Comfort Zones

I like being comfortable. Spent a lot of my life in conflict avoidance though I didn't always manage to do so. Being comfortable is not always a good thing and most times if the universe is calling you and you are avoiding the call, for whatever reason, the universe may just give you a pretty big whomp up side your head to get your attention. That whomp could be anything. Trauma. Job Loss. Death of a loved one. Divorce. Empty Nest. Mid Life Crises.......any darned thing that will get you to wake up!
So in my many years I've had many whomps. You'd think I'd have learned not to get too comfortable! That's the thing about comfort...it feels really good.
I got comfortable again. Satisfied with where I was...I had food, clothing, shelter, a well maintained car and I had extra income caring for other peoples babies. I was a "Granny Nanny"! It suited me...I love babies. Babies grow up and they leave....well they go to school. So, I had no babies and not much in the way of additional income and I wasn't doing much about it. I was wishing I could. Yet not taking any action. I was stagnating. And there you have it. WHOMP!

What to do? What to do? What did I really want to do? I wanted to do more, be more, make a difference in my life and in the lives of others. How? Where? I had NO idea. Then an opportunity came about for me to teach art classes! You'd think I'd be ecstatic, right? Nope. My immediate reaction was based off fear. Yup, I was afraid I didn't know how or what to teach. Mind you, I've taught before...kids and adults...I had the "skills", even the "credentials". It was plain fear. Then I did the unthinkable (for me). I said "YES"!! Why? because of a book I'd read a long time ago and saw it, again, when it fell off my bookcase. Yes, it actually fell at my feet! The book is titled "If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat"!! WHOMP!

Teaching those classes at the senior center gave me the confidence boost I needed to move out of my comfort zone, breathe deeply and move forward with my life. An unexpected benefit of teaching those classes was having a "captured audience" for all my "experimental exercises"!!
I've been interested in the Expressive Arts every since I'd had a traumatic life experience and used my art therapeutically. Remember I said I had taught before? Well when I lived in Atlanta, I taught other women how to use art to visually express the traumas they experienced. I wanted to do something similar once again so I entered a four month "Vision Quest" program to become "Creatively Fit" and teach others how to fill their lives with color and expression!

I needed a change and to make a change I had to get out of the boat....my comfort zone. I had to take action in spite of my fear. So I did. I spent four months answering questions about my creativity that I'd never considered asking myself! I suspended all "knowledge" from years of learning and doing art just so I could be and learn to do art a new way, another way. Way out of my comfort zone. I had to reconnect with the artist within me. I had to find my Muse and invite her, welcome her back home.
My internal artist is alive! Searching, creating, inventing, expressing and just stepping out of all kinds of comfort zones!! And I'm passing my enthusiasm for self expression along to my senior students who, everyone, said they were not creative!! Take a look at some of their work...they are wonderfully creative!!

My confidence in helping others explore their own creativity has grown in leaps and bounds! So much so I have jumped way out of the boat of my comfort zone and have set a date to begin teaching my own Creative Expressions classes and workshops at the end of March!!! I've really stepped out there!!!!
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 I will hold my first "Art pARTay" from 6 to 8 pm at 124 Live Oaks Blvd., Bldg 1, Casselberry, FL  So please mark your calendars for Wednesday nights!! More classes and workshops coming soon!!

So, yeah, my Vision Quest did more than open my eyes, reawaken my creative spirit and shake me out of my creative coma it has made me Creatively Fit and confident to teach others how to explore their creative selves!!

Next: keep on the lookout for my ebook!! That WHOMP on my head really shook me way out of my comfort zone!!

Come to the Fire....

I've been re-reading my earlier Blog posts and cracking myself up! I do write some funny stuff!
It has been four years since I last wrote in this Blog. I haven't stopped writing, just haven't written here. I write in journals and even tried an online journal for awhile.  I'm back to my Pannet Expressions because I want to build a "following" for my Creative Expressions Artworxs classes which I intend to begin offering in the early part of this year!
As I move into my seventieth year I am on a quest to heal all the broken parts of me, to reforge myself in the fires of growth and rise to new, higher levels acknowledging all the Fierce, Fabulous and Divinely Feminine parts that exist not only in me but in all women. My intention is to burn up all thoughts of limitation, lack, grief, shame and/or fearfulness!  Sometimes we have to burn through stored up emotional pain so in forgiving myself I will fire up my imagination and my creativity and continue to forge a newer me. My torchbearers, my flame keepers will be with me all the way insuring my flame does not die out.