NEWSLETTERS 101 #17: Share an “Aha!” Moment

My biggest “aha” moment was what put me on the path to becoming a “real” artist. Still powerful. Still works.

12/15/2020 by Luann Udell

This post is by Luann Udell, regular contributing author for FineArtViews. She’s blogged since 2002 about the business side–and the spiritual inside–of art. She says, “I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….”  For ten years, Luann also wrote a column (“Craft Matters”) for The Crafts Report magazine (a monthly business resource for the crafts professional) where she explored the funnier side of her life in craft. She’s a double-juried member of the prestigious League of New Hampshire Craftsmen (fiber & art jewelry). Her work has appeared in books, magazines, and newspapers across the country and she is a published writer.

Was there a moment when everything changed for you? Share it!

(4 minute read)

One of the taglines in my Fine Art Views (and elsewhere) is this:

“I share my experiences so you won’t have to make ALL the same mistakes I did….”

Yep, I’m hoping it made you laugh a little. But I am also here to reassure you, that when we have our own “aha!” moment, aka “the Eureka effect”, that miraculous gift of insight where we see what’s really going on, what the solution is, how to move forward from a stuck place, it’s good to share it.

It may be just what someone else needs to get out of a hole today.

Here’s one of my favorites I love to share. It’s about fear. How fear can dominate our lives, inside and out. How it can paralyze us.

And ironically, how shallow it can really be. (Yes, pun intended!)

This story is over 15 years old, and the fear I described was already almost 15 years old. If my husband hadn’t cajoled me to take a dip in the lake on that hot summer day, I might still be holding that fear in my heart.

My intention in sharing this story was to encourage others who are in the same boat. Paralyzed with fear, palpable fear. Impossible to ignore. Only “diving in” (figuratively and literally!) helped me get to the bottom of that scary lake. (Again, pun intended.)

As I linked to the Dublin Lake story, I found another related story in the sidebar, entitled “Breakthrough”. Here is where a bunch of fears, and one random comment, came together into one beautiful solution.

Now my latest insight, that came from revisiting my old blog, today:

Radio Userland was an early blog hosting site (now-defunc) site. I wrote on it from 2002 to mid-2007. (I couldn’t even access it for ages after I left, until my techie husband recoded all the urls into something I could get to easily.) (Thank you, sweetie/love of my life!)

In five years, I got maybe three comments. THREE.

Was it because I was a terrible writer? Or an uninteresting writer? I’ll leave that for you to decide! But I do know the platform had its drawbacks, for me.

It was hard to comment. I don’t even know if I could have responded to those comments. I had no way of knowing how many people visited my blog. I never thought to ask the ones that did, to share it with others.

So: No comments. No likes. No way to measure “hits”. No way to know if anyone ever even read anything. No way to know if what I wrote, helped someone else.

And yet, I wrote. I process hard places in my life, through writing. So I wrote for myself, first. I love having had all those ‘lessons learned’, insights, and free advice.

I love it when I come across them again.

Because I still need them.

As a good friend said a few years ago, “I love all my life lessons! I love them so much, I learn them again, and again, and again.”

And when I share them with the world? Priceless. As in, “free” because you get to read them here at no cost to you.

And “priceless” as in “powerful”, as in “if it helped me, and when I shared it, it helped you, then that has incredible, endless value.”

Is it coincidence that I had this realization so soon after last week’s article, on how the numbers ultimately don’t matter?

I don’t think so.

So consider sharing an insight that helped you move forward in life. An insight that helped you find your way in the dark, towards the light, and a mug of hot milk.

If it helps even one of your subscribers do the same, well, that’s pretty cool.

One suggestion: Stick with the positive, or at least end on a positive note. Not all life experiences are good ones. But when we learn something fundamental, something beautiful because of them, that inspires hope.

Of course it okay to share something we’re struggling with right now, too: Health issues, difficult life events, etc. Believe me, if you’re going through something really hard, someone else out there is, too.

And it’s okay to just gritch now and then. (That’s a word from an old high school friend, a blend of “gripe” and “bitch”, and I love it almost as much as “blort”.) In fact, it might be an opportunity for readers to make suggestions or express sympathy, which may or may not help.

But just knowing they care can mean a lot to us, too.

But don’t be too much of a Debbie/Danny Downer, either. Yeah, we all have our moments, but we also all have enough on our plates.

What is one of YOUR favorite “aha!” moments? Try it out on us, in the comments!

If you enjoyed this article, if you enjoyed this article, share it! Link back to it here on Fine Art Views, or my blog at luannudell.wordpress.com.

If someone shared this article with you, and you’d like to read more in this series, visit my articles at FineArtViews.com.

Shaman

Years ago, an older gentleman using a wheelchair, and accompanied by his wonderful wife, came into my very first booth at the League of NH Craftsmen’s Annual Fair.

He was an artist himself. And when he saw my work, he…exploded (figuratively), in a wonderful, emotional, deeply spiritual way.

He asked questions, he listened carefully to my answers, about the sources of my inspiration, what led me to do this work, where I was heading with it.

He got it. He got every single tiny little thing about it.

As he circled the booth, he kept saying, “You’re a shaman! You’re a shaman!”

His words made me very uncomfortable. Now, I (thought I) knew what a shaman was.  If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that the minute I think I know everything, life will quickly and surely show me I don’t. (That’s why “eternal student of life” sneaks into almost all my my bios and intros.)

He stopped. He said, “I’m scaring you a little, aren’t I?”

I said yes. I said, “I thought I knew what a shaman was. A wise leader. but I don’t feel that way.”

He shared with me this beautiful, powerful definition of a shaman:

“All shamans are artists.  But not all artists are shamans. 

All shamans are teachers. But not all teachers are shamans. 

All shamans are healers. But not all healers are shamans.”

It spoke so deeply to me, to how I felt about my art: My art healed me, and I believe it sometimes helps others heal. I love to share what I’ve learned, but not in a here’s-how-you-make-a-little-horse-way that so many people expect. More in a “what is the story only YOU can tell?” way.

And yet, even years later, I felt uncomfortable using that word in reference to myself.

Until, just a year or so before we left New Hampshire, I shared that story with a professional shaman. And she said, what I call Definiton of a Shaman Part IV:

“‘Shaman’ isn’t something you call yourself. It’s what others call YOU.”

A day or so ago, I had a teensy emotional breakdown. (In addition to difficult family matters, scary family matters, my most vulnerable pet on the lam, more uncertainty about my studio space, etc., I’ve been demolished by allergies this month. It’s scary, and exhausting, and leaves me fragile and exposed.) I wrote about it, listened to Mary Gauthier (pronounced go-shay. Who knew?? Not me!) singing “Mercy Now”.  I had a little cathartic cry, and felt better.

So many people reached out to me, (you know who you are. THANK YOU!!!), including a few old and dear friends.

I get lazy when I’m “out of earshot.” I love catching up with people in person, but I suck at phone conversations, and when I write, I lose track of what I’ve told, and to whom.

But in the last two days, I’ve reached out. And people have reached out, especially a handful of people I call “my wise women”. And each one had just what I needed to hear to start down a healing path again. (Note to self: One quality of a good friend is, they don’t try to tell you your reality. Thank you, Melinda!)

None of these people would call themselves a shaman. (Of course they wouldn’t! See Definition Part IV above.)

None of them believe they have everything figured out. (Of course they wouldn’t! If you meet someone who claims that, run away.)

Some of them, who are going through extremely shitty stuff, would not even consider their blorting to be “wise words.” (But they are. Their words show self-awareness, self-responsibility, anguish with a huge dash of humor thrown in, and incredible strength of character. Not because “they’re doing it right”. Because , even when they think they’re doing it horribly, terribly wrong, because when they are in a hard place and they hate hate hate it, yet they continue to do the incredibly difficult work they have to do. And they are open to the tiny miracles and blessings they find along the way.)*

And so I say to you today, thank you. Thank you, Melinda, Carrie, Amy J., Julie, Deb, Mary-Ellen, anyone I’ve missed because I am a bird-brain this week, and also to those who would have reached out, if they’d known, because that’s what they do…. Even someone I hardly know, who simply validated my experience recently at an Art Trails event that went totally weird. Thank you, Linda! Thank you, Clare, for encouraging me to take some “horse time” today.

Thank you.

You are a shaman.

P.S. Just want to say, most of my issues I’m moping about are third-world issues. Others have it harder. A helluva lot harder. Just sayin’, I’m aware of my privilege here.

P.P.S. If you are struggling today, try this: Everything is Awful, and I’m Not Okay

*I’ve just read the book Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I’ve loved…)  So I want to clarify this. I don’t believe we are sent shit to deal with for a reason. Shit happens. I do think that what can help us through, through the fear, the anger, the despair, is to look for those tiny synchronicities that help us get through another day.

Like me saying to Jon, during his quick visit to New Hampshire last week, and on his way back to Keene from the White Mountains, “I wish we could talk with Jim and Kate (whom we haven’t seen in years) because they went through this exact same thing, and maybe they have some wisdom on how we can get through this, too.” And ONE HOUR LATER, Jon stopped for a quick dunk at the Discount Beach Club (“Bring your own damn towel”) on Dublin Lake, and he heard someone say, “Jon? Is that you?!” And there were Jim and Kate on the “beach.”)**

**The Discount Beach Club was a turn-off on Route 12, which runs around part of Dublin Lake.*** It’s literally that–a turn-off where you can scoot down to the lake. Not “restricted membership”, like some other lake accesses, or the boat launch, or whatever. The chances of finding someone there, let alone someone we know, let alone the exact people we needed right then? Well. That’s my definition of a miracle! So add Jim and Kate to the list!

***Dublin Lake has worked magic before, as these two blog posts illustrate. Cool place.

 

Dublin Lake works its magic again! Discount Beach Club is just around the corner. Literally!

 

 

DUBLIN LAKE (revisited)

I took a quick road trip Friday. I hadn’t been to Peterborough in quite awhile, even though it’s only 18 miles east of Keene. I was delivering some new work to the Sharon Arts Center, so I had a great excuse to muddle around a little.

I’d just reached a point of clarity and peace with our upcoming move. Some of my fears were huge–Would we find a new circle of friends? Will people in California like my art? Will I find another studio as amazing as the one I have now?? Others are plain silly. Will we find another place to study tai chi? (Yes, Santa Rosa has at least eleven tai chi studios. Which is ten more than Keene, and we only need one.)

What did this remind me of??

It was a foggy day, so white that when I got to Dublin Lake, I couldn’t even see Mount Monadnock from the highway, which runs along the lake on its northern shore.

Shades of gray…Mt. Monadnock just beyond Dublin Lake, from Rte. 101, looking south.

The mountain was less than a mile away, behind a wall of white fog, so this seemed really eerie. And beautiful. This is one of my favorite views in New Hampshire, one that never fails to put me in a state of awe and gratitude.

The fog created a sense of agelessness, as if I and the road had become unhitched from time. And as I drove by the waters, I was reminded of a post I wrote back in 2005, in July, on a day much, much warmer than this chilly November weekend. A moment when I was blessed to see how silly so many of my fears actually were.

And so today, “something old”….

DUBLIN LAKE

When my children were babies, there was a spot on Route 101 that used to terrify me.

It’s a majorly curvy section around Dublin Lake which nestles at the foot of Mount Monadnock. It’s an absolutely beautiful spot. But the curves can be tricky to negotiate, especially in winter. And the water comes right up to the side of the road.

Rte. 101 runs right alongside Dublin Lake (or Pond) for a mile or so.

I would drive by at night in the dead of winter. I would imagine me losing control of the car, going into a skid, and swerving off the road through the ice and into the dark water below.

I imagined terrible scenarios of me struggling to get my babies out of their car seats, forced to make terrible decisions about who to rescue first. I would lie awake at night trying to figure out if I would have time and the strength to get them both out of the car, and wonder whether they would survive the icy waters.

It used to paralyze me.

Later, of course, as they grew older, drives past that lake tended to be more about yelling at them to quit kicking the back of my seat and not to spill their juice on the floor.

Last weekend, my husband cajoled me into going for a dunk in that same spot. We parked by the side of the highway and scrambled down the small incline to the lake. Soon we were standing in ice cold water up to my knees.

That’s right. Up to my knees.

That horrible stretch of water that haunted me for years is only about 18 inches deep.

As I lie awake nights now, listening to the fearful voices in my head, I wonder how many of those fears are also only 18 inches deep.