Receive

How sorting out your personal space, can help sort out your life.

The concept for this painting started when I was still in Australia. But it took a while longer to realise it in paint. I had to travel back to Europe, present at a festival, run a workshop and then eventually set up my new apartment and studio.

I had been away longer than what I intended, half a year in total, and a few things had changed with my living arrangements. I needed to get down to work as quickly as possible, but I had boxes of things stacked everywhere that I had to sort through. On top of that, it is an extremely small space.

Having moved cities a number of times before, I knew how crucial it was to get the studio up and running as soon as possible. Of course the whole operation is not firing on all cylinders at first because you don't have all of the things you require yet, or have not found places to store things.

Arrrg! Chaos!

Regardless, I forged ahead for the next few moths amongst the jumble of boxes. Bit by bit, I recovered the space. It was almost a ritual. 

You see, over the previous couple of years, my life had descended into something that resembled the space I now found myself in. It is said, that your personal spaces represent the state of your mind and emotions.

So many times have I found this to be true. If I have felt that things are getting away from me in life, I only have to look around at my personal spaces, and I find it reflected there. Quite often out of sheer frustration with life at that point, and needing to take my mind off things, I have set about to bringing order to my space. Then afterwards, I have noted a certain feeling of satisfaction and some sense of control again. Strangely enough, life itself seems to fall into step afterwards. Perhaps this is where Feng Shui has its roots.

You have to have things in order, to allow things to happen, to have things find their place, to be able to receive. It is kind of like having blocked plumbing in the kitchen, the foul water just starts to back up no matter how much clean water you put into it, and then it starts to overflow. Or perhaps another way to think of it, is like a letter box. If you don't clear the junk mail out, it piles up until the mail that you really want cannot be received.

So there's a small tip if you feel blocked, or that things are out of order in your life. Take a look around at your personal space. What does it say to you? Then take action. The rest will flow.

“Receive”, 25 x 30cm, oil on canvas

More of my artwork can be found on my website. LeoPlaw.com
And if it takes your fancy, subscribe to my newsletter.