Does your inner critic's judgment get you down? Keep you stuck? Prevent you from seeing life's beauty and enjoying your own creations? A client recently shared her experience of taking her sister to a wine and paint party.  You might have heard of them... they can be a lot of fun.  However, they can also bring out your inner critic. My client's sister is an artist and she thought this would be a great thing for them to do together.  However, throughout the entire experience she could hear her sister muttering, comparing and criticizing her own work.  Even though she is a talented artist her ongoing criticism throughout the process dampened the experience for both of them.

That inner critic doesn't just mess up our artistic endeavours... it can pretty much mess up our lives.  It can keep us stuck, afraid to do anything because it's just never quite good enough. And when we reach the end of our lives we'll find ourselves still sitting at the shore in our boat... awaiting the perfect adventure.It's time to expose the inner critic for what it is... an over-protective self that is afraid of disapproval and desperately wants recognition from others. No shame or blame in that, by the way... pretty much all of us have been conditioned to seek recognition and approval from others.  And we need help to break this bad habit and the beliefs that go with it.  Trouble is, the habit and beliefs are ingrained subconsciously and not so easy to get at with the conscious mind. In fact, most of the time we are not even aware that they're functioning and keeping us miserable.

So how to get at them?  One proven way is to set up an experience where they are sure to surface...dah-da... Paint Your Heart Out play shops are set up to expose your inner critic - so you can recognize it more easily - and to paint your way through it - so it learns to step aside and YOU can enjoy life!

Paint Your Heart Out painting parties work with time proven techniques designed to help you stop judging yourself and start enjoying the creative process of the moment. There is no right or wrong or perfect picture to paint. This is an emergent process where you learn a great deal about yourself and how to appreciate the painting that is emerging in front of you. It is not a painting workshop where you learn to paint just what is presented by the instructor.

You'll find yourself connecting more deeply within and learning to flow with life... and the more you flow, the more you glow! That flow of life that ripples through you is part of your subconscious and when you get in touch with it you can more easily recognize when it isn't flowing... and you'll learn how to expose those stuck subconscious patterns and dissolve them.

Paint Your Heart Out is a joyful, playful way to learn a whole lot more about YOU... about your mind chatter and how to silence it... about your emotions and how to feel them to heal them... and how to get in touch with that emotional flow that enriches your paintings, and your life.

Here are just a few testimonials from previous playshops...

“Loved learning how to listen to myself and play. I had really forgotten how important laughter is.”

“It’s okay to let go and move on - and get to know your inner self.”

"This has been like a miracle for us – it broke through misconceptions that we had about each other and allowed us to connect on a deeper level - thank you!" PJ Matz, L.C. (mother of the mother-daughter (17 yr old) who attended together

If you want to feel better... get better at feeling! It only makes sense.

Join us for the next Paint Your Heart Out Playshop.

I didn't believe I had an artistic bone in my body until I was 32 years old and REQUIRED to take a university fine arts class.  While it was an introductory class, all of the other students had obviously considered themselves artistic and had continued drawing, painting and exploring art all of their lives. I had not... I quit in about grade eight when mandatory art classes quit in school.Oh it wasn't that I didn't LIKE art. 

It was that at 6 years of age I'd surmised that I was NOT an artist. How did I know that?  Because I remember vividly coloring happily beside my childhood playmate and family friend when my aunt came up behind us.  "Oh Cherie!" she exclaimed, "How beautiful! Ma-a-ble," she hollered, "Come and see what your daughter is doing!" Turning back to Cherie she continued, "YOU are such an artist... just like your dad... Ma-a-able, come see!" And then, realizing that I was sitting right beside Cherie, and I am sure not wanting to ignore me she added quickly, "Oh and that's good too Maggie."  I still remember my heart pounding and shame at my own coloring pulsing through my veins.  Decidedly I was NOT an artist.

I buried the pain and shame back then but it arose with a vengeance during those first few months in art class.  It was at its worst when our art instructor would direct us to go around and look at each others’ art work. "No!" I cried inside, "Anything but that!" But of course we did wander around and I looked enviously and incredulously at what others had created.  "How come theirs looks beautiful and mine looks like this?" I felt hopeless.  No matter how hard I  tried to do all of the left-brained things I'd been taught in elementary school like shading the outside to make something look rounder mine still looked dead... dull... and uninteresting. 

I blamed part of it on the instructor... I couldn't even see the beauty in any of the brown, black, and grey items he heaped upon the table.  Turns out, this was the real problem... not that I couldn't draw, I simply couldn't see the beauty. One day as we were studying value... the amount of light in objects…our instructor asked, "What is the lightest value here?"  "Duh... I thought, "It's that cream colored water pitcher... everything else is brown, grey or black."

Luckily the woman next to me was quicker to respond, "It's that pin prick of light shining off of that beer bottle."  What!  Holy s*** she's right! That point is the lightest... wait a minute... not only is that lighter but there are shapes of lightness and shadows in that bottle... that's what they are seeing - and drawing!!!

It was an awakening for me. I felt like a very dirty windshield I'd been looking through all of my life had been wiped clean.  How life now sparkled!  I now saw beauty everywhere... I looked more deeply and with greater curiosity into everything... I saw beauty in the minutest details I'd overlooked all my life:  the snow crystals shining luminously on the oregon grape leaf; the suds bopping up and down and exploding in the dishpan; the joyous wonder of the rinse water cascading over the clean pot. New beauty was everywhere!

Art opened my eyes to astounding beauty everywhere, ignited my imagination and infused my mind and heart with a thirst for creative adventure in day to day life. I see more beauty in nature... and the more beauty I see, the more beauty I feel inside of me! Not only that, but the beauty that I could now see, the curiosity that had been awakened, spilled over psychologically into my relationships and other parts of my life.

Today, beauty and color abound as I tap into rivulets of colors and shapes, spinning and turning, only to carry me deeper into the mystery of the moment.

I want to share this with you! Come and enjoy the process of artistic creation.  We have a very special format that will teach you how to focus on enjoying the process rather than critiquing and comparing your work to others every step of the way. You'll discover how to allow your own inner flow to ripple out onto the paper.  And without the critique it's so much easier. 

This glowing experience, the insights you'll gain about yourself  - will overflow into other areas of your life.  The more you flow the more you glow!

What do people like most about these playshops?

“Being given back the right to play - to laugh more and often. I have been given the freedom to be who I really am. I don't have to be everything to everybody."

“I loved all the activities and the sharing. A real environment of caring and trust was created. Loved the play exercises and listening to your emotions and inner child.”

"Learned to live from my inner self. Come dare to be your Self."

Are you ready to unlock your inner artist?  Join us for this life-changing experience!

To Join us for the next Paint Your Heart Out Paintshop  Visit Upcoming Events

One night I had a vision of walking along a sandy beach filled with people bustling about...busy, busy, busy digging and digging. Some had dug HUGE underground caverns and elaborate tunnels and still they were straining to dig more, dig faster.I wanted to know what was going on and so stopped one to talk.

She was obviously quite irritated by my interruption but waited impatiently through obligation to hear my question. "What's going on?" I began.  "What's everyone doing here?" "Don't you know?" she replied incredulously... "this is life's most important excavation here..I'm surprised you're not here yourself. Anyone with any depth of thinking is here.""But what are you DOING here?" I persisted."We are looking for the meaning of life... we are searching to find ourselves!""But why?" I queried.

Exasperation flickered across the face of the woman in front of me, but held captive by an inner obligation to 'be polite,' she answered slowly and evenly -- as if speaking to a very young child, a very old person, or to someone who didn't understand English. "Why we all need to find ourselves dear! How else can we discover who we are? How else can we find our faults and fix them? "I looked around at the giant mounds of sand, at the extravagant tools and machinery the people had developed to help them dig, at their grim faces and rigid bodies.

I thought about their resolute determination to 'get to the bottom of it all and discover themselves,' and suddenly I saw the folly of my own desperate search to find myself and to discover who I am... and I began to laugh.The lady with whom I spoke was quite taken aback. Her eyes flashed with defiance and her voice crackled with annoyance, "What are you laughing about?" she snapped."I'm sorry," I replied, "I am not laughing at you, but with you, for I see my own life reflected in all of your hard work. And as I look at the elaborate tunnels and castles you have built in the sand suddenly I realize that life is not about finding myself so that I can fix my flaws and get on with living.

Life is about what we create!When we are children we revel in wonder at the sand that is so pliable and fun to play with; we squeal with delight as our bucket of water soaks into the fine sand and forms lovely moats around our castles; we soak up the warmth of the sun on our kin and marvel at the creations that we have made...knowing that in time they too shall dissolve once again into the sandy beach from whence they came...to provide yet another opportunity for us to build again. And suddenly I am filled with the glorious realization that the beach is here, not for us to dig endlessly into the depths of the sand searching for the key to a happy life; the beach is here to provide a playground within which we can create whatever we want, however we want. And of course, the greatest teacher with it comes to building sand castles is the child within each and every one of us."