Hello my lovelies and welcome to Blogust day seven. I hope everyone is doing well.
(just a note from current Katie J who's just finished this post at 2:51am fyi, hey, you're gonna need a drink and a snack because this post is long guys - other than that. I hope you enjoy)
So for today's post I have something really different. A little while ago back when I was doing Live Art I mentioned in a post titled "Coffee Chats: Feeling Inspired, Grateful, and Mindful" that I was enjoying what I was doing for live art so much I wanted to incorporate being mindful into my everyday life as much as possible. Which during that whole period I did and I was really immersed in the whole idea of life being something you should live and love everyday. At the end of that post I mentioned that I wanted to start doing this new series on Monday's called, "Mindful Mondays" which I was really down for and then life got so busy and so hectic that I posted nothing through March and then April I was focused on a lot of other types of posts. Then in May and June performance practice was essentially all I had time for so I didn't get the chance to sit down and figure out what I wanted this series to be and how I wanted it to be framed and what I wanted the outcome of these posts to be etc.
So fast forward a few months later here we are, you and I, finally sitting together to be mindful. Now if you're sat here thinking what on earth have I clicked on, I haven't got the faintest clue about what "live art" is or what being "mindful" means. Then have no fear my lovely, you have come to the right place as it will all be explained throughout this post.
Your first question might be, Why have you decided to do this now? Well, in third year I have decided that I am going to carry on my live art journey for my negotiated study (NS) and hopefully learn, discover, develop, and improve the current product I ended up with. So after the module finished I pretty much had no time to actually think about it because everything with drama society and performance practice happened so quickly that I literally couldn't fit it in my brain. As of right now I am literally doing nothing but blogging and so I figured why not make it apart of blogust and then I can have a bit more prep and more of a grasp before I go into third year and carry on developing it. I don't know what the end product will be for my NS but that is the beauty of a devising process within drama based work. 99.9% of the time you think of an original idea and the end result is never the idea you started with. In a devising process ideas and other elements are allowed to come into play with the original idea and everything can be subject to change in order to make whatever you're doing "flow" and change isn't really change in drama, it's development. You have to go through it in order to develop your work or performance as well as yourself through the process. Which is definitely what live art does.
Obviously I am not a professional live art lecturer or anything but it was by far my favourite lesson of second year because I really connected to the possibilities of what live art can become. It's quite hard to explain as our theory lessons were pretty intense for this module. But in short form and in easy terms live art is essentially the argument that anything can be classed as art. For example, sitting on a chair to some people is just sitting on a chair, which it was to me before I started this module. But to some people that could be art. And if an artist did that and said it's art then it is classed as art. Which is 100% okay because everyone has a different eye to what they consider to be and don't consider to be art. But in live art the majority of the time it isn't the doing that is the art aspect it's the intentions behind it from the artist and the interpretation from the audience members.
During the theory lessons we had a lot of different category's involved within this one subject area. There's space, place, time, documentation, and there was a couple more but I honestly can't remember for the life of me what they are. But ever since the presentation I got really attached to this idea of "time" and what is time and how time is just something that we all know to this day but someone created this element of time so we could essentially keep our life on track I suppose. Which really isn't very freeing but sometimes that's how life is.
There was actually a section in this presentation that was pointing out that if you do something for long enough it becomes "timeless". It's almost as if you're not watching a performance that has a time limit. It's as if that element is taking place for so long that it exceeds this fabric of what we call time. There's no time limit on what we call time because that element happening within that time makes the connection with our time, "real life time" you could call it. So from that point on I became obsessed with the idea of how do you make something "timeless" and how do you make people in life today forget about time. I always feel like everyone is so dependent on time and we are all constantly stuck between having loads of time and not enough time.
Life is busy, the statement I made above, we all get that feeling like we don't have time when in reality we do. There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. That's a lot of bloody time if you ask me. We all have time periods where life is moving at what feels like a ridiculously fast pace and that "time" slips right through our finger tips and before we know it our week of 168 hours is over in the blink of an eye and we still feel like we got nothing done. Fitting your life around the time and the time around your life is not easy. Think about all of the things you have to do in one day: wake up, eat breakfast, get ready for school, university or work, make lunch, travel to where you need to go and then go to school, university or work, eat lunch, then eventually travel home after the long working day, make dinner, potentially do extra work for tomorrow, spend time with your partner or catch up with friends and family, have a shower or a bath, spend time for yourself, get enough sleep, and then the cycle starts again. As well as those extra little tasks we all have to do throughout the week like go shopping, reply to emails, clean the house etc.
Sometimes life can be such a routine that we all just fall into and we just exist in the time we do all of these things in and we don't live in the time we do all of these things in. So with all that in mind and relating back to live art. I wanted to focus on the concept of time and making people forget about time. But within that, I also wanted to make people just live in the moment as I feel like so many people don't do that these days. It feels as if we only live in fragments of time, i.e. the time we really choose to live in and appreciate living in. For example, spending time with family and friends after not seeing them for a while, or going to a concert to see your favourite artist, or getting the opportunity to do a once in a life time experience like sky diving or swimming with dolphins. And although those kind of moments are wonderful and should be fully lived and remembered but shouldn't all areas of life be like that? The good and the bad.
So with all that in mind I started thinking about how I could potentially make those elements all work together. So I was really inspired by Marina Abramovic and she is a live/ performance artist and has done so many different types of performances over her whole life and career within this industry. The main reason I looked into her is because she has done a lot of time based performances. For example, she did a performance called The Artist is Present where she sat in a chair all day long and members of the public where allowed to come in for as long as they wanted to and they sat across from each other with only a table between them and just sat and stared at each other. This was all about the energy between two people as some people felt need to reach out to her, or felt a rush of emotions like happiness or sadness, and other people felt nothing. And she has done so many other performances and if you guys are interested to find out more just type her name into Google and all of her work etc comes up. I find her really interesting.
I found a quote in a book by Marina herself that said, "In occupying the 'special state' of trance where the customary rules are suspended, an individual may also express views and opinions that might not otherwise be spoken; thus becoming a conduct through which the unsayable is said [...] extended periods of time as means of both entering a trance-state and also as a means of being very much 'in the moment' ". Which is essentially talking about when a person gets put into a certain mind frame and they feel safe and at peace in and out they will feel as if they are living in that moment. I figured out early on I wanted to go down the reflective, spiritual, emotive, or calming route to whatever my performance was going to end up being. But it was a long process to figure out how to portray this across in the correct way - framing this piece was especially important to how it would be performed and interpreted not just by myself but by others.
After many talks with my lecturer and figuring out together what I actually really wanted to do and how to do it. We decided for what I was trying to do it was best to go down the route of relaxation and more importantly meditation. This was a challenge for me as obviously I am not a meditation teacher, which arose another element of the fact that I am not a meditation teacher and I was doing this for the purpose of art. So I had to consider how my performance would be art and not a meditation class and that was quite difficult but I definitely got there in the end.
I actually came up with the title "Holding Space" due to stumbling across a random website by mistake and realised that all of the meanings of holding space really related to what I was trying to do.
So what does it mean to 'hold space' for someone else?
It means we are willing to walk along side another person in whatever journey they are on without judgement, without making them feel inadequate, without trying to fix them, or trying to impact the final outcome of this journey. But it is impossible to be a strong space holder without having other people to hold space for us. For example, when I did this performance I was holding space for the individual who was taking part, whilst my lecturer was holding space for me and making sure that I was alright throughout etc. It's a whole big cycle that goes all the way round to form a perfect circle. We all do it every day without even realising it. Holding that space is about trust, trusting one another - wanting to give people advice but not trying to fix their problem or judge them for not being where they "should be" in life. But we keep trying because we know it's important.
To do this we have to support individuals in their own growth, transformations, grief etc. We can't take power away by fixing them, we can't shame them by implying that they should know more than what they do, or overwhelm them by giving them more than what they're ready for. We have to step aside so they can make their own choices. But when you hold space for someone you offer unconditional love and support, and you give them gentle guidance when it is needed, and make them feel safe even when they make mistakes.
"Holding Space" is something we can ALL do for each other.
So this is how I came to the conclusion that I wanted this to be the title and that my actual performance itself was going to be a guided meditation.
Title: Holding Space
Description: A beginner's mind to a beginners mind(fulness). A guided meditation of self-love, self-care, and self-acceptance.
My lecturer, the peers in my class, my friends, and the peers in my years that I told about it thought it was a really beautiful idea and a really wonderful thing to want to do for people. My lecturer also mentioned to me that whenever she sits down and talks to me that she already gets this immense sense of calm. Which is true I am a very calm and an open person and she said it's really easy to talk to me because of the aura I give off. Which was a really nice compliment but then I started thinking about it and it is pretty true as often I have heart to hearts with a lot of my friends and people do ask me for advice etc.
And it was after this that I realised that's what I like to. I want to make other people happy as there's nothing more uplifting when you see someones mood shoot up because of something you did. It just gives such an incredible feeling of fulfilment for me. It was also after this that I realised that is all I want to do for the rest of my life. Make people happy and make people realise that living your life for you is worth every moment because we are never going to live this life that we are right now again. You guys know that I have been at some of the lowest lows over the course of my life and I never want anyone to ever feel the way I did. So anything that I can do to give people something that brightens or uplifts them in any way or changes the way they see life and about their life is amazing. I don't think sometimes people realise that it's events and activities like this where it can potentially even save someones life all because someone took the time out of their day to help them and listen and offer advice and be there for one another etc. And we all need to do more of that.
After this point as you can image a lot of time was spent researching about "beginners mind" because obviously I was a beginner to and I hadn't done too much meditation type stuff in the past which then lead onto this term "mindfulness". So I'm not going to go into every single bit of research as we'd be here all day and this post is already jam packed with information.
So what does this term "mindfulness" mean?
It is a quality or a state of being conscious or aware of something. The mental state is achieved by focusing ones awareness on the present moment whilst calmly accepting ones feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations used as a therapeutic technique.
So that is what it means in short form but obviously to practice mindfulness and learn different techniques of what works for you takes quite a while. Even I'm no where near that stage yet. But the meditation combined with the mindfulness was a great combination because although I lead the audience members into a state of relaxation it also meant they were aware that I was holding space for them and guiding them through a state of mind of positive and negative energy and always making sure they were safe and that they trusted me enough to know that what I was doing for them was going to be good for their mental health. Through the meditation I used the power of imagery as imagery is a very powerful tool in meditation and the imagery that my audience members got was all really interesting.
During this module whilst I was researching I found a book called 'How To Be Mindful' written by Anna Barnes. Which was my actual gem when doing this module and is still a little gem to this day.
I fell so in love with the mindful one that I bought the happy and the calm versions. There is also a confident version with a red cover too which I definitely need to get to complete this collection I've got going on. I bought mine from The Works for only £3 each! I read these all within less than a day of when I purchased them and I am in love with these. They are the loveliest and most inspiring books I have ever read. I think these are perfect for anyone to have a read of but especially if you have trouble with feeling low or kind of feeling like just not 100% yourself. These are great just to have a read of and it's crazy how a book can make you feel uplifted and more inspired. As that's definitely what the mindful one did for me. I remember the day I read it, I was up in Chester and sat in Costa at about 4:00pm ish and there was a section that speaks about walking. And it says to become aware of how you hold yourself, your posture, how you walk, how your feet feel when you walk, how your shoes affect your walking etc. So after I finished my coffee it was about 5:30pm ish and then I left and decided to put these ideas into practice and I took a long walk home listening to music and it was slowly getting dark as it was around the middle of February I think. But I honestly felt so calm, relaxed, and at one with the world. I just love walking around late in the evening, I find it so calming.
These are just a few of my favourite pages from all three books but I think the all of them are amazing and stunning. I learned from all three of these books that every element, happiness, mindfulness, calmness, that they all play apart in learning how to be mindful which really helped me out through my assessment for live art. If you guys are interested at learning a little bit more and how to ease yourself into mindfulness these books are amazing for that, I honestly would highly recommend.
I really wanted to keep a process diary for myself and then a little diary for the audience members that participated to share their thoughts and their feelings. And when I read through the little comments, it was just so nice to know I made people feel better, more happy, more relaxed, more awake, and most importantly, they said they forgot about time and it felt like "time didn't exist". It just felt so good to know that I achieved what I started out with wanting to achieve. It honestly felt so amazing.
Fast forward five months and here we are today. So as I've told you guys already I want to carry on live art for my NS project and hopefully learn and discover more in order to develop what I have already done. And I figured that incorporating the re-connection with this during blogust would be a ideal as I'm obviously blogging everyday (hopefully) and it means that I can have this on my blog every Monday and not only will this really help for my prep with my NS. I can also help you guys who are interested and want to learn more.
So today I finally started reading this. I was kindly gifted this for my birthday from my friend Charlie as I saw this and had a quick flick through before my birthday and decided I really wanted it. Now obviously because I've been so busy I didn't have time to read it until today.
Please ignore that mark on the back, I honestly do not know what it is. I can't get it off without it smudging every where and ruining the cover more than it already has. Knowing me it's probably makeup. But anyway, I started reading this earlier today and I actually am already in love with it. I love it because it's not a story and it is a journal but it's not overly concentrated on just Connor himself. He always relates his experiences and his realisations back to the reader. Which means you can really relate to his experiences and his realisations. I really like this idea of it being an open diary as it means it is very versatile. Like it says on the back it "gives my insides a voice through visuals" and I think that is such a beautiful phrase. I just find it a really interesting concept and I love the thought of it being so personal yet so open at the same time. The mix of the two is very clever. I can't say too much else about it as I've only just started it today. But on first impression basis I love it and I would highly recommend it. In my next or future Mindful Mondays post/ posts I'll definitely do a review on this whole book if you guys want to see that. Just let me know down below.
I actually wanted this book as it is really in tune with my live art project and my research into mindfulness etc. So I think this book is really going to help me out as I carry on my research and I carry on learning, discovering, creating for my NS next year. I'm so excited to just get started properly and document everything and just see where the development takes me. I honestly just love it. It's projects like this that make me just fall in love with what I do and where drama can take you, it's just incredible to me and I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to learn and research and create things like this that I've been telling you guys all about in this post. Here are just a few of the beautiful pages from note to self so far.
So I guess I really need to round off this post but I think what I want to do is to give you guys beginners tips on how you can be mindful and what it will do for you etc. But I think I'm going to do it in stages, so we'll start off easy and then we'll develop into more intense things and I will do all of this with you as I'm still learning too. There are a bunch of different small steps you can take to be more mindful in your every day life and it can honestly just be little things like becoming aware of how a certain food actually tastes or the way it really feels to put makeup on etc. You've gotta start off small and work your way to the top.
So one of the things that I did along side doing lots of research and documenting my own experiences throughout the process was actually a list of things that make me happy.
So I read this technique in How To Be Happy by Anna Barnes. It's on page 17 and the title is 'reasons to be cheerful, 1, 2, 3' and it says to get a pen and paper and write down all of the things in your life that put a smile on your face, such as spending time with family and friends, hobbies, pets, or the goals you've reached. And it also says you'll quickly surprise yourself with how long the list really is and I was definitely surprised. What always seems to happened when I put pen to paper is I'll start to write and I'll become inspired to think of something and then something else with light bulbs striking above my head. Some of my posts I am most proud of on my blog just started out being a small description on paper in my blog planner notebook so it is true when people say the power of putting pen to paper is incredible.
Then it goes onto say to then pin it somewhere that you'll see it every single day as a reminder of how good life really is. Another alternative to writing a list is to write down three good things that happen to you every week and that research has been published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology and has found that individuals who do this are significantly happier.
I am challenging you guys to write your own list before next Monday which is the 14th of August which is when I'll be back for another Mindful Mondays with all of you. I have shared my list in the images above just to give you guys an idea if you're not sure where to start. But literally just write down whatever makes you happy or whatever makes you smile. I found that when I started they were kind of standard things like family, friends, laughing, nights out etc and they eventually developed into more personal things that I really love and that some people might not really know about me. It can be shorter than mine or it can be longer than mine. Honestly this is the start of your own personal journey so I am sharing all of this and guiding you in this for your own benefit.
So yeah once you guys have written your own list I'd love it if could share it with me preferably in the comments on this post or on my other social medias via messaging or even to my email which is katiejohnson10@hotmail.com,
I would love to read them and know that you guys are interested and on board with something like this.
Live art has really opened my eyes to the world and the universe and life and my life and how I view life and all the elements within it that make up what we are right now. Essentially what it means to really live and I'm hoping on this journey together as well as my own personal journey of NS as I go into third year we can all discover for ourselves what that is.
Thank you guys so much for reading this post, I am so thankful and so grateful to everyone that takes the time out of their day to read what I have to say and my opinions and experiences etc. I'm just happy that I get to be apart of the blogging community and really be real with you guys. It really is so nice to have such an enjoyable extra thing to do and all of the love and support from you guys makes it all worth it. I'd also absolutely love it if you guys could follow me on all my social medias linked above in my header, I'm posting all the time on IG and Twitter and constantly pinning things on Pinterest so if you don't want to miss any of that make sure you give me a follow. I'd really appreciate it.
Don't forget about your list of things that make you happy and to post your list in the comment section down below. You need to do it before the next Mindful Monday post on the 14th of August.
Once again thanks so much for reading guys and I will see you tomorrow for another super chatty post, that's right a Coffee Chats is on it's way in a number of hours.
Bye until tomorrow my lovelies.
Love,
Katie
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