Questions and more questions...

Wow! I love your responses to my last post, both here as comments and in e-mails. Of course, the question has been swirling around in my mind. What if the best is still to come?

(Photo credits go to my sister for the animal photos and to me for the flower pictures.)

Now, I want to clarify how this works for me. These questions I pose I don’t really ask of myself. In a small way, of course, my mind gets engaged (it’s very active that way), but more than that, I ask the question of the universe so to speak and then I try to sit back and just feel and notice.

I think what happens when we ask these open-ended questions that are in seeming opposition to a belief we hold, we allow a small opening for the universe to show us how things could be different if we allowed them to be.

My most notable experience of that was about five years ago, when a colleague of Daniel’s asked me if I was an artist, too. My very quick response was: “Oh, no. I’m not an artist. I’m not creative at all.” But somewhere within me, at the same time and for the first time ever, I asked myself: “Are you sure?” It turns out I wasn’t. I was told in school that I wasn’t artistic. I was musical, but not artistic. I was told by my teachers that I couldn’t write. I was told that I was good at math and sciences (which I love to this day). And I took those remarks at face value without questioning them. Until that day five years ago.

Once I made that tiny opening for the possibility that I could maybe be creative, everything happened really fast. A month later, I had started this blog and began making art. Today I feel creative in every part of my life and I am stunned that for more than 40 years I had thought the opposite to be true.

I find that most of the limiting beliefs I have embraced as part of me seem to have grown from small seeds that have been planted throughout my life, like the off-handed comments by my teachers. Many of them are not even in my conscious mind, but they seem to have been developing into a sort of very personal interference pattern that undermines what I want to do and who I want to be.

Since I started painting, in my conscious mind I think I’ve progressed amazingly and I really, truly love my art. Every piece I create. Every portrait I paint feels like a piece of me and I feel connected to them all. I never look at my art and become critical. However, I can sense the interference pattern when I offer my art to the world to see and to possibly buy. That’s when that I still feel somewhere deep inside that I am not an artist and not worthy and I feel great hesitation and want to hide what I make. I am really determined to access these patterns and disburse them or reorganize them into something more useful as I long to express myself fully.

When I sit with last post’s question of “What if the best was still to come?” I am flooded with little seeds again that were planted by family, teachers, and just the environment we grow up in. I remember my mother routinely making statements of how everything was going to change for me (and not for the better) when I would hit 30. I remember going to birthday parties of people turning 40 (when I was much younger) and all the decoration talked about being “over the hill.” Funny, yes, but also not really. As a woman, I started having mammograms and other routine checks after 40, we are told by doctors and the pharmaceutical industry to be on the lookout for all kinds of scary things as we age, and have you seen all the ads for anti-aging beauty products?

Now, I don’t consciously subscribe to any of this, but I am certain that some of these little tiny seeds have taken hold over the years just by us being bombarded by to so many of them.  And now, while I do believe that things can get better and better all the time, there are some niggling doubts that maybe this isn’t true. And that interference I am so ready to let go of.

Ok, as you can notice I don’t have a “real” answer to the question I had posed and I didn’t really expect to get one.

Usually, once I put a question like that into the ethers as it were, I start paying attention to what I get back, little signs I notice. Here’s what happened today: five times I heard or read something (none of it was related) about having to be fearless of what others think if you want to truly become who you are. Wow - did that ever strike a chord? I am so not there. I definitely care what others think. Even your comments!

You know that phrase we all grow up with: “What will people think?” I have internalize that to a crazy degree and I’m ready to let it go. This is a biggie for me. No matter what anyone has ever said to me to try to help me overcome that, I have not been able to change the pattern of it. It’s not anything I can solve intellectually, this is deeply embedded in the belief that others know me better than I know myself. And whatever they say goes. Crazy, right!? I’m so ready to be done with that! Truly!! And from that comes another question, one I am sure is firmly connected to the first one.

What if I could allow other people’s opinions to be just that - other people’s opinions? How would my life be different? How would I be different? How would I approach my days differently? My art? What I write? What if I could just be who I am? Openly? Honestly? Without fear of rejection? Without fear of criticism? (Ok, I know that was more than one question...)

Just asking gives me goosebumps and that tells me that this is important in my life.

Maybe these blog posts are the first step in being more fearless. Maybe...

With love and gratitude,

❧ Silke

The Power of Asking Questions

My sister and her family left yesterday and what a fantastic visit it was. We had so much fun exploring Savannah, the beach, the swamps and going to Florida to Kennedy Space center, where we even got to see a live rocket launch. We played, we talked, we walked, we ate good food, and we played some more. It was wonderful!!

By the way, my sister Caroline took all these gorgeous photos on our recent visit to Okefenokee Swamp!

Last night, they left to return to Germany and I thought I'd need to rest for a while, but instead I was filled with ideas, especially for this blog. I feel on fire with inspiration! Let me explain.

Caroline and I were talking one day about how as we get older, the limiting thoughts we take for granted start defining our lives and determine what we think we can and can't do. We basically become our fears if we don't question them our lives can become small even though we sometimes wish it could be different.

I was watching her boys who in some ways are still their full potential. They are learning some limiting thoughts from their environment, especially school, as we all do and did, but for the most part, in their minds everything is still possible. I love that! And I hated the thought that for me that time could be over. I don't want to accept that.

I remembered a workshop I went to a few years ago that taught transformation based on quantum physics. Basically we learned to connect to "the field" and affect change where everything exists as possibility and pure potential and hasn't become "real" yet. One of the most powerful tools we learned about was the use of open-ended questions.

When you ask a question that can be answered with yes or no, it is usually based in what we think of as fact, but when you ask an open-ended question, anything seems to be possible as the answer.

My favorite open-ended, thought-provoking and change-evoking questions start with "What if." So, last night, feeling incredibly inspired, I started writing down "What if" questions and within probably 15 minutes I had come up with over 80 of them. Eighty! And that was without even trying hard.

Each one of these is connected to a limiting thought I have about myself, about my life, about life in general, about other people, about success, about aging, my health, etc.! What a box I am starting to put myself into and I don't like it. I truly do believe that each of us are unlimited potential and that it is never too late to become all that we want to be.

So, for the next foreseeable future I am going to explore on this blog these questions and their corresponding limiting beliefs I have created in my life. I am determined to reprogram my thinking so to speak and to allow for the future to be as bright and shiny and exciting as I believed it to be when I was my nephews' age. And I'll be eager to hear your take on some of these!

Here's the question I'll ponder in my next blog post: 

What if the best was still to come? 

What if?!

❧ Silke