a Segway to carry the message, the content.
• A) Working brings on the happy because it feels good: bringing in a paycheck & living through purpose while “paying ones dues” & creating one’s dream/vision/project (napping all day with no purpose – as tempting as it sounds – does not); and
• B) a disorganized home = disorganized, life. take care of this & you create space to receive & give the gift of creativity. even if it’s not Martha Stewart certified, taking care of housekeeping & making sure your body is hydrated & fed feeds a HAPPY mental state & HAPPY cells, atoms, molecules, brainage & sangre = passion = blood.
• C) most important, my son is my life & I would rearrange the planets for him, dancing to a Ludacris (clean version) is pure awesomeness.

…It’s a work-in-progress, but my Inner Mean Girl & I agreed to disagree. Essentially, mini world peace & compassion in one’s living room translates to big world peace, compassion & ultimately, HAPPINESS In Real Life. To Be Continued…

As for the 2nd part of this 2-parter #108meditate?

Expressive Arts is a tao / yin-yang flow of going inward (reflection), then bringing it outward (journal writing, a poem, stretching, a spazztastic exorcism dance). It’s a micro view of being in the forest & only seeing beneath the roof of lush trees, then zooming out & above to a macro view where you see an ecosystem of water, animals… then zooming back inward to appreciate a rainbow in a dew drop.

All hippy stuff aside, bring on YouTube. My friend, Kate, has a beautiful blogpost on Positive Playlist somewhere in the interwebz and this next meditation was inspired by her.

1) Somewhere quiet

2) Candle optional

3) Computer, iPad…

*Bonus points for plugging in headphones, or generic Apple earbuds & letting these vibes sink in & alter your brain chemistry, slowing it down & creating endorphins = happy hormones.

4) Commitment. Toast to you, to Inner Peace and invoking Happiness. 5-6 minutes max.

5) …Bliss out to either:

Helios – “Bless This Morning Year” or

Hammock – “I can almost see you”

I admit, I totally get being adverse to clicking on links, especially audio & video and feeling like, “I don’t have time.”

…Promise, the action of this non-active arts meditation:  none other than just sitting, closing your eyes & listening. Receiving music. The feeling of music is delicious.

Much gratitude. x.

Savasana image from YogaFlavoredLife.com

As I was searching for savasana images,  YogaFlavoredLife.com’s ~ 108 Yoga Pose Drawings to Download, Create & Learn from ~ Synchro-tastically* popped up through the vessel of Google. 108. Gotta love that.;)

Shoutouts to Jennifer G. who got me vibed into Helios: Bless This Morning Year & to my mentor, Terri Cole, creator of  All Things “Synchro-tastic”ness.

If you google “significance (or symbolism) of number 108″ you’ll find references to mathematics, astronomy, buddhism, sacred writings and baseball.

So. What does this all have to do with Expressivista: spiritual psychology & creative arts?

The best way one could understand expressive arts therapy would be to watch it unfold as an experiment. Linear. And in optimum awesomeness, interact.

You may have heard that it takes 21 days to dump a habit such as my ex-boyfriends: smoking, complaining, gossip. In Kundalini Yoga, 40 days breaks a habit. 90 days less denial and resistance, this habit is embedded into your body & mind. 120 days the new habit is a part of who you are. 1000 days certifies you as a jedi master.

While doing research last week, at 1:08pm on my iPhone (seriously, I swear), I read this on Wikipedia:

“One hundred [and] eight (or nine dozen) is an abundant number“

A-ha! 108 days of active arts meditation = pick something you want to focus on in your life: self-confidence, love, prosperity, abundance, freedom from feeling stuck, releasing anger, more energy, appreciation, going for that novel you want to write… creating a business with nothing but a spark of intention and moxie… let’s see what happens for 108 days {hint = 108 being an abundant number} of Expressivista - active meditation through:

• art
• writing
• music
• chalk drawing
• hiking
• storytelling
• celtic salt baths
• baking

The hope is that after 108 days… anyone in the World Wide Web can stumble upon a cookbook of recipes to dip into inspiration, breakthrough of a creative block or manifest a hidden treasure at the end of a 21, 40, 108, 120 arts meditation. Try one or try them all in times of blues, more-than-just-blues, stress, stuckness…

With that said, for the next 108 days, I’m committing to my 108 Day Arts Meditation of Happiness As A Habit:

Happiness as a muscle, Life is the gym – you show up especially when you don’t wanna & just like 108 beads in a rosary with 108 mantra repetitions, the reps of lifting weight break & rebuild the muscle until eventually the ritual sculpts out a transcended YOU.

Day 1:

#108meditate of the day: Happiness inward is solid. Happiness based on externals is risky ground. Breath is free & can clear up mental muck & become addictive:  close your eyes, breathe in to 8, exhale to count of 10. Repeat. You’re welcome. (<–my mentor, Terri Cole, often says that after her breath meditations. Twas a gratitude nod to her.)

Right Action: based on an idea from my teachers, Christine Arylo & Gabrielle Bernstein, start a list of 108 things:

• that you love about yourself
• that make you happy
• more specifically, books & music & films & food that make you happy
• that you’d like to visit, learn, create over the next  (fill-in-the-blank)years…

Enjoy! xx.

Love love love comments & questions & equally love responding. If you are so inclined, please comment, like, +1, tweet (hashtag #108meditate) & spread the love!

…Even if you’re cool just reading or skimming, thank you. There is much value in witnessing another’s music, design, writings, art, performance… if you’re moved or inspired – positively or negatively – the art isn’t dead.

Anyways, as a treat, here’s some more fun facts on the number 108 from that Bastion of Knowledge, Wikipedia:

• Buddhist mala beads, catholic rosary beads:  108 circular. in some twist the circle to be an infinity – see photograph. – 108 repetitions of a mantra or yoga pose
• Sanskrit alphabet is made of 54 letters. Each has a male + female part = 108 letters
• Vibrations & Frequency, Sound = The highest broadcast band of FM radio is 108.0
• New Year in Japan is celebrated by ringing the gong 108 times
• Each ring represents one of 108 earthly temptations a person must overcome to achieve nirvana.
• In Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope had 108 suitors.
• An official Major League Baseball baseball has 108 stitches.
• The pre-historic monument Stonehenge is about 108 foot in diameter.
• On April 12th, 1961 Jurij Gagarin was the first man in space. His official time in space was an hour and 48 minutes or as we know it, 108 minutes.

About Me:

Jennah Ferrer-Foronda is an Expressive Arts Therapy Advocate, Educator and Consultant. She received her graduate training at New York Expressive Arts/Glass Lake Studio; European Graduate School, Switzerland as well as the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, NY. Currently under development: curriculum for a psycho-spiritual arts flagship program in Los Angeles focusing on women and children, as well as a book synthesizing neuroscience, creative arts and healing. Social media is Queen: connect at Facebook & Twitter: @expressivista. #108meditate.

Serendipity:

“A talent for making fortunate discoveries while searching for other things.” -Ologies & -Isms.

In the simplest of words, it means a “happy accident”. ~Wikipedia

This afternoon, I was soaking in Procrastination, Perfectionism & Analysis Paralysis as to how to officially start this Journal – a collection of Spirit Wellness Arts & Glam meditations from an Expressive Arts Advocate/Educator. As of Sunday 8/28/11 the New Moon was starting at 11pm & its’ auspicious timing to plant seeds of Intent brought on self-induced pressure. Instead of creating content, I was tinkering with the header, font/link colors, imagining illustrations & making lists of the most perfect art materials on the planet for this manifesto. Heck, I had a gazillion things I wanted to write about & yet, I had no clue what I was going to write about. This ritual has been going on for over a month – if you look at my 1st test post, it’s dated July 28, 2011.

Along came a ping notification from Twitter:

{ @expressivista = me, Jennah :: @Passion4Pretty = Emily }

@Passion4Pretty: @expressivista Hi jennah! I found you through HerFuture and was hoping I could ask you a couple questions about Art Therapy for my class.

@expressivista: (…after checking this person’s bio & tumblr & HerFuture.com account to make sure troll status was not an issue. It wasn’t.) @Passion4Pretty Hey darlin’! For sure. Msg me here or HF! x. (HF = herfuture.com)

@Passion4Pretty: @expressivista Oh my gosh thank you so much! I love art and so when we were supposed to pick topics I thought this would be fun | First off, how did you get interested/started in this field? What made you fall in love with it?

@expressivista: Absolutely! “Artist- musician-dancer–creative spazz” growing up. I volunteered w/ @FreeArts & totally found my calling~

@Passion4Pretty: Checking out @FreeArts and it looks awesome! @expressivista

…What happened next were a series of Q & A messages which killed in 30 minutes what I’ve been ruminating over for years: People saying, “That sounds really interesting. What is that… Expressive Arts Therapy?”  and me saying to myself, “Gosh. Everyone asks me about that. I should write about it some day.” Hmm.

EMILY: ”Thanks! I am excited to hear all about this! It’s very unique so how does it work, like what is a session/class like? Art they group-oriented or one-on-one? Have you had any break thoughs/aha moments that you would love to share?”

EXPRESSIVISTA/JENNAH: ”I’ve facilitated both private & group sessions. Working at domestic violence shelters and children’s group homes – sometimes it is structured (by the facility) as an hourly therapeutic session for the kids, or, it’s an 8-week self-esteem & female empowerment workshop. An a-ha moment that I will never forget is working with juvenile delinquents who were court-ordered to attend a rehab arts & education program to avoid jail. One 10-year old was being laughed at by his peers while he was painting a plate. On this plate he drew a man holding hands with a woman, with a a picket fence, a house & a dog. He was so not deterred & the next day continued to paint meticulously. Most especially, he pointed out to me that he was painting a window on the house, which may not seem significant to you or me, but one could interpret it as hope or an opening. The boy was very proud to say, “it has no bars on it.” The next day I came to work & we were supposed to glaze the plate before firing it in the kiln. The boy never showed up to class because of activities the night before that took him to jail. The a-ha moment: did the painting rehabilitate or save him? In this instance, no. Did it give him moments of authentic expression of his own creativity & dreams (most 10-year old boys, regardless of their circumstances will not be painting families with a picket fence. Period.) – yes. The ‘process’ of expression & creativity is the so-called goal vs. the end product. In expressive arts therapy, you utilize all the modalities of art, drama, music, journal writing, poetry, movement, dance and so on… Hope this helps! x.”

EMILY: “Is there an age or demographic that this fits better with or is it for everyone? And you mentioned the goal it the process of expression through creativity. When people are more expressive does this help as a release or negativity or how exactly does it connect with improving their lifestyle?”

EXPRESSIVISTA/JENNAH:  “For everyone, as long as the client is open to therapeutic healing through the arts. For some, talk therapy cuts to the core & is enough for them. For others, exposure to creative arts therapy, may evoke more than they are willing to participate in, or are prepared for. Sometimes in a group setting (required by a facility), arts therapy may mean just sitting against a wall hugging one’s knees & witnessing/watching others in the group – much akin to the therapeutic release we feel when watching a movie that elicits an emotion like uncontrollage “church giggles” or, bawling our eyes out uncontrollable. Again, the process of feeling these emotions is the “goal” – sometimes, just witnessing another or listening to music/viewing a painting is all the “action” one needs to take to partake in creative arts therapy.

To answer your second question, and I’ll speak for myself, I find that artistic/creatively-inclined folks tend to have academic/training/aesthetic baggage that may hinder the therapeutic process. During grad school, we would have breakout sessions where the assignment was creating a mixed media collage. Good lawd, I would be killing myself searching for just the right pastel, or the right image, or feeling incomplete without a certain metallic colored Sharpie. This model is an excellent example of the expressive arts therapy process for Stuck Creatives or Artistic Perfectionists. Having an assignment with a time-limit in the studio makes the creatively frustrated person work through their sh*t & see that they CAN create without being in the ideal scenario with perfect art materials. To be continued:)…

EMILY:  ”I have to say talk therapy is semi difficult for me because I can never say what I want to with words the same way I see it in my head or that I can write. Singing helps me with release a lot as well. But I totally can see the wanting the art to be perfect and it holding people back. That totally sounds like something that would happen to me.

Do you think people can benefit from doing any of these things at home either instead of or in conjunction with other practices like meditation for example?”

EXPRESSIVISTA/JENNAH:  ”As a disclaimer, therapy through speaking your truth – which may even be a lie/fabricated story that reveals one’s greatest wish – is immensely valuable & necessary, whether you’re in a therapy office or not. I am in no way denying it’s value, especially since to most people, just committing & gettting to a talk therapy session is an understandably huge ordeal! With that said, I became interested in expressive arts therapy because in my work with post-trauma clients or abuse survivors, sometimes the spoken word is too much. It triggers so much fear that perhaps it’s easier to start gently writing in a journal at the beginning of a session through poetry or prose.

I love how you mentioned singing as a valuable method of release. And yes, sometimes having a background in vocal technique brings the intellect or ego into the therapeutic session, but that’s a whole other story. The great thing with art therapy / creative arts or expressive arts therapy is that you learn tools to use anywhere, for free or close to free:). Say you’re feeling stuck (the blues, PMS, the weather, unmotivated)… an assignment would be generating a 5 song playlist that you instantly have to turn on. Go to your room, close the door… or in the living room… funk it up in your favorite dance shorts & sweat it out, guaranteed you’ll feel better halfway through the first song… The next step would be to “move” the modality of dance/movement through your body would be to sit (going “inward” from moving “outward”) & writing down “that felt awesome” or things you thought of “must visit Paris soon!”, you might even do some doodles. Expressive Arts Therapy uses several different arts as conduits of the client’s expression. If you were doing this at home, since you danced to get in touch with your stuckness, you wrote/sketched about it to center yourself & perhaps the next step would be chanting a mantra or doing a breath meditation to integrate this expressiveness within your system. It’s a very organic process.

I admit I’m biased & I feel that everyone could benefit from even 60 seconds of closing one’s eyes & just consciously breathing oxygen everyday (aka=meditation), but that’s another topic.

And so, expressivista.com/The Blog was born – an article was written – and I got to experience an Expressive Arts Therapy session for myself in the process. Just a Mac, some humble knowledge, a willingness to create, to reach out, to connect & to share authentically. The Uni-verse is so awesome when it works like that. x.

Emily Joyce Lee is my new friend. Her delicious insights can be found at Butterfly Chaser & Passion 4 Pretty. Check it.

Craving more? International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA), arttherapyblog.com, Free Arts for Abused Children, HerFuture.com – More resources to come. I’m not Google, but if you’d like a human perspective on therapeutic arts training programs, music therapy, movement therapy – please ask! x.

Hello! The official First Expressivista Blog Post… is yet to come!

Til then, this is a lil’ test to see what happens when we type stuff, add/resize images, mess around with fonts, etc.

So. Let’s mix things up from “Hello, World! Testing 1-2-3″ & get the party started with Positive Intent:
~from “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho.

• “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
• “When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.”
• “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

Enjoy!
x.