Watching the Pen Move…

I have a rather bizarre story for you, today. One many of my medical and therapeutic – type buddies might actually declare, “not the way we’ve always done it”!

Frankly, I do too.

A year ago I finished my Motherboard certification which translates into Certified Intentional Creativity® Coach.

This was a journey which involved a whole bunch of a thing called MetaCognitive Drawing, as I learned it from Shiloh Sophia McCloud and a talented team of folks open to new things.

The operating definition is something pretty close to thinking about something while moving a pen and watching the pen move.

The process allows one to notice things which are “beyond” our day-to-day patterns of thinking.

There’s more, but first, a pause for a bit of history.

If you’ve been reading along for a while you will no doubt have noticed that I have rather more frequent than optimal challenges with joints and muscles and pain.

I won’t bore you with the details except to say be kind to your knees! I will say that I’ve spent a bunch of time, energy, and money trying to get things to hurt less.

Things have been different, lately. (Which is great if you’re into optimism… and not so good if nothing much is helping.)

Then, while working on some workshops about helping the teens and young adults we love, especially in this pandemic-impacted moment, I had a new thought!

I did such a good job of sheltering at home – read that isolating – that, in addition to not catching Covid, I lost a good bit of muscle strength. (Not that I had a whole lot to spare in the beginning…)

That new thought led – as new thoughts often do – to a few more new thoughts with a batch of questions tagging along.

I wrote out, like a story, what I was experiencing. I looked a bunch of things up online. (Really!) I called my doc and made an appointment.

He listened. And didn’t laugh… even when I explained that I had come to the conclusion that my muscles were afraid.

We checked some wild card things out and adjusted a few other things and made a plan, last Monday.

I called a dear friend and got a referral for a massage therapist.

Somewhere along the line, I mentioned to a Grammy buddy and Motherboard grad from this year, what I had realized about my muscles being scared. We did a short review of all the surgeries and falls, etc., etc. Then she offered to wander with me if I wanted to do a bit of MetaCognitive Drawing to see what else I might learn.

I did!

You kind of had to be there but here’s the punch line. After drawing a me out of a bunch of spirals, I was feeling way more hopeful. Then, I knew. I need to be as patient and hopeful and compassionate with my muscles as I was with Luther when he came to us so abused and terrified and then lost his vision. I needed to see me with my heart, just the way he sees the world.

Time out for tissues. For me.

And an update.

A med shift Mark and I hatched up is helping. My new massage buddy is coming to the house on Wednesday. (She’s an artist, too, and loves Newfies!) And, she’d heard of Intentional Creativity®

It turns out that, before Covid, she had plans to go help an old friend of hers with an IC retreat in Mexico.

My response was an immediate, “Emily Grieves”! And I was right. Emily is an amazingly talented IC sister.

Que the chorus of, It’s a small world, after all!

I can’t wait to see what happens when I explain to my new buddy that my muscles have been scared and my goal is to help them be less scared…

For this moment, back to workshop planning… you’re invited!

And let me know if you’d like to talk about drawing yourself a miracle…

ps… That’s Luther in the glimpse of my 2nd Legend painting, above.

pps… Many, many thanks to Gail Simon Darlington, Red Thread and Motherboard sister, extraordinaire!