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Four Days of Gratitude and Flowers – Welcome to Part 6 of our Exploration of the Eight-Limbed Path of Yoga

Four days of Gratitude and Flowers. Welcome to Part 6 of our Exploration of the Eight-Limbed Path of Yoga

Before we dive in, let’s review our journey to date:

If you’ve been on the journey of this latest series, you’ll know that we’re bringing the holistic practice of yoga into the Mindful Creativity mix.  So far, we’ve explored:

  1. Choosing Equilibrium – a really helpful theme to explore as you look to build a sustainable and fulfilling art practice.
  2. The practice of Niyama, with a focus on exploring clean self-expression.
  3. Mountain Pose: how asanas, or physical yoga postures, can help us feel more grounded and connected to our creativity. 
  4. Pranayama: exploring the Creative Outbreath as part of general breath awareness and control.
  5. Pratyahara: reducing sensory overload as a way of moving from ‘misery’ to ‘mastery’ in navigating the creative ‘slog’

Part 6: Joyful ways to build our concentration skills. (Because who said it had to be hard?)

The sixth limb of yoga is  Dharana – focused concentration. Dha means ‘holding or maintaining’, and Ana means ‘other’ or ‘something else’. (1)

If you regularly practice the physical aspects of yoga or meditation, you’ll be familiar with the instruction of returning to the breath. This underpins the core directive of the sixth limb – returning to the basics and when we drift, navigating our way back. It’s a practice without end, really. We live in a world of distractions, and so we must constantly consider where our attention is going, and if we have moved off our intended focus.

I’ve found this to be an excellent skill set that stretches beyond yoga, beyond the art studio and into every corner of daily life. I also think that there are many ways to practice this skill that are fun, joyful and offer ways to really be in the world intentionally, reaching out to find beauty and colour and inspiration -while at the same time, honing our concentration skills. And so, without further ado, welcome to Four Days of Gratitude and Flowers!

Four Days of Gratitude and Flowers: A chance to joyfully hone our concentration and observation skills!

One of the things that research tells us is that concentration is enhanced by a range of things. To get the best out of our neural networks, we can toggle between relaxation, play, and focused work. This enables us to use different parts of our brains and beings. 

You’re invited to try this 4-part journey as a way to practice Dharana. It’s a nice way to test your own ability to stay on task with something – and build your awareness about how, when and why you start to drift off task! And don’t worry – no judgement! You don’t have to achieve anything other than have a go and see how far you get. If you finish the challenge, you get to celebrate – and if you don’t, you have your own evidence to work with and consider. If your focus strays, where does it go? Why? It’s all interesting stuff, so let’s do it! 

External observation and focus: flowers

Flowers are a big inspiration for me, but if you prefer leaves, plants, or any other nature element, go for it! This part of the practice is about bringing our attention to something in the external world, and observing it visually. I’ve done this by getting out and walking and taking pictures of flowers. What flowers are you noticing? Why? What do you love about them? 

Internal observation and focus: gratitude

Then, the other part of the practice is simply writing down a few things that you are grateful for. In this way, we are balancing our observations of the outside world (flowers, colour, beauty, visual interest) with observations of our inner world (feelings, experiences, emotions, reflections).  The whole activity could take ten minutes, thirty minutes, an hour – as long as you like, really. 

Practice Notes

The idea is to do this challenge four times. Ideally, one day after another, so it’s easier to keep your attention on the challenge. But, if it works for you, you could stretch it out over a week. There’s no right or wrong way to do the internal and external observations. Proceed in any way that you find nourishing and which pleases you! And if you can’t get outside for any reason, feel free to explore Pinterest or any online image collection to collect your favourite flowers. 

Here’s Mine!

I went ahead and did this four-day practice last week, and you’ll find my journal below. It might give you some ideas on how to get started. However you do this practice, I really hope you enjoy it and have fun – I know I did!

Day 1 Flower Observations: There are so many different structural elements to these orange blossoms when you start to look beyond the flare of striking colour. In particular I love these pods when they are still shut or half open. And the delicate stems make up a vibrant whole when you look from a distance. Note to self to do more sketches of the pods! In addition each of the tiny little stems coming out of the pod has a little white tip. Good to note for when I paint these!

Gratitude Notes

  • I had a wonderful few moments of awe and wonder last night. It was a quiet, restful, beautiful feeling. Driving back from town (hubby doing the actual driving, me with my head out the window), I was able to see this brilliant, sparking night sky above us, glittering with stars and cosmic wonder. We had this song playing, and the slow pace of the song and the vast scale of the cosmos was an exhilarating combination. 
  • I’m grateful for creative projects like my novel. Sometimes it feels like it’s just me and the book, on this strange journey together till the end, crashing into the unknown as we go and enjoying the adventure.
  • Nice strong coffee this morning. Yum!
  • Had lovely roast vegies for lunch and some time out by myself just to absorb, process, and relax. 

Day 2 Flower Observations: Hibiscus flower are amongst my absolute favourites. However, I find them incredibly hard to paint and draw! So, I mostly just adore them and capture them with my phone camera. This beachy yellow flower blooms in a very delicate, crumpled, folded way – it’s spectacular and I get so see it every day on my morning coffee walk. The yellow is sunny and calm enough to feel restful. It’s the perfect summer blossom. 

Gratitude Notes

  • I am in good health.
  • Had a great sleep, an hour longer than usual!  
  • I had success with keeping a singular focus on writing this morning. Winning!
  • Feel like I’m getting better at just standing still, letting feelings come through me without responding. Just noticing them.

Day 3 Flower Observations

It rained this morning so everything was dewy and wet. Love the smell in the garden after it rains. These are in our garden beds down the drive way, and stretch out as if they are desperately wanting to say hello to you when you pass by. These petals are so white! We have other flowers where the white is more creamy. But this white is so bright and clean and pretty against its green leaves! They are the epitome of freshness!

Gratitude Notes

  • I had a fab, creative weekend.
  • Great yoga and mini-retreat session – feeling calm and restored!
  • Had a stunning afternoon walk, communing with my kindred – the trees. A moment just for me alone. Was glorious and I feel really grateful.
  • Celebrated early morning light, daylight savings kicking off. Yay! 

Day 4 Flower Observations

I wasn’t able to get outside today – so explored my library of flower photos and pulled this one out – Franjipanis are the best! Their smell makes me so happy. These are everywhere around our neighbourhood – pink ones too. So tropical and summery! I love the strong line detail in the leaves as well, and how the underside is this bright lime that contrasts so well with the dark green on the top side. 

Gratitude Notes

  • Sometimes I can go for weeks and weeks without getting to a yoga class, and then suddenly I miss it and I fold right back into it. I did a class today and it felt so good! 
  • Work in the studio going well. Love the illustrations that are coming through at the moment; there is a stylistic consistency that’s new – they really look like they are a set, a collection, which pleases me a lot. 
  • I had some wonderful, gorgeous and amazing revelations last night- I woke up at 2-3am saw how it all fits together.  As is often the case, this morning I had absolutely no idea what it was that had suddenly started to make so much sense. All I’m left with is a feeling of satisfaction that something is coming together. Maybe that’s enough! 

Sources

(1) https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/practice/dharana-one-pointed-focus

https://www.yogajournal.com/live-be-yoga-featured/dharana/

https://jordanharcourthughes.com/mindful-creativity/

What is Mindful Creativity?

Hello, my name’s Jordan. Mindful Creativity is a great way to relax, unwind and enjoy creativity to enhance our sense of wellness. If you’re looking for a way to connect with your inner voice as you develop your own personal creative practice, it might be just the thing for you.

My Mindful Creativity blog, resources and tools provides ways for you to deepen into a more nourishing creative practice!