Evolution

The feeling of an evolution is a constant for every artist who is pursuing the search of refinement and enlargement of his/her own means of expression.

Andrea Bocelli

Living a mindful life encourages an attention to the moment, a paying attention that inspires the development of skillful responses to difficulty rather than an habitual reaction. The wisdom that underpins this is hard won: a product of falling over many times, noticing what caused the fall and then getting back up hopeful that the next time an enlightened response will emerge.

I have learnt over several years that there is a complementary, contemplative partner to this intention. Creating space and quiet to allow periods of reflection supports the embedding of my hard won wisdom. As I have mentioned in previous blogs I irregularly do this on retreat in the Brecon Hills, but recently I have also recognised that there is a simpler, more integrative version I can create in my life.

Both the retreat and the simpler version allow two things to happen. On a conscious level I can reflect and consider what I have been doing over the last few months, what has worked, what hasn’t and then look at what is emerging in the near future that may provide opportunity. On a subconscious level creating space and not thinking about the past and future, just sitting with how the day is and what is in front of me, provides opportunity for deeper understanding and connections to develop.

This simpler version is a slowing down or a stopping of all the doing: all the striving to achieve, complete and develop the next thing. The activity that is driven by the judging mind. The mind that queries whether what you are doing is enough, whether it’s good enough and whether you will have enough. In the slowing down, in paying attention to slowing down and in then moving towards doing less or actually stopping there is the potential for a freedom. Sure that voice may still be heard, but I just endeavour to notice it, breathe, attend to the space and the feelings that emerge beyond that judging mind.

This is a mindful practice itself. Choosing to honour it over the last two months has I believe allowed understanding, certainty and ideas to emerge. An evolution in my creative practice has become known to me.

Evolving Creative Practice

I first became serious about photography 11 years ago. Around the same time I also started exploring Mindfulness. In 2013 I started looking at how to combine them. Now I know what Mindful Photography is, how it can support my life and more importantly how it can support your’s.

This has been a creative evolution. I know it has not been quick and I know that it is ongoing. However, the place I find myself now is one of clarity and certainty. I now know what my creative purpose is and how to make the next step. Beyond that it is still an adventure, but that’s just as it should be.

I have over the last 4 years been writing a book about Mindful Photography. In its early drafts this was part memoir and wholly how mindfulness and photography could work together to enable you to create personal, resonant photos. I was never able to complete the book. I always felt like there was something missing. I knew that much of the content showed an original approach to photography and also started to address how to live a mindful life, supported by a creative outlet. But it just felt a little off and I couldn’t see how to finish it.

Instead, I put it to one side and created an Online Course from some of the content. That launched a year ago and I sold a few courses over Europe and North America. Although it was competent and detailed I never felt that it was quite the thing I needed to be doing. It never truly resonated.

Over the last year I also started teaching Mindful Photography to people who were recovering from Brain Injury. I did this through my two courses; ‘Foundation Skills’ and ‘Exploring Life’. It was this experience that fundamentally shifted my understanding of what I was doing and why.

Delivering learning and supporting people who were living through great change in their life helped me to realise that Mindful Photography was a fantastic resource. It has the potential to enable everyone to explore and understand what has happened in their life and then support them to move towards an acceptance of who they are now.

When any of us experience significant loss it can shake up our world and who we think we are in it. We can be attached to who we were before the loss and not realise that our world has changed so much that we are no longer quite the same person. The loss leads to grieving, whatever that loss might be. The grieving may follow the path of anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance, but in its early days we not even be aware what is happening.

Working with people who were living through the Grief Cycle made me realise that Mindful Photography could provide a way of exploring how life was now, of expressing through photos how they felt and therefore of supporting the processing of the massive change that they were living though.

It was only when I stopped striving, limited my creative doing, just did what was necessary and gave it all a break that this realisation dawned. I now know what my creative purpose is. Through sharing Mindful Photography I can help people live through major life change. I have a focus for my book and working life. The working title of the book is ‘Who Am I Now? – Using Mindful Photography to live authentically through major life change’. This has changed my understanding of who the book is for and of who I am working for.

This understanding has immediately born other fruit. I now have a clear appreciation of the kind of photos I want to create. I want to create photos of people who are living through major change, after a significant loss. I envision a series of diptychs, each two photos side by side. One that represents the subject’s life before the loss, and one the illustrates who and how they are now. Each photo will explore the multiple layers of self and each will reflect upon the other.

The project fits so seamlessly into my other creative work I wonder how I did not see the possibility before. Really, I know. I was too wrapped up in the world, to engaged in the doing to see the potential creative arc. Now it is visible and known, it seems like it was always there. The benefit of creating some reflective space has been cathartic and significant for me. How could it benefit you?