Try Something New

Go try something new today.

It can be a tiny thing or something big. Just get out of your normal.

Let creativity in and feel the new energy resonate.

Trying new things activates dopamine, the feel good brain chemical. And, it improves your cognitive ability, actively increasing your flexibility in thinking and problem solving.

I love a good routine. Routines are critical to my ability to get things done. And still, life isn't only about being productive. When you allow yourself time to pause, to breathe, to experience, then you are letting life in. You are literally inviting new energy in and around you.

Over the weekend I did a lot of new things, mixed right in with my same-old-same-old.

• I stumbled across this dynamic mother & son duo, played them on repeat, and cried at the awe I experienced listening to the magic they transmitted as they combined their own styles of music into a new (new to me) melody.  Avie Sheck
• That made me do some research on Raga Bilawal because that's what they said Mom is singing in the Creep cover. Despite more than 15 years working with Indian firms and teams and travelling to India, I had no idea what this was, or what it meant.  (I'm not terribly musically inclined. Scale, tempo, notes, timing, they're mostly lost on me. Whereas my husband can listen to a song and describe the various components and sounds he hears, even picking out the song on a piano or guitar,  I tend to hear the summary of the music. And that feels okay to me because I think it's one of my super powers. It's likely how I was able to learn other languages earlier in life, because I don't get tripped up on one word in the sentence, instead I embrace the gist and sentiment.) 
  • So, I listened to a bunch of Raga Bilawal recordings and learned it is a devotional and inspirational song typically listened to in the mornings. And dang, if it isn't a great addition to my morning meditations.  
• I signed up for a virtual art journaling class led by the incredible artist Andrea Garvey. There were nearly 200 people attending live on a Saturday. They were mostly there to learn something new, a particular technique Andrea said she'd be covering. I was there because it's all new to me and I find I like it a lot.
  • Throughout the call we continued to encounter new information, in that some people knew or quickly found the answers to questions that came up. How to best clean a gelli plate, which pens provide great white paint ink, a helpful type of tape, and on it went. You may say well that's just a bunch of new people who are learning a new craft. Maybe. Still, the artist herself is this joyfully gracious being who said, she just doesn't know some of this despite her degrees and making and selling art for years. She created a community of people who willingly exchange ideas, inspiration, and information.
  • At one point, Andrea had us creating small doodles and pieces of art. She suggested using a word, like joy, and writing it over and over, drawing or making art of it. And someone in class piped up with, that's called asemic art, when you mix writing and image into art. And boom, just like that, I tripped over new again, and fell into a Google rabbit hole of gorgeous and inspired images of asemic writing and art.
• Last week, I went to a magazine stand searching for cheap magazines to use in my art collage journals. I stumbled across a not-that-cheap journal called, Electra, self-described as "a magazine of thought, critique and reflection" covering contemporary culture, science and energy, and social innovation.  Turns out I couldn't put it down. The art inside magnetized me.
  • Once home and seated on the front porch, breeze softly blowing, I casually started reading a page only to find it made me feel incredibly ignorant. I had to read slowly, sometimes repeating a sentence aloud to consider and digest it. With wonder, I began to sense how dumbed down so much of our world is. What we watch and read and hear is so easily consumed. I felt challenged intellectually. And that felt really good.
  • This particular edition, 26, is entirely focused on the New. And, how fitting is that?

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