It’s graduation season.

As a mother of 4, not many years go by without some momentous celebration or other.

Yesterday, my second daughter graduated from college.

She’s known she wants to be a doctor since elementary school.

How?

No idea. She just knew.

Ta da! Did you notice the new name and logo?

It’s what my newsletter will be called from now on, to differentiate it from the therapy side of things.

When I write, I’m wearing my artist hat.

I will still talk about the same things. In fact, I could have called it Permission to Create and Be Joyful in a World That is Full of Suffering and Grief.

But then I would lose the alliteration. And it’s a bit long.

Two weeks ago, at the San Francisco MOMA, I had a profound experience.

I felt like I belonged.

It moved me.

And it shook me.

Coming back to Corvallis, I asked myself, Do I belong here?

I spent four hours in heaven this past weekend.

Room after room, floor after floor filled with color, shape, composition, value, texture, luminescence, and movement, speaking the language of the soul.

The first few times I was introduced to the power of the breath, I was not impressed.

In fact, it left me woozy, gasping for air, and happy to leave my breath to its own devices, thank you.

I can feel a tiny panic rising in my chest just thinking about it.

Remember cracking open a fresh box of crayons?

That waxy smell, the pointy colors all neatly lined up just for you - beaming up at you, murmuring, rumbling, squealing to be broken out.

When you hear me going on about embracing your inner silly goose waddling your way through life with a paintbrush in one hand and blowing kisses with the other, do you ever find yourself thinking,

That all sounds great, Mary, but it’s not for me.

There’s this thing I do that fills me with delight.

Picture me in pajamas and boots, robe flapping in the wind, trudging through rain soaked sod, tall grasses, or even snow while lugging one or more paintings.

I’m not sure what happened but somewhere in the last year Joy left me. Here I am writing about how to bring more joy into our lives and my own joy just quit on me.

Adios, she said, I’m out of here.

There’s relief in naming whatever is bothering you, and allowing it to play out - that’s what it was doing anyway.

When we allow it, we can talk about it, make choices about it, give it a seat at the table.

This year I’m giving myself permission to RESPOND.

As long as I’m in responding mode my creative juices are flowing.

It all starts with - you guessed it - NOTICING things to respond to.

If we notice what lights us up, what piques our curiosity, we can recognize it as an invitation to explore and investigate and go from there.

Stop by my office at the Benton Plaza and share your thoughts the slow, old-fashioned way on my community wall. I care.

Is there something going on for you right now that wants to be heard and expressed?

I hope you will listen.

I hope you will put pen or pencil or paintbrush to paper and let it do its thing.

It’s magical.

When we feel seen and heard and accepted in our most vulnerable moments, we can step into a bigger version of ourselves.

Join the Journal Doodle Circle, an intentional space for practicing the life-giving skill of noticing and meeting ourselves and others where we are. To sign up or be kept informed of gathering dates, click here.

So, to remind you that you are important, and that your needs and wants are important, I invite you to take a few quiet moments to yourself today.

Take a piece of paper (or your journal if you have one) and make a What-if List. Write at the top, “Wouldn’t it be great if…” and start writing anything and everything that comes to mind, whether it seems realistic or not. Don’t think about it. Just write.

That’s it.

Let the list sit as a product of you. That’s enough.

Being authentic means being willing to look at the things we wish were different in ourselves, in those around us, and in the world. And to allow the pain associated with it. Even if this means we can’t function for a while.

The cost of authenticity is that we feel our grief more keenly.

There’s nothing quite like creating something out of nothing. It makes us feel alive. It helps us connect to ourselves in a way that is more immediate than almost anything else.

This is the point of making mediocre art: to feel alive and to pass the spark on to others.

Funnily enough, showing up as who we are - aka being “authentic” - doesn’t exactly come naturally.

We are built for survival. That’s our default.

To bypass the default, play!

When you’re having fun, you’re exercising the muscle of being yourself.

When you’re playing, you’re strengthening the neural pathway of joy.

In those moments where everything suddenly feels wrong, lacking, or simply too much, using words of reassurance and encouragement is one way to stimulate the vagus nerve and access this state of calm and confidence.

There’s nothing wrong with you.

You are human.

Our task is to have the courage to look our humanness in the eye and to allow it.