Binge Painting

I hadn’t painted in a while and I was feeling the pain of it. You ever miss something so much, it hurts? The way your body craves for exercise or your mind for relaxation.

I needed to paint. My thoughts were getting loud.

Painting, like cooking, is a good way for me to act and not think. If you’re a heady person, you know how annoying it can be to listen to your own mental voice after a while. And you know how REFRESHING it can be to do something hands-on. It’s better than an out-of-body experience, it’s an out-of-mind and in-the-body experience.

I took an entire day to catch up on a project I’ve been working on. Since graduating, there’s a creepy place inside of me that misses homework. Really, it’s just the desire to have a background project going on. A getaway task that can be touched here and there and eventually results in a product. When you don’t have homework, you have hobbies. I LOVE HOBBIES, don’t you?

It can be hard getting into a new hobby with no direction, that’s why classes and even copying *GASP* are great ways to start. I told you guys about Skillshare before, you can get your first 2 months free with this code. I actually prefer Domestika, and we can talk about the differences later, but I love this platform.

I got a free day this week so I decided to use it to “catch up” on my project from a class taught by Maya Hanisch. Hence the title, binge-painting.

That is where I turned this:

Into this:

Binge-painting, binge-watching Netflix, binge-drinking. Different, you might say. Okay.

Not really, though. The intensity of each activity is different but the general after-effect can be the same. You do a whole lot of one thing and block out the rest of everything (like chores).

But I unintentionally forgot to eat and drink water. Yikes, that was pretty bad. We can talk about “flow state” another day?

When you don’t eat or drink, it’s hard to produce enough breast milk. You will have a hungry baby! It is suddenly time to binge-eat and leave the chores for another day…until binge-cleaning is made possible.

Moral of the story, to binge is to binge again and again. Binge-painting, binge-anything, is not actually restorative. It induces anxiety. I was on edge, feeling like a bad mama, squeezing for milk in the aftermath of “relaxing” with some colors. Totally counterproductive.

It’s the ol’ Proactive versus Reactive dilemma.

Paint a little, watch Netflix a little, destress a little everyday to avoid a buildup of tension. Somehow I am really good at collecting tension. This was a lesson to me. As a mother, I am not only inconveniencing myself. There are ripple effects of our own stress habits and coping mechanisms that reach the lives of others.

I can’t tell you where balance is, it’s somewhere over the rainbow. Somewhere in the Heavens. I haven’t made it there yet but we are to bring Heaven down to earth, right?

All I know is that we can’t wait until someday to catch a breath and we can’t abuse that breath by inhaling airs of distraction.

Here’s to a pretty product and trying for balance again, tomorrow and ever after.

To a Friday full of Flourish! May the inspiration strike,
Mama X

Flourishing Friday post #7, last one here. These posts are about reflection, creativity, and inspiration. Occasionally, I will share my own expressions through art here and on my Instagram profile @Mama_Equis.