The seed of joy (BLICK-01-EN)

The seed of joy

Trainer Input, Group work, educational talk

• Canvas 120 x 160
• Oil pastel
• Collage techniques
• Putty
• Ink
• Gouache paints
• Watercolours
• Handout:  The Lion and the Donkeys

Tables must be arranged in such a way that a group of 10 has enough space to work on a common picture. In the case of liquid colours, the floor must be protected with wrapping paper beforehand.

30 minutes

Trainers should have practice in mindfulness and know about conditioning.

Trainers do not need any previous artistic knowledge - the focus of this exercise is not on the artistic work but on the process of creating.

Trainers need to be open to engage in group processes.

Input about mindfulness as mental information is ineffective - what is important is the experience.

Mindfulness is successfully used as a complement to behavioural therapy (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, MBCT; Segal, Williams & Teasdale, 2002), especially for people with depression who tend to ruminate (also known as rumination) and make negative judgments about themselves, but also for people with other physical or psychological stresses. By focusing on the present moment and adopting an accepting attitude, people can learn not to get lost in depressive thought spirals, but to break them by, for example, concentrating on breathing or noticing something pleasant in their environment.

Improved emotion regulation in particular has been described as a possible mechanism.

In recent years, mindfulness has also become a popular research topic: while the American Mindfulness Research Association counted only twelve publications on the topic of mindfulness in scientific journals in 2000 in a significant source of scientific publications, the Web of Science, the number had already risen to 674 in 2015.

Through this method/action, these benefits are achieved:

• Participants are sensitised to recognise automatisms in their lives.
• Participants discover numerous opportunities to allow more joy in their lives.
• Participants experience how mindfulness affects well-being.
• Participants notice how they pay attention to their own needs within a group setting.

Step 1

The trainer talks about conditioning:

“Conditioning is social imprinting. Conditioning consists of

• inherited aspects: Beliefs, posture, etc.
• Influences from the country I live in, the culture I live in, the upbringing I have had.
• The upbringing I have had

All this together forms the ego that most identify with:

E.G.: I have the following name, I am married, I have so and so many children and I have this job.

If you take all that away, then all that remains is: I am.

Then I am only present as a being.

I would like to raise the possibility that this is possible at all.

What happens if I take off the conditioning like a coat?

What would this "I am" like to do now?

Deciding freely from the moment”

Step 2

The trainer tells the fable "The donkey and the lion". This fable can be found in the materials. Based on this story, the trainer starts a teaching conversation with the following questions for the group:

• What does conditioning and the possibility of freedom from it mean in this fable?
• Behind every "I should" there is conditioning - most people identify with the conditioning that has happened to them in life.
• What does the possibility of freedom from conditioning mean?
• What am I now when I strip off the conditioning? Then I am simply.
• What does it mean to make choices from the "I am"? Are these choices more adequate in the now?
• How can I pay attention to all the senses?

Step 3

The trainer talks about joy and conditioning:

"Joy is a birth gift. People are conditioned from birth to experience joy. It is about the inherent joy, about (re)establishing contact with joy.

When people don't live their happiness, they develop symptoms: they get sick, feel stressed.

But most people are not connected to their birth gift of joy.

How do I get to joy?

Why do I do my activities? Do they serve the goal of being happy or do I just have to do things? If I just do things, I am like under hypnosis working through life: Then it's primarily about survival but not about life itself. So I am in stress mode and not in the realm of joy.

Joy is about the pleasure of doing everyday things.

It is important to find small traces of joy in everyday life. It is important to go in search of it. Because this changes our stress behaviour.

Therefore, one has to ask oneself with every action: Am I doing this to get it done or am I doing it to feel something?

You can find this in almost every action: For example, I can do my hair so that I look neat and look confident in business matters - then I am functioning and getting things done. But I can also do my hair and feel how pleasantly the comb touches my scalp - then I am feeling, then I am in the here and now and feel joy.

You have to start looking, otherwise the automatism, the conditioning takes over.

Investigate whether my actions are tied to joy".

Step 4

The trainer leads the group to the prepared creative materials and instructs them to paint a picture together. What is important in painting is not the artistic work that is created, but the mindfulness in doing it! It is not about "I should", but that the participants come to the following realisation: "I actually like what I am doing!

The questions are as follows:

• With which senses do I perceive painting?
• What do I feel when I paint?
• Am I completely in the here and now when I paint?

Step 5

The group of max. 10 people gets 15 minutes to plan the common picture.

During this time, the group members can agree on common rules. One rule could be, for example: No one is allowed to paint in my house!

The trainer stays in the background during the planning phase, does not give instructions, but observes what is happening in the group. The trainer then shares the observations with the seminar participants during the final reflection round - after the picture has been painted - together with the observations made during the painting, and supports the participants in integrating this feedback.

Step 6

While the group paints the picture together, the trainer observes what is happening. The trainer prepares the room and leaves the group to organise itself.

Step 7

The trainer will lead an artist talk with the participants with the following questions:

• - If I were a gallerist, what would be the title of this picture?
• - Where is the top and where is the bottom of this picture?
• - Do the artists want to sign this picture together?
• - Do you have a statement associated with it?

Questions about the process:

• - Themes always show up in the community pictures: What themes have emerged in this group?
• - Have there been any oops, ah-ha or yay moments?
• - How did you feel about each other?
• - How did you feel about the theme?
• - Did anything come up?
• - Did I have an impulse that I didn't dare to act on?

During this discussion with the participants, the trainer also addresses the observations he/she made during the planning phase and during the painting process.

Briant Rokyta

http://www.briantrokyta.com/

https://www.singulart.com/de/k%C3%BCnstler/briant-rokyta-5165

Briant Rokyta is an experienced painter, draughtsman and sculptor with international appeal from Austria. Rokyta uses various media for his designs, including oil and acrylic paints as well as ink. His paintings, which hover between abstract and figurative, are stunning works of art that skilfully mix colour and light.

Visual arts

German