growth Archives - Ingrid Murray

These Past Months

Two outreached hands, spray painted in black onto a wooden fence, extend index fingers as if to touch, a la Michaelangelo's God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel.

The summer solstice fell on June 21st this year. Then the midway point of 2023 passed, and I finished James’ Clear‘s Atomic Habits a few weeks later. All of this has culminated in a pressing need to take a moment to pause, be present, and ask myself: How are things actually going?

The little things become the big things

Atomic Habits’ entire premise is that “small habits don’t add up. They compound.” The book explores the psychology of and misconceptions about habits, and suggests that building the lives we desire is possible through small, consistent daily choices and actions.

I highlighted nearly every other sentence; each on its own contains a multitude to parse out. It was Clear’s comments on self reflection, though, that jumped out at me as the mid-point of the year had just passed. He writes:

Reflection and review enables the long-term improvement of all habits because it makes you aware of your mistakes and helps you consider possible paths for improvement. … Personally, I employ two primary modes of reflection and review. Each December, I perform an Annual Review, in which I reflect on the previous year. … Six months later, when summer rolls around, I conduct an Integrity Report.”

I reflect and set intentions just before each new year, and I do have a sort of quarterly/seasonal reflection via my newsletter. Until now, though, I haven’t dedicated any thoughtful time mid-year to checking in on the goals I dreamed up the winter. And given that I’m progressively more stunned by how quickly time speeds by (and often bewildered as to how to recapture my days and be the agent in my own life), a summer review is a practice I’m adopting, starting now.

Two open mixed media art journals stacked on one another. The one at the bottom has black brush strokes! The one on the top is made of brown craft paper and has minimal collage and energetic marks and drips in neon pink and black.

What I’ve achieved

In a wild and literally life-changing year, moving to Germany was the biggest goal — everything else, really, was icing on the cake.

But I am proud of what else I’ve made happen: I chased some big dreams (took part in Messy May, applied for a freelance writing gig with an author I admire, called about a studio space), prioritized mental and physical health (journaled, meditated, felt all the feels, went on many walks, upped my fruits and veggies), and emphasized delight (attended an intimate Vivaldi performance, traveled to Italy, took part in some Oliver Burkeman workshops, tried new restaurants in Cologne).

Looking ahead

I’m stealing something from Clear’s Integrity Report — identifying and centering core personal values. Similar to years past, the values that resonate most with me are curiosity, creativity, joy, security, and connection. (This is a great tool I’ve found for narrowing down your own.)

How can I better embody my core values in my daily life?

Curiosity. “What if…?” Buy and try new art supplies. Explore new things, with permission to move away from them if they don’t feel right.
Creativity. More art-making, and embracing of imperfection. Stylistic exploration. More making things with my hands: knitting/crocheting (coasters), carving stamps, collaging, big paintings, jewelry, sewing (clothes). Make home home. MORE WRITING.
Joy. Get out of the house and see musicals, go ice skating, pet the dogs, go to a Weihnachtsmarkt, travel. Chase the things that make me so excited I want to throw up. Go on noticing walks several times a week. Reflect more on what brings me delight.
Security. Financial: Put more in savings by the end of year. Sell some art in some way. Self care/having my own back: regular reflection, writing, asking self Qs that help. Get better sleep. More movement, veggies, self love.
Connection. Stay in touch with old friends. Nurture new friendships. Have a regular virtual game day with family. Buy ticket for home. Read more books. Pick up the phone and call my parents.

Ultimately, in a few months, when I look back to what I have achieved from this point, I want to have written more, to have stretched my linguistic muscles and shaped my ephemeral and fleeting thoughts into words. I want to have cultivated joy and ease and connection, and above all to have been gentle with myself.

Street art of Bacchus nursing a hangover with aspirin and Alka-Seltzer

A look up at the intersection of two buildings early in the morning

“To Feel” List

There are just 30 days left in 2022.

This entire year has sped by; it feels like it should still be May or June. I am focusing on spending this final month as intentionally as I can. This means slowing down, paying attention, and being mindful.

Somewhere on Instagram, I saw the suggestion to create a “To Feel” list. (I can’t remember where, unfortunately. I need to jot down more in my commonplace book.) I love this idea because it helps to clarify not just what we need to do, but how, or even if, we want to do it.

My “To Feel” list includes:

Confidence
Wonder and curiosity
Delight
Pride (in both my choices and accomplishments)
A sense of safety and belonging
Peace and groundedness

Now, I’ll backwards plan and prioritize decisions or events or opportunities that spark these feelings.

This process will be helpful going into the new year, too: centering your values, and assessing to what extent your current life overlaps with them, is a useful tool for goal-setting.

First Art Journal

This is the first spread in my first-ever-completed art journal. I dated the page: September 20, 2009.

This journal was a book I bound, made with sturdy colored paper, and was large — 9.5 by 12.5 inches. I decorated the cover with green, yellow, and blue collage with red splatter, and covered that with packaging tape to protect it.

I still have the journal, and I still love many of the pages within it.

My first art journal opened fully to view a green, blue, and yellow cover. There is red splattered accents, a hand-drawn hand pointing, and in ballpoint pen: "Art Journal, 2009-2010, by Ingrid Murray."

The colorful edges of art journal pages.

My style has evolved so much over the past near-thirteen years. In that time, I’ve experimented with acrylic paint, tissue paper, candle wax, stitching and weaving, pockets, flaps, paper towel, image transfers, stamps, staples, found notes, modeling paste, India ink, stickers and the extra white space around stickers, washi tape, white out tape, sewing patterns, and magazine images.

These days, my favorite materials are vintage book pages, graph paper, security envelopes, acrylic ink, oil pastel, and paint pens.

You can see most of my old art journal pages here.

You Are a Garden

A field of tiny white flowers at dusk. Those closest to the camera are in focus.

We’re constantly bombarded with messaging about how we can be better, more efficient humans. Defy aging with this eye cream! Optimize your SEO for maximum views! Use this app to reach maximum productivity!

It’s exhausting.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be human. At one time, I thought that there a perfect version of myself that I needed to strive for, someone who had no flaws or feelings or difficulties. I thought that to be human was to reach the most unmarred of myself. If I could just TRY harder, I’d get there. And if I couldn’t bring myself to try hard enough, then there was something inherently wrong with me.

With time, my perspective has shifted. I’ve given myself grace. I am learning to lean into being a messy, inconsistent human who feels things deeply and makes mistakes and changes her mind and has good days and bad days. I’ve remembered that the urgent chant of “more! more! more!” is a toxic characteristic of white supremacy, and I’ve complained about being told to do more in the midst of a pandemic.

Perfectionism is poisonous

There have been two pieces of writing that have deeply influenced me this year. The first is this:

You are not a machine. You are more like a garden. You need different things on different days. A little sun today, a little less water tomorrow. You have fallow and fruitful seasons. It is not a design flaw. It is wiser than perpetual sameness. What does your garden need today?
If you expect a garden to “produce” things with the same regularity and sameness as a machine, you will be disappointed. If you try to maintain a garden the same way you would a machine, you will destroy it. The same is true of your body and emotional life. Give into your garden.
Joy Marie Clarkson

The second is Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

What both have in common is a recognition that striving for perfection — a mastery of everything, all at once, unendingly — is not only completely impossible, but will break us. We cannot achieve everything, and we can achieve no one thing perfectly.

Embrace your humanity

You and I are not machines. We were never machines. We are “child[ren] of the universe, no less than the trees and stars.” At one point, our ancestors spent all of their lives creating, whether it be shaping pottery or cooking or telling stories or making music or sewing. At one point, we remembered who we were.

You and I, we’re human. We are full of contradictions and limitations, and that is what gives us character and substance. That’s what makes us everything we are and, in a paradoxical way, perfect.

Remember to slow down. Embrace your full humanity. Tend your garden.

More Creation, Less Perfectionism

The more uncertainty and fear and there is — like, say, in this apocalyptic year — the more I desperately try to hold on to control of anything within grasp. Perfectionism and control go hand in hand; perfectionism, really, is having ultimate control. But that attitude is crippling and focusing on perfectionism stifles everything from creativity to racial justice.

Being human is messy. We’re complicated beings filled with emotion and impulse. It’s how we have evolved, and it’s generally served us well. We are adaptive, creative, and innovative. We’re empathetic and have survived millennia by caring for and leaning on one another. The shiniest bits of this year have been these things.

But we’re also obsessed with “more” and “better”. At its extreme, your inner goblin may be chanting: You’re not special unless you are the best and the brightest and everyone knows it. You are not an artist — and shame on you for having pride in your work — unless you are the most perfect. If you’re not, don’t even try.

Brené Brown is a researcher, author, and decades-long advocate of challenging this inner voice and tearing down the impossible expectations we set for ourselves. She has a whole book about the gifts of imperfection. She says:

Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.

But what if we redefined “perfection” as actually leaning into the messiness and the emotion of existence? Maybe perfection is actually showing up as, and celebrating, the whole complicated human you are.

In a heavy, heavy year, art is what will help us process and work through all the worry, fear, frustration, and uncertainty. Art, one of the most ancient human practices, allows us to express all that we feel and experience where words fail. It’s served us for thousands upon thousands of years.

Art is a place to show up as your messy, human self.

You deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts. – Frida Kahlo

We may have little control over this pandemic or politics or even our own lives right now, but we can create. We can acknowledge and embrace all that we’re thinking and feeling. We can name our selves and our experiences through the stroke of a brush or the movement of your body or a trembling note that encompasses your own humanity.

And that’s more than enough.