No matter how fun the other options may be, my deepest wish at that moment is to just sit. So, I do.

If you would like to share your wishes or make a public commitment to your plans, please use the comments section below. 

At the end of each workshop, I ask painters to give me feedback about their experience. It is no surprise that the painter who took great delight painting giant glittery flowers had a good time. It makes sense that the one whose painting evolved from a dark tangle into a powerful tree felt better when she was finished. What is interesting is how often the ones who painted the darkest, most painful feelings consistently tell me that they feel lighter when they finished. 

Painting dark emotions can be intense. When I first became a facilitator, I worried that some people might leave a workshop feeling worse. Since then, I’ve learned to trust that something magical happens when a process painting goes to difficult places.

My recent painting retreat at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico has recharged my enthusiasm for intuitive painting. The basic idea of process painting is simple - focus on your own process or experience as you paint without worrying about how the product will look. Last week I wrote about how to explore the deeper meanings in a painting and they can certainly be powerful way to get new insights into your psyche. However, there is much more be learned from the experience of process painting. Here is a quick list of other reasons why I paint:
1. I can be big! powerful! sexy! And also small, scared and constrained. Sometimes in the same painting. And it is all OK.

3. I'm learning to listen to my intuitive, creative self. When I'm painting, any impulse can be giving space, it doesn't have to make sense. So I get practice in paying attention to those non-logical instincts that carries over into every day life.
4. I get to practice taking risks when it really, truly doesn't matter. I hate painting people because I just know they won't turn out right. Guess what? I did it anyway and it was OK. It's making me braver since I'm learning that just because it feels scary doesn't mean that it is really dangerous.
5. I feel better when I am done. In process painting, we try to follow the energy, good or bad. Even painting the difficult or uncomfortable parts is a release of energy that makes feel great when I'm done.

But, sometime, you can sense that the painting is tapping into your deeper consciousness and you don’t understand what it is telling you. When this happens, the first thing to do is to ignore the urge to understand until the painting is done. At this moment, the act of painting is allowing the intuitive, creative, nonverbal part of yourself to use line, color and image to send a message to the world. Trying to make sense of it shifts you into a logical mode that disrupts your creative process. There is plenty of time to be logical after you are done painting. Allowing yourself to stay in confusion allows you to stay in connection with your deeper self. 

However, once done, you can integrate the experience more fully by inviting the logical side of your brain making sense of what happened in its own, left-brain terms. When you sense that there is more meaning in a painting, here are some questions you can use to help your verbal, logical part of the brain figure out what happened. 

-  Stand back and look at the picture as whole. What do you notice? How does it make you feel?
-  For each of the objects in the painting (for example, the web is one object, the background colors are another)

• What is the mood or feeling associated with object?
  
• What is the relationship between that object and the others?
  
• If it could talk, what would it say?
  
• What are the common cultural associations for that object?
  
• What are your associations with that object?
  
• What aspects of the object seemed important when you painted it?
  
• What aspects stand out for you now that you look at it? Color? Size? Symmetry? Placement on the paper?
  
• Do you see an connection between this object and someone or something in your own life

-  What isn’t in the painting? Is there something hidden, missing or implied?
-  If the painting were put into motion, what would happen next?
-       The painting was is a expression of painter in that moment. What do you think it says?

As you work these questions, keep checking in with your intuition. Some questions will seem important and other irrelevant. Some answers will seem to fit, even they don’t quite make sense while others just don’t resonate. Trying to understand a painting as a message from your subconscious is very individual process. To get it right, you need to consider not just the final painting but also your own experience, first, as you painted it and, now as you look at it.

Sometimes, as you explore these questions, the meaning becomes very clear. Other times, even if you have a strong sense that the picture is trying to tell you something, the mystery of your painting stays a mystery. Rene Magritte wrote, “My painting is visible images which conceal nothing…they evoke mystery and indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does that mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery mean nothing either, it is unknowable.”

I've never found New Year's resolutions to be very helpful. Changing habits is hard and somehow turning of the new page on the calendar was never enough motivation to turn the good intentions into actual change. 

Since starting to do process painting, I've taken different approach to thinking about the new year. Before, I used my logical, judging mind to decide what I should be doing, then tried to make myself do it. Now, I use my paints to ask what my intuitive self is wishing for and look for opportunities to move in the direction of my heart. This January, the theme in my paintings seems to be explosions, messy volcanic type eruptions. 
My interpretation is that 2014 is going to be the year of creative self-expression (self-explosion?). I have no idea how all this energy is going to come out but I'm looking forward to finding out.