Learning to Be Messy — Pathway to Superpower
I was born neat. But I’m reformed now.
I find it exciting that language is ever changing. Not in the cultural cool sense. But in the felt sense. Take the word messy. Is your first reaction like mine? Clutter, grime and chaos. Distracting and impeding the flow of your day?
But meanings shift and tick with time…and awareness.
Can you now imagine a delicious scene of wild indulgence? Chosen messiness. Something more akin to joy and freedom than to tightness and control. Same word. Only this time, we have created a new definition. Yes, we can do that. Because words are simply energy.
I’ll admit that chosen messiness looked initally frightful to this neat-nick. Did these people simply awaken one day and toss away the systematic rituals of sane humanity? Or were they born this way? I had to find out. Why couldn’t I let go like this?
In the middle of calm and comforting perfection…you may be hiding secrets.
Me? Secrets?
Overly fussy eating habits, addiction to busy-ness, failure to address issues in relationships, a life devoid of experimental passion…all with the promise of a neatly controlled environment. Ouch.
Time, lots of honest scribbling in my journal, and a new dedication to messy began to form between the lines. Before I knew it, former virtue based rules and guidelines were flying out the door in a wild array of colors.
Three Ways to Get Your Messy On…and Find New Superpowers
Drive wild eyed toward a fearful adventure.
What fearful adventure have you been avoiding? Me. I’ve always been a nature lover. I live in a state with temperate weather, diverse terrain, and amazing parks. But all of my orderly virtue had gotten in the way of excursions to the great outdoors.
Regular weekend hikes initiated my reunion to this forgotten passion. But I soon determined that my treks were…just…too safe.
How about twenty five miles of dusty Asolo boot-steps in a 48 hour period? Climaxing at a Sierra mountain lake that swallows every planet and star that dares near its 8,500 foot elevation? What could be messier than sleeping on razor sharp granite chunks and running parasitic Sierra snow through a thin plastic tube for hydration? Not to mention bears snuffling their stink six inches away from my tender slumbering head.
My New Superpowers: the ability to feel the vibration of the wilderness. To breathe air that hasn’t been recirculated through the nostrils of 60 coworkers. To see farther than my computer screen…and find furry friends who amuse me more than a Saturday jaunt with my vacuum cleaner. After all is said and done, dirt is just a color.
Leak your ugliest personal stories.
If you haven’t yet literally torn through 88 square inches of anger with the tip of your ball point pen. If haven’t yet burned a tear stained journal. If you haven’t yet decided that the journey is your purpose, regardless of where it takes you…go deeper. Get messier.
If you are calm by nature, try on an angry tone. If you have no trouble shredding yourself and everyone around you to make your wishes known, ask yourself if it’s really working. Have your conditions improved, or do words just blow smoke into the continual fire of your displeasure?
Tell a friend. Write a blog. Pen your current memoir…knowing that it will change. Even. As. You. Write.
My New Superpowers. In the midst of my incredibly messy journals, I learned to feel. Everything. That was formerly hidden. I learned to see. And even to cry. I learned to recognize old stories and write them anew.
My body learned to relax, reversing years of pain, auto immune disorders, and food intolerances. My mind took on a new role as caretaker of my body, allowing full nights of sleep, and an inner authenticity that had never been seen in the past.
Most of all, I learned to choose my thoughts and feelings. Not through avoidance, but through awareness. I started noticing that 99% of my discomfort was based on something in the past, or fear of the future. Even when I initially thought it was about what was happening in the now.
Letting go of old thoughts and beliefs can be messy. If you begin to question not just your habitual choices, but also your beliefs, expect the old you, the one who operated from “should”, to throw a few tantrums. Followed by loud and obnoxious predictions of doom. You will need a strategy….
Do something creative.
Do you think paint and clay should best be left to the professionals? Does visual creativity feel like a waste of time when you could be doing something more important or productive? I used to too.
I gave up cutesy craft projects at the ripe old age of 21. So how did I come to embrace daily visual creativity three decades later? Honestly, it was an accident. A slip of the finger one bored night. But after that click…
My New Superpowers. I can paint ugly, and not throw it away. Because every day is a new layer of life. I can waste time and materials with no goal in sight. I can speak in the language of color, even when words no longer suffice.
No longer searching for clean edges and crisp clear images of life…I most delight in trying to rough up surfaces to a worn and wise texture. I glory in the undefined, the enigmatic, the mystically reflective. I don’t want my paintings to be neat. I played that game too long.
