Lose Your Mind, Find Your Soul
Ever feel like you have lost your mind, or you are sinking fast? It seems every cold January I go dark and hibernate, but instead of giving into the dark places this year, I am taking time to focus on the quiet. Enjoying creative brainstorming time reflecting on my work, myself, healing a broken foot & setting new goals. And I am not being a sleeping bear this winter. I am finding my soul, instead of letting it slip away and having to crawl out of winter hibernation! (Can you tell as I’m getting older, I am liking cold weather even less?)
My dining table has taken place of my desk. I am redesigning my website, listening to podcasts, reworking my business plans, taking marketing classes from LATI, creating new content for the blog, reading e-books, streaming You-Tube, and writing business goals. My studio had a big change this past year as it changed to a short-term rental, and The Barn on Custer Avenue is quiet at the moment, and that is okay because by the time this hibernation is over, I will have a game plan.
I listened to a podcast where they were discussing “creatives” like myself and how sometimes doing nothing for a bit is just as important as those who work a regular 7am to 6pm job (give or take a few hours depending on your career). As if I was not getting the message from above clearly enough with a broken foot, I was on a long drive listening to an interview on the radio; they were talking about a slow movement, (now being over 50, I’m thinking they are talking about health and bathroom use), but I was wrong! It is also referred to as slow living, focusing on quality of life instead of quantity.
The Slow Movement is a cultural shift to slow our crazy, busy, overworked, hoarding, shopping, overeating, social media addicts’ selves down. I would add a link for if you, but just search “Slow Movement”. Surprisingly, nothing with pooping showed up in my search results! But as we all learned, 2020 proved to be its own “Slow Movement”. Too slow.
All this babbling is leading into what I am learning this month about technology, social media, e-commerce, and blogging. I am learning those of us born before 1975, know how to market, make sales calls, show, and sell product and close the sale IN PERSON. It is the same as today’s marketing culture, yet much different. (Thus=Lose your mind part). Today it is all about finding your story, following your passion, and calling, being vulnerable, branding, collaborating, network marketing online, catch phrases like side-gig, girlboss, DM, and so many more things I am attempting to learn and remember.
My favorite necklace for the past year says Lose Your Mind, Find Your Soul, and that is just what I am doing. I lost my mind when our reality changed about a year ago; I am finding my story. I already know my calling is art and creativity. My art has always been about mental health and starting uncomfortable conversations but figuring out how to do it all in today’s e-commerce world and what is coming, well that may take a few months of cold February’s to figure out!! I am working on the “FIND YOUR SOUL” part, because I’ve got the Lose Your Mind part down.
Now if you want to see how far I have made it in this e-commerce venture, don’t look for this necklace on my website or my retail store any longer, because I am going back to what I was meant to do. ART. BUT the win for the week is that I did get this blog set up. I think. Give the link a try to follow, check my social media pages @daylesundbergart and leave me a comment on something, or “DM” (Is that the right way to say that?)
The Quirky One