By Nancy Rynes, author of Awakenings from the Light
All content copyright Nancy Rynes
See last week's article, here.
“Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others - it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.”
~ Yo-Yo Ma
When I was a child, in the depths of my heart and soul I wanted to draw the animals that we had on our small farm. I scrounged up a pencil and some paper and tried to teach myself to draw. Those first efforts didn’t come out looking like I had hoped they would. The animals didn’t look quite right. Maybe the head on that horse was too big, or they looked too “cartoony” and not real. And I wanted them to look real more than anything.
But I kept at it. I continued to draw. Sometimes my father would give me a book on how to draw animals and I would practice the instructions to the letter, filling notebook upon notebook with my attempts.
It still wasn’t quite what I wanted to achieve, but it was closer.
I continued to draw.
In middle school, an art teacher showed me even more tips and techniques for drawing animals, and people too. My drawings were closer to what I wanted to achieve, but not really “there” yet.
So I kept drawing.
After high school, I took drawing and painting classes from a local artist who had studied classical art techniques in Italy. He taught me even more, this time methods that had been used in Italy for hundreds of years. I thought his classes would be all I would need to become the artist I had envisioned all those years ago. My work slowly improved, but it still wasn’t quite taking shape as quickly as I had hoped.
And as you might guess, I kept drawing and painting.
After studying with that teacher, I attended a classical art school in Chicago where, you guessed it, I learned even more techniques. I practiced drawing from live models, studied as much art as I could at the local museums, and my abilities with a pencil and brush kept improving.
This continued for years. I continued to draw, paint, and take classes from other artists. And with time, patience, and practice, I achieved the sense of reality, energy, and life in my art that I had wanted when I first picked up a pencil and notebook as a child. But this didn’t just happen overnight. It took practice, patience, persistence, and passion.
To this day, I continue to practice drawing and painting. And my work continues to evolve, becoming more expressive and more “me” with each painting.
While this series isn’t about learning how to draw or paint, achieving a more spiritual, peaceful, and present life is an art form all on its own. You are crafting and creating the life that you want for yourself, one step at a time. And we can take cues on how to do this from artists and musicians.
One way, the way that’s been used for thousands of years for everything from playing a musical instrument to becoming a scientist or a spiritual leader, is practice.
Does a five year old child wake up suddenly one morning and play the cello as gifted as a professional musician? No, not usually. For the vast majority of musicians and other artists, it takes years of consistent, daily study and practice to reach the level of proficiency where, to others, the end result looks effortless.
Patience, persistence, and passion are just as important as practice. The Four Ps are the keys to achieving mastery in anything, be it painting, music, or living a peaceful, joyful life.
The Four Ps
Practice allows us to expand our skills, to train our brains and bodies to be proficient in the activity we have chosen. Patience allows our skills to develop at their own pace, with minimal emotional stress. Persistence is the determination that keeps us working toward our goals, day after day, even when things look bleak. And passion from the heart is the fuel that drives achievement…without passion, there is no deep-seated driving force to achieve a goal.
When I began to put together a spiritual practice after my NDE, I had a goal in mind: I wanted to achieve even a small glimmer of that peace, love, and connection I experienced in Heaven in my life on Earth. Spiritual practice helped me to begin to calm my mind and open myself up to learning new things, exploring ideas, and expanding my awareness. Cultivating patience (not a natural thing for me in the past) allowed me to let the process of spiritual development unfold in its own way. Patience allowed me to avoid stressing about my progress. Persistence kept me going, even when it felt like times were challenging. Keeping my goals in mind helped me to persist with my practice even when it seemed like I wasn’t yet achieving what I had hoped to achieve. And passion has been the fuel for maintaining my practice. My passion is not only the desire to create peace for myself, it’s also to do my part to create peace, love, and connection on this planet.
While working toward any achievement, the end goal of practice is to train the body-mind-soul triad to easily and predictably something without much conscious thought. In order for a performance or a work of art to “flow,” the musician or artist has to get past consciously focusing on every note or brushstroke. Instead, flow happens when you’re focused on letting the music or art or whatever happen. In order for an Olympic-caliber downhill skier to win a medal, she has to be skilled at every nuance of her activity so that no matter what the hill throws at her, she can perform her best. And that state of flow is what most creative people desire. It’s a state where your art form just happens.
I didn’t wake up one day and all of a sudden know how to draw and paint like a professional. It took practice, study, and more practice. Years of it. And I still practice not only when I am at the canvas with brush in hand, but in almost every moment of every day. I constantly think about painting: color, shadow, composition, energy, spirit. I might see a saguaro on a hilltop silhouetted against dark blue-gray storm clouds and stop what I’m doing to both appreciate it and figure out how I would paint it. I have painted tens of thousands of such scenes in my mind, and I think this has helped me learn to be a better painter because it’s another form of practice. I practice in my mind throughout the day, even if I am not in front of the easel, working out painting problems or putting concepts together that hadn’t gelled before.
The time I spend on my art isn’t a hardship for me. This is passion. This is love. This is a natural part of my life. So is my spiritual practice. In fact, there are no compartments…these things are just my life. Living consciously, with intention, is no longer a separate practice, something I have to set aside time for. It’s just how I live.
With practice, patience, persistence, and passion applied to your spiritual life, the same thing can happen. As you consistently practice spiritually, the “practice” itself falls away and your life just becomes a spiritual, peaceful expression of your deepest Self — your Soul.
Here’s the important question: how do we actually cultivate peace and joy in our lives?
As I have said before, many paths already exist to creating more peace and joy in your life. In this series, I will share with you my path, what I have learned, and what worked for me over years of practice since my near-death experience in 2014.
It comes down to being committed to truly examining and gradually changing the way you look at and live your life. For all of this to make the most sense, I have streamlined this series into four main areas:
1. Taking responsibility
2. Caring for your body
3. Caring for your mind
4. Caring for your soul
Spiritual Practice Consists of being aware of your Self, your goals, and what is happening in your life; then...
Taking small, consistent steps to achieve those goals; so that...
Eventually, the state of “practicing” melts away and simply becomes how you live your life.
Spread your arms to embrace and include all for the Divine is not an exclusive club. God is for everyone, and all names for the one Divine are sacred and equal.
Blessings,
Nancy
Archive: Past Newsletter Issues
TODAY Show: Nancy's Interview on NBC TV's TODAY
Messages of Hope with Suzanne Giesemann: Exploring NDEs with Nancy Rynes
Article: Seven Lessons That Dying Taught Me About Truly Living (Aspire Magazine)
Article: Lives Changed by NDEs (Boulder Daily Camera)
Article: Awakening to Life(Pages 6-10, Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology, Summer 2016)
Article: The Meaning of Life (Excellence Reporter)
Simply Peace Part 1
Simply Peace Part 2
Downloadable, Audio-only versions of the webinar are available on my SoundCloud site: https://soundcloud.com/nancy-rynes
Please Join Me On Social Media
Facebook | Pinterest | YouTube | LinkedIn