As you know, my parents came for a visit last week. And, if you've been following my blog posts for awhile now, you may have remembered, at times, when I've mentioned my mother's AMAZING artist skills. My entire life, I've watched her paint the most beautiful canvases. Her detail in her work is SO SO AMAZING!!

Here's her most recent work she did for C. She painted a foot stool for her, like the one she did for me when I was a kid. LOVE!!

Amazing, right!?!? I mean, just look at those flowers!! OMG!!

Everything my mother paints is outstanding!! Although, her left-brain likes to tell her it's not.

(A big reason why she needs to add more doodling into life...hehe! The more she doodles, the more her inner, creative confidence will grow and she'll start to see her work in this outstanding way that everyone on the outside has always seen...the power of doodling...it's changed me and how I think about my work and It'll do the same for her and YOU...comparing and judgmental thoughts ease...and just aren't so loud anymore...it's amazing!!...OK, I'm rambling...lol...back to my post...lol)

She spends a large part of her life painting away in her painting room. And it's just SO amazing to see her finished work.

Yes...amazing!! Hey...did I happen to say that mother's work is AMAZING!! Ha!

But, here's the coolest part of all. Since I've become a doodler and a passion advocate for WHY doodling is SO important to create more calm (and creative confidence!!) in life, my mother has been wanting to give doodling more of a try.

Because...

she NEVER just sits and doodles, or just sits to play with paint like a child does.

She wants too, but she ends up back in her painting room, painting awesome things like the one above. Which, isn't a bad thing. Not at all. She has PASSION for painting!! And we all need to BE connected to our PASSION in this way!!

But, as she's learning the power "behind" doodling, from me, she's been ready to give it more of a try. Her right brain is saying, "Yes! You need this! Let's try it!!" Hehe!

She's sat many times to just play with shapes and she has had her fun Zentangling, and oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't take a picture of her Zentangles...mind blowing!! Must do that the next time she comes up!! You gotta see them!!

But, she never really stuck with it. Because that type of doodling wasn't connecting deep within her soul. It wasn't feeling as good as she'd like it too. (Just like for me when I tried to Zentangle...it has to FEEL GOOD in order for doodling to work!). Until now...

Just like when I started to doodle she said it's REALLY hard to get started. Because...

She's not used to allowing herself to get her creative play on, like a kid, without having a certain outcome. Um, hello...she's just like everyone who has grown out of their toddler years. Yep! Everyone!!

Even though she CREATES the most beautiful, detailed canvases, her left-brain is still in need of a much needed break, because it's continuing to run the show and dominating her thoughts.

And she has started to do just that and the results are AMAZING!! Just like for everyone who reconnects to their inner, creative toddler again.

In March, she gave my "inspiring her to get her doodle calm on" a try. She started out doing doodles that I've shown here on the blog. And, doodles that I LOVE to do to quickly CALM my mind, energize me, bring me back into the present moment, reconnect me back to what I love and help to keep my inner, creative confidence alive. Love!

She liked this one and the colors...

Then she tried another...one color, same type. This one, she didn't like so much, because she wanted more color.

This IS what's SO amazing about this process. As she allowed herself to calm her mind with the curlie-cue doodles above, she started to connect more with what she LOVED and didn't LOVE.

She liked using more than one color and she liked the curlie-cue shape.

Because she was giving her left-brain a much needed break for a little bit, her right brain started to open up and blossom more, which led her try some fun with doodle words.

Because her analytical, left-brain thoughts were calming down, she began to connect with the present moment and her worries of the past and future and to-do's eased and her right, creative, brain thoughts began to blossom with more ideas to doodle. Ideas that felt GOOD to her!

If she hadn't given her left-brain that MUCH NEEDED break (and if she would have listened to her left-brain thoughts that were telling her she sucked at doodling, this is stupid, there's way more better things to do than doodle),she would've never started to explore creative play in this new way.

The more she taps into her right brain, the more her inner, unique to her, creative ideas start to flow.

Using my doodles as a guide, when first starting, is a GREAT way to start tapping into her unique, creative skills and talents. Having a guide is much needed when it's been YEARS since one has doodled, in this toddler, like way.

Because it's very hard to immediately get your inner, creative, calm, right brain self on when your left-brain has been running the show for years and years and years.

Now, here's where it starts to get AWESOME!! She began to play more with shapes and colors that felt GOOD to her! Because of that, her right brain was being nourished and her, unique, artists skills were beginning to show more.

You can see where she was experimenting with more shapes and which ones felt GOOD to her. She ALWAYS does amazing shading in her work, too!

And, here's where it gets even MORE awesome!! She started connecting with dots. Something she said, she LOVES to do!! She's beginning to connect with what FEELS GOOD and FUN to her!!

I wasn't surprised by this, because when I do dots, it's the most relaxing thing for me, too. I love it! Especially when I doodle paint!

And then, her calm, happy, present, creative right brain started adding more creative fun to her doodles.

OMG!! When I saw this, I got the chills and I smiled BIG, because this IS the process of calming your mind with mindless, creative play. AMAZING, right!?!?

And then, she did another! She still had some left-brain, analyzing, thoughts come out, which is SO normal (the left-brain will always be there to keep us out of trouble and analyze things, we need this!! but, it just won't dominate our lives as much when it's balanced with right-brain thinking, thinking that is extremely nourished with mindless, creative play, like this!)

She said, "I like them, but I keep doing the same doodle over and over again." Uh, hello "judging our work" left-brain thought!!

I told her, "Yes, I get those same thoughts. Especially when I first started doodling, but it's NOT about creating something for an outcome right now. It's ONLY about calming your mind with creative play now. It's about HOW it makes you FEEL, which is more calm, more happy, more present and SO much more, so then you can go out and do left-brain life with more confidence and ease!"

And then, after that, as we started talking more about what these doodles have done for her so far, seeing her smile on her face as she talked about how doing these doodles had her more inspired and motivatedto go back into her painting room and paint, was truly the best thing ever and exactly WHY I share this awesome, powerful, doodling message!

And that my friends, IS the power of allowing yourself to sit down and play with color like you did when you were a toddler again. And, it's not a long process either. This was really a month's worth of doodling. :)

It's like the quote by Pablo Picasso...

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

But, I like to say, mindless, CREATIVITY, washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Once you give your left-brain some much needed time off, your right brain comes out, blossoms and then each hemisphere becomes balanced in your life and then whatever YOU love, whatever you wanna CREATE in your life, whatever project or lifestyle change YOU want in your life, will happen more quickly, more easily and with tons of inspiration, motivation and inner CONFIDENCE to complete it all and share with others!!

Amazing, amazing stuff!

Especially when it comes from someone whom I've watched growing up knowing they were creative and I wasn't.

With what I know now, there's no "certain person" who's creative or an artist. We're all creative!! We just have to give our inner, creative self some good, loving nourishment, because it's truly deficient in this area!!

I'm SO glad I know this now, because the benefits of using our inner creative skills (that we were born with!) is mind blowing. I'm SO SO happy to share this mind blowing message with you!

It's when we CALM ourselves with some toddler, like, creative fun, that doesn't require a certain outcome, a grade or to be created in the most professional way so it can be sold, that's when our true, creative self shines and when we start creating more and more things in our lives that truly make our heart happy and has us smiling BIG with the most amazing confidence we could ever imagine.

AND...

check this out!!

My mom hasn't seen my very first creative calm journal that I did two years ago. It's AMAZING how similar her doodles are to mine. This is what happens when you sit down to doodle. Can you see my inner, creativity starting to blossom?

And look at what I do now...

For the majority of my life I would always judge my work and feel like what I wrote or created wasn't good enough or didn't look anywhere near what someone else's, whom I thought, was way better than me, looked.

Sharing my work with others (my doodles, my photos, my recipes, my thoughts), being vulnerable and putting ME out there, yeah, can't believe I do that now, because in the past, I would have NEVER shared, because of inner fears of what others think and fears of being wrong and not doing it right.

Well, the more I calm my mind, the more my inner creative, confident, passionate self shines.

Creative ideas flow and my inner confidence flows even higher. The reason being is because my left and right brain have balanced and I'm extremely connected to what I LOVE and just BEing who I am. It's the only way I know, now, that this is how I'm supposed to live my life and that everyone is, too.

When I doodle, with nothing to figure out before starting (the only thing I do is pick a shape that I know is going to easily calm my mind and then I choose colors that FEEL GOOD to me in that moment), I reconnect with WHO I am and I begin to have more and more confidence to let it shine.

And the only way I can do this is to allow my mind to calm with some colored pencil, crayon, marker and paint and paintbrush fun. to paper.

If I didn't allow myself to unwind with toddler play fun in this way, I'd still be letting my worrisome, low confident, self-doubt, stressful thoughts run the show.

And trust me, I've tried everything to calm my mind; yoga, mediation, local/organic foods, time in nature. Doodling just enhances and motivates me to do these calming activities more now.

A.MAZ.ING!

I'm NOT surprised to see what my mom did with her doodles. It definitely gave me chills because seeing her doodle journey so far is EXACTLY how this mindless, creative play works. EXACTLY!! And, I'm SO excited to watch her inner, creative confidence soar!!

Especially now she's even more inspired to get in her painting room and paint up lots of AMAZING canvases even more now that she got her creating calm doodling on. Yep! The power of creative play at it's finest!! (It's EXACTLY what happens to me with photography, cooking, baking, doing more fun stuff with my kids and BEing more still and slow in my life...all things I'm SO passionate about).

And pretty soon, she'll have her Etsy shop up and running and she'll be at all the craft fairs selling her amazing, AMAZING, AMAZING canvases!! Right, Mom!

I can't wait to see what else she doodles!! Woohoo!! And, THANK YOU for letting me share you awesomeness here! I LOVE sharing your talents!!

And, YOU, too!!

Wanna CREATE your own calm so you can BE inspired, motivated and energized to make time to do what YOU love? (Your kids can do this, too!)

Here's what you do!

1. Get a blank sheet of paper, markers, colored pencils, crayons...any kind of coloring tool you wish.

2. Color the page. Use different colors. Colors that FEEL good to YOU! Or, just use one color. There's really no rule here, just do what FEELS fun and GOOD to YOU!! But, remember, you just wanna PLAY with color by filling the entire page. No outcomes to achieve. No artistic skills required. Just YOU and your connection to colors that you LOVE! The only goal is to calm your mind, not get a grade or create something professional.

3. Draw different shapes, ovals, squares, lines, zig-zags, curlie-cue's, stars, circles...see which shapes FEEL GOOD to you.

4. Your left-brain will tell you every reason in the book as to why doodling is stupid and that it won't work to calm your mind and that what you are doodling SUCKS!! Keep doodling! Once you get past 5 to 10 minutes of doodling, those thoughts will calm and your right brain thoughts will emerge. Give it some time! :) More on this below! :)

Because your left-brain pretty much runs your entire day, it'll be hard to calm it down right away when you do this activity. It'll tell you every reason why this activity sucks, why you should get up and do activities that are way more productive, that, "Yeah right, calm my stress with coloring!? I don't buy it!" and the best one, that you're NOT creative and you have NO creative skills.

But, once you let 10 minutes or so pass by and you keep getting your coloring on, those thoughts WILL calm. And when they do, you'll find yourself completely in the present moment and focused on the colors and you'll start to notice thoughts that tell you, "Hey! This IS fun! I really love the color teal. Wow, I wanna keep coloring...I wanna do more!!"

And then, when you're done, you'll have a BIG smile on your face and you won't even remember what was stressing you out 20 minutes before you started. And, you'll find yourself inspired, motivated and energized to do what YOU love to do in your life! Promise!

And, yes, let your kids to do this, especially after school or a long day! You'll probably see your kids making this left-brain, right brain transition a lot quicker than you. They're still very connected to their right brain. :)

Have fun! And, please, if you try this, lemme know how it goes for ya! And, if you're feeling creatively, confident, I'd LOVE to see what you and your kids create. Tag me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. :)

Happy Doodling!!

Life IS creatively calm...SAVOR it up!