Ten Zen Seconds / Interview with Eric Maisel, Part Two

I am honored to have Author, ERIC MAISEL as my guest today. Eric will answer questions about balancing the creative process and creating a meaningful life using a breathing technique with mindfulness to get centered. Arists know that the artistic process has its ups and downs and that it's helpful to see where we are in the creative cycle. Dr. Maisel has used his experience in Philosophy and Psychology, Creative Writing and Counseling to come up with a simple tool that anyone can use to bring their focus to the present moment. For artists, being able to maintain a place of focus is a vital component in a sucessful life.

Anne: Welcome Eric, Can you tell us again the resonant phrases that you came up with in your breathing technique?

Eric: Here are the twelve incantations (the parentheses show how the phrase gets “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:
1. (I am completely) (stopping)
2. (I expect) (nothing)
3. (I am) (doing my work)
4. (I trust) (my resources)
5. (I feel) (supported)
6. (I embrace) (this moment)
7. (I am free) (of the past)
8. (I make) (my meaning)
9. (I am open) (to joy)
10. (I am equal) (to this challenge)
11. (I am) (taking action)
12. (I return) (with strength)

The third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.

Anne: Artists have alternating times of social interaction and self imposed times of isolation. Can Ten Zen Seconds help visual artists find the right balance between creative work/play and the more mundane tasks of "making a living?"

Eric: Yes, by helping you get into the (really good) habit of naming your next work, whether that's painting or doing business, in a calm, mindful, intentional way in a context of meaning: that is, by saying, and therefore remembering, "my painting is meaningful to me" and "my business tasks support my painting life, which is one of the primary ways I make my meaning."

If all those business efforts do not lead to sufficient success, then it becomes increasingly hard to find the wherewithal to do them; but even then you want to reinvest meaning in those tasks, as your painting life, and hence your meaning life, depends on them. The incantations support this repetitive process of "staying on your own side" by helping you name your work, opt for action, feel equal to the challenges you face, and stay strong in the face of all this effort.

Anne: I often find myself running around doing a million things at once, having to shift gears frequently during the day. We artists wear many hats and it can get overwhelming. You do so many things as an author, creativity coach, psychologist and make it look so easy. How does Ten Zen Seconds fit into "shifting gears" during your day?

Eric: So much of it is attitudinal. You can either feel pushed and pulled by everything˜or not. You can get a grip on your own mind and not make "big deals" out of small matters˜or you can turn them into dramas and crises. Stress has to do not with the doing of things but with the thoughts we are holding as we do those things: the thought, for instance, that we have fifty
more things to do, rather than just being present with the thing in front of you, peacefully doing it, without a thought as to those other fifty things. The incantations support this attitudinal shift by helping you completely stop, by helping you trust yourself, rather than worry about what‚s not going to work or what‚s not going to turn out well, and so on. This is all about the art of "getting out of your own way"˜of making things cognitively easier and better.

Anne: The creative cycle is fraught with shifts of highs and lows when we win a competition or we get that unwelcome rejection letter. Sometimes we get thrown off balance and need to readjust our perspectives. Can you tell artists how to use these techniques to stay in the big picture of their creative selves and persevere through the ups and downs of the Creative
Cycle.

Eric: Great question and big question! The complete answer is embedded in incantation 2, "I expect nothing," perhaps the most important of the incantations. It is one thing to have dreams, ambitions, goals, to live joyfully and mindfully, to have hopes, desires, appetites, and wishes˜and it is an entirely different matter to attach to outcomes.

You can want to win a competition and also not care about winning a competition; you can hope that a collector will collect you and also not care if he collects you. The complete trick is to keep doing your part and then deeply surrendering to the fact that you can't control outcomes. When you learn how to "expect nothing," you can appreciate what comes your way without lamenting what doesn't.

Anne: Eric, since this is the last day of the Ten Zen Seconds Blogtour, is there anything that you would like to add to the conversation with all of the wonderful artists who have shared this journey with you?

Eric: Let me just say how interesting this has been for me! I want to thank everyone who acted as tour host, who entered the conversation, and who took the time to read these interviews. I hope that you'll actually give the Ten Zen Seconds technique a try, I really do believe that the results are transformative.

I want to thank Eric Maisel for all the wonderful insights he has given us with his new book. I highly recommend it!
Eric’s book, Ten Zen Seconds, is available from amazon.com or, in book- tape- or download format on the Ten Zen Seconds website. Thanks again, Eric and happy creating!




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Anne Marchand is a visual artist, muralist and teacher. She is a project manger on the Eastern Market Arts Restoration Project in Washington, DC sponsored by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities which dedicates 27 new murals by 25 Washington, DC artists on Saturday, June 2 to the community. www.annemarchand.com

Ten Zen Seconds / Interview with Eric Maisel, Part 1

Tomorrow, Author, ERIC MAISEL will be visiting my blog as the last day of the Ten Zen Seconds World Blog Tour. If you have been keeping up with the tour, then you have read some interesting ways to use Eric's technique of mixing mindfulness with a simple breathing technique. Ten Zen Seconds introduces a new, powerful approach to mindfulness. It is a book, a practice, and an invitation to live a more centered, grounded, and meaningful life. Marrying Eastern and Western techniques, it builds on the simple idea that deep breathing coupled with right thinking is the perfect tool for growth, healing, and transformation. The first in a series of books exploring this next step in the practice of mindfulness, Ten Zen Seconds offers you the tools to make changes, solve problems, and simply feel better.

Dr. Eric Maisel is the author of more than thirty books. He holds Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology, Master's degrees in Creative Writing and Counseling, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology. He is a California licensed marriage and family therapist, a creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches, a columnist for Art Calendar Magazine, provides regular segments for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, and teaches Ten Zen Second techniques through lectures, workshops, and teleseminars. He lives in San Francisco.

Dr. Maisel’s books include:
• Ten Zen Seconds
• Creativity for Life
• Everyday You
• The Van Gogh Blues
• Toxic Criticism
• Coaching the Artist Within
• Fearless Creating
• The Creativity Book
• Affirmations for Artists

Today we will focus on what Ten Zen Seconds is about and what the phrases are.

AM: What is Ten Zen Seconds all about?

EM: It’s actually a very simple but powerful technique for reducing your stress, getting yourself centered, and reminding yourself about how you want to live your life. It can even serve as a complete cognitive, emotional, and existential self-help program built on the single idea of “dropping a useful thought into a deep breath.”
You use a deep breath, five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale, as a container for important thoughts that aim you in the right direction in life—I describe twelve of these thoughts in the book—and you begin to employ this breathing-and-thinking technique that I call incanting as the primary way to keep yourself on track.

AM: Where did this idea come from?

EM: It comes from two primary sources, cognitive and positive psychology from the West and breath awareness and mindfulness techniques from the East. I’d been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years as a therapist and creativity coach and wanted to find a quick, simple technique that would help them deal with the challenges they regularly face—resistance to creating, performance anxiety, negative self-talk about a lack of talent or a lack of connections, stress over a boring day job or competing in the art marketplace, and so on.
Because I have a background in both Western and Eastern ideas, it began to dawn on me that deep breathing, which is one of the best ways to reduce stress and alter thinking, could be used as a cognitive tool if I found just the right phrases to accompany the deep breathing. This started me on a hunt for the most effective phrases that I could find and eventually I landed on twelve of them that I called incantations, each of which serves a different and important purpose.

AM: What sort of hunt did you go on?

EM: First, I tried to figure out what are the most important tasks that we face as human beings, then I came up with what I hoped were resonant phrases, each of which needed to fit well into a deep breath, then, most importantly—which moved this from the theoretical to the empirical—I tested the phrases out on hundreds of folks who agreed to use them and report back on their experiences. That was great fun and eye-opening!
People used these phrases to center themselves before a dental appointment or surgery, to get ready to have a difficult conversation with a teenage child, to bring joy back to their performing career, to carve out time for creative work in an over-busy day—in hundreds of ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. I think that’s what makes the book rich and special: that, as useful as the method and the incantations are, hearing from real people about how they’ve used them “seals the deal.” I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.

AM: Which phrases did you settle on?

EM: The following twelve. I think that folks will intuitively get the point of each one (though some of the incantations, like “I expect nothing,” tend to need a little explaining). Naturally each incantation is explained in detail in the book and there are lots of personal reports, so readers get a good sense of how different people interpret and make use of the incantations. Here are the twelve (the parentheses show how the phrase gets “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:
1. (I am completely) (stopping)
2. (I expect) (nothing)
3. (I am) (doing my work)
4. (I trust) (my resources)
5. (I feel) (supported)
6. (I embrace) (this moment)
7. (I am free) (of the past)
8. (I make) (my meaning)
9. (I am open) (to joy)
10. (I am equal) (to this challenge)
11. (I am) (taking action)
12. (I return) (with strength)

A small note: the third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.

Tomorrow I will repeat the incantations and ask Dr. Maisel how artists can use them in managing their high energy creative lives.

TEN ZEN SECONDS Blog tour: WEEK Seven

Author, ERIC MAISEL will be visiting interesting bloggers this week to speak about his breathing and mindfulness techniques in his new book, Ten Zen Seconds.

Eric will visit me on the last stop of the tour on Friday, June 1 and will answer a few questions about making meaning and making a living. I hope you'll join us this Friday.


Here's the week's line up. Enjoy!

MONDAY, MAY 28
Donna Druchunas
http://www.skepchick.org
Blog: http://www.skepchick.org/blog
Longmont, Colorado

Donna Druchunas is a freelance technical writer and editor and a knitwear designer. When she's not working, she reviews books about science, religion, and skepticism and mouths off on the Skepchick blog where she is part of a team of thinking women who reject superstition and pseudo-science and prefer to use reason and evidence to understand the world.

Donna and Eric will be chatting about mindfulness for the skeptic: how creativity and mindfulness can be nurtured without appealing to a higher power or a mystical muse.


TUESDAY, MAY 29
Maya Talisman Frost
www.MassageYourMind.wordpress.com
blog: http://www.Real-WorldMindfulness.com
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Maya Talisman Frost has taught thousands of people how to pay attention. Through her company, Real-World Mindfulness Training, she teaches playful, eyes-wide-open ways to get calm, clear and creative. She trains clients around the world by phone and email and publishes the Friday Mind Massage, a weekly ezine with subscribers in over 100 countries. Maya's techniques for everyday awareness have appeared in numerous publications, ranging from Parents to Penthouse. (http://www.Real-WorldMindfulness.com)

A small-town girl from Oregon, Maya loves exploring different cultures. She lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina with her husband and three of her four daughters. She chats about mindfulness on her blog at www.MassageYourMind.wordpress.com and plays with all things passionate at www.SexySpanishClub.blogspot.com.

Maya and Eric will focus on mindfulness and FUN--using the Ten Zen Seconds method to pop into ?mindfulness mode? and connect to our sense of wonder.


WEDNESDAY, MAY 30
Alyson B. Stanfield
http://www.artbizcoach.com
Blog: http://www.artbizblog.com
Golden, CO

Alyson B. Stanfield is an art-marketing consultant who writes on the business of art for her Art Biz Blog, http://www.artbizblog.com. It is intimately connected with the weekly Art Marketing Action newsletter, available at http://www.artbizcoach.com. Postings range from pricing and promoting your art to working with galleries and cultivating collectors.

Alyson and Eric will focus on mindfulness techniques for visual artists in the studio and in the art office.


THURSDAY, MAY 31
Isabella Mori
http://www.moritherapy.com
Blog: http://www.moritherapy.org
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Isabella Mori is a psychotherapist and writer. Her blog "change therapy" deals with the wide range of experience of our inner lives, from the joyous " 9 ways to feed the spirit to the academic 10 paradoxes of creative people , from the hopeful recovering anorexia to the amusing Inspired by Dr. Suess.
Special interests on the blog are spirituality, the arts, peace, gender issues, as well as body image and eating disorders. Isabella hosts the monthly Carnival of Eating Disorders, a readers' digest of blog posts on topics related to eating disorders.

One of the wonderful attributes of being an artist is that we are interested in so many things. This is much of what fuels our creativity. However, sometimes, these often very widely diverging interests become overwhelming and it feels like we're drowning in ideas. Isabella and I will chat about applying Ten Zen Second techniques to this important issue.


FRIDAY, JUNE 1
Anne Marchand
Painterly Visions
www.annemarchand.com
Blog: http://www.annemarchand.blogspot.com
Washington, D.C.

Anne Marchand is a full-time artist who creates colorful, energetic abstract paintings with poetic connections to life. Anne's cityscape, public art murals adorn playground walls in Washington, DC. Her blog, PainterlyVisions, showcases talented artists in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Anne comments on life in the arts from her studio in Washington, DC. Her blog is a resource of exhibition opportunities, art reviews, and marketing resources.

Anne and Eric will chat about applying Ten Zen Second techniques to help visual artists focus on the daily creation of artwork.


SATURDAY, JUNE 2 END OF BLOG TOUR

TEN ZEN SECONGS BlogTour: WEEK FIVE

Author, ERIC MAISEL will be visiting an interesting group of bloggers this week to speak about his breathing and mindfulness techniques in his new book, Ten Zen Seconds . Here's the week's line up. Enjoy!

MONDAY, MAY 14
Susan Gallacher-Turner
www.susangt.com
Blog: http://sculpturepdx.blogspot.com
Portland, Oregon

Susan is an artist and writer who exhibits mixed-media sculptural pieces, myth-based story pieces, copper repousse' and masks. She designs masks for local theater as well as presenting workshops in mask-making. Her blog features stories from her sculptural pieces, new poems and short stories as well as personal essays on the art of life and life in the arts.

The special focus of our day will be mindfulness techniques for the working artist with an emphasis on how creating islands of mindfulness outside of the studio can support and promote work inside the studio. When you can't get into the studio, how you can maintain a positive attitude to facilitate your creativity?


TUESDAY, MAY 15
Scott Davis
www.findingyourmarbles.com
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Scott is a poodle-owning, music-loving and cigar-smoking freelance writer and mental health activist based in Toronto. His blog, Finding Your Marbles, is an informative, friendly, and inspired “Handbook for life” for people suffering from mental illness. Scott's mission is to share skills that enable people to manage their day-to-day lives so that they can overcome mental illness and reach their true potential.

Scott is particularly interested in how mindfulness techniques can assist sufferers with managing their illnesses and getting on the road to recovery, with a special emphasis on short, easy-to-learn techniques that they can use to help them get through the tough moments during the day.


WEDNESDAY, MAY 16
Ray and Bernadette Smith
http://www.enlightenedink.com
http://www.enlightenedink.com/journal
Covington, Georgia, USA

Bernadette is a writer, author, artist, Feng Shui practitioner and professional organizer. Her passion is to assist others in identifying ways to create sanctuary within and without. Ray is a professional actor and artist, and integrates his love for these crafts with life experience to help others identify and express their own uniquely creative self. Their website/blog encourages self-discovery and healing through introspection, awareness, inspiration, and the creative process.

Bernadette, Ray and Eric will chat about mindfulness techniques for folks going through a major life transition such as separation, divorce, loss, disability, and aging.


THURSDAY, MAY 17 Mary Ann
no more commas period
http://nomorecommasperiod.blogspot.com/
San Francisco, California

Mary Ann is a part time writer and a full time manager at Borders Bookstore in Union Square. She is currently planning to go to Italy in 2 weeks with some women friends and is feeling guilty that she hasn't learned the entire Italian language or done more research. Mary Ann has been married forever and is a strong feminist and liberal Democrat.


FRIDAY, MAY 18 Trista Hill
http://www.tristahill.com/
http://www.tristahill.blogspot.com/
Delaware, Ohio

Trista Hill is a self-employed fine artist and musician who posts her more personal issues involving creativity on her blog so as to keep her website more professional. : ) She is a professional harpist who plays for special events in the central Ohio area, and is currently working on making a CD of her own harp compositions a reality. She creates artwork on commission, but has great aspirations to finally start a series of paintings that captures the creative and spiritual aspects of being a woman at this age, at this time, on this planet.

Trista would like to focus our day on what it feels like to work in a vacuum -- being self-employed, not having a lot of support due to relationship issues, and structuring your creative time so that you feel that you are actually making progress because you remembered why you were doing this work in the first place.


SATURDAY, MAY 19 Rahul Prabhakar
Blog: http://2brahulprabhakar.blogspot.com/
Seoul, South Korea

Rahul Prabhakar works as a technical communication professional with Samsung Electronics Company Limited. He is based out of Seoul and is passionate about consumer technologies. He is a leading member of the technical writing community in India and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering Technology and a Diploma in Advertising Management. In the last five years, Rahul worked as a technical writer for some of the world's leading technology industry companies, such as Oracle India Pvt. Ltd. He is the owner and moderator of a technical writing discussion group called Technical Writers India. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/technical_writers_india

Rahul and Eric will chat about how technical communicators and writers can apply Ten Zen Second techniques.

TEN ZEN SECONGS BlogTour: WEEK FOUR

Author, ERIC MAISEL will be visiting an interesting group of bloggers this week to speak about his breathing and mindfulness techniques in his new book, Ten Zen Seconds . This week, Eric Maisel will address how this applies to the time element underlying Ten Zen Seconds, how writers can unclutter their minds, how mindfulness can help with both the business aspects and creative process of the artist, and centering, relationships among balance, energy, intention, and meditation for the everyday person. Here's this week's blog tour schedule. Enjoy!

May 7th - 12th

MONDAY, MAY 7
Quinn McDonald
http://quinncreative.com
Blog:http://quinncreative.wordpress.com/
Alexandria, Virginia

Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach. She designs and leads training programs on writing, giving presentations, and holding productive meetings. She is also a writer, speaker and artist. Her work has been published in Somerset Studio Magazine; The Crafts Report; Crafts Business Magazine; Sunshine Artist; Cloth, Paper, Scissors; Bead & Button, BeadWork, and American Heritage. She is a member of the Soul Food Cafe (http:// dailywriting.net) a community blog of writers and visual artists.

Quinn would like us to focus on the time element underlying Ten Zen Seconds--how can ten seconds be important enough to care about and why might they be especially important to any artist?


TUESDAY, MAY 8
Walter Logeman
Blog: http://www.thousandsketches.com/blog
Christchurch, New Zealand

Walter is currently engaged (in addition to his otherwise busy life) in a Thousand Sketches project: he plans to do a thousand sketches on a Tablet PC in one year’s time. Check out his efforts at his blog.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9
Shannon Grissom
www.shannongrissom.com
Blog: http://shannongrissom.com/blog/index.htm
Blog: www.monkeymadeofsockies.blogspot.com/
Hollister, California

Shannon Grissom is a painter, author and television host who gives folks the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at her life and the creative process. Shannon Grissom started the blog “Monkey Made of Sockies” as a way to share her new monkey paintings. The blog is now evolving into a quirky examination of the seriously silly subject of sock monkeys.

Shannon and Eric will chat about mindfulness techniques for the everyday person: how to help “the poet trapped in the accountant's cubicle.”


THURSDAY, MAY 10
Sandy Lender
Blog: www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com
Naples, Florida

Sandy Lender is the author of the new fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods released from ArcheBooks Publishing March 20. Her 15-year career in journalism has been enhanced by a few years wearing a public relations officer's hat so she brings an interesting marketing perspective to her efforts promoting her first book and to the blog tour concept. Sandy also uses her years of experience to teach writing, grammar, vocabulary, and promotion tips at The Dragon between author and artist interviews.

Sandy and Eric will chat about how writers can unclutter their minds and solve problems that hinder their creative efforts and block them from fulfilling their purpose.


FRIDAY, MAY 11
Marcia Mauskopf
http://www.marciaphoto.com
Blog: http://www.marciaphoto.com/blog.html
Scottsdale, Arizona

Marcia Mauskopf is an acclaimed wedding and event photographer as well as magazine writer, poet, bead artist and musician. Her wedding images have been published in major Bridal Magazines across the United States. Her goal is to document the moments of each day with grace and beauty and she believes in capturing real moments in real time, as well as creating art for the home. As a woman she believe she shares a special sensitivity with brides, knowing how the moods and emotions of the day need to be savored...as an artist, she uses a wide variety of techniques to capture those moments, interpreting them in a way that brings the emotions flooding back again and again.

Marcia and Eric will be focusing on how mindfulness can help with both the business aspects and creative process of the artist.

SATURDAY, MAY 12
Phylameana lila Désy
http://chakracises.com
Blog: http://chakracises.wordpress.com/
Burlington, Iowa

Phylameana is certified in Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki and The Science of Intuition from the Holos Institutes of Health. She is a clairvoyant, intuitive counselor, flower essence consultant, and soul owner of Spiral Visions (spiralvisions.com). Her lifework includes writing, web-publishing, and healing work and she is the author of "The Everything Reiki Book: Channel Your Positive Energy to Reduce Stress, Promote Healing, and Enhance Your Quality of Life."

Phylameana and Eric will chat about centering, the Chakras, and relationships among balance, energy, intention, and meditation.

YOU CAN GET YOUR OWN COPY OF TEN ZEN SECONDS AT AMAZON.COM

PREVIOUS TEN ZEN SECONDS BLOGTOUR INTERVIEWS
WEEK 3
WEEK 2
WEEK 1

Ten Zen Seconds has climbed to number 28!

AMAZING! I just wanted to let you know that of the 2200 total Zen books that Amazon tracks, Ten Zen Seconds has climbed to number 28! This Amazon list includes all of the famous Zen books, including Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, etc.

Pretty darn good! Continue on the Blog Tour with Author Eric Maisel here

Ten Zen Seconds

Ten Zen Seconds Blog Tour Week End

Check out the rest of this week's Ten Zen Seconds blog tour and the topics that might interest you.

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, Deborah Robson
Blog: www.independentstitch.typepad.com
Fort Collins, Colorado

Deborah Robson is a writer, artist, and independent publisher. Her blog discusses knitting, writing, spinning, independent publishing, and similar quests.

Deb and Eric Maisel will be chatting about where the Ten Zen Seconds technique came from, how culture interferes with our ability to center, and how Eric makes personal use of the TZS method.


FRIDAY, APRIL 20, Pamela Yates
Footprints Fine Art Gallery & Working Studio Blog: http://creativecirclecafe.blogspot.com/
St. Paul. Minnesota

Pamela Yates is a figurative abstract painter and conceptual artist who provides individual creativity coaching to creative people at all levels. Her Creative Circle Cafe blog provides compassionate support, ideas, tools and stories for clients and other visitors who drop in to relax, noodle around and allow their creative dreams and goals to expand and breath.

Pamela and Eric Maisel will be looking at two areas: Ten Zen Second techniques for visual artists and writers and applying Ten Zen Second ideas for sufferers of PTSD and severe anxiety who want to lessen or eliminate their prescription medications. (This will be of special interest to the recovery audience.)


SATURDAY, APRIL 21, Kay Pere
Blog: Quiet Little Life http://kaypere.blogspot.com/
Mystic, Connecticut

Kay Pere is a multi-dimensional performing songwriter, visual artist, writer, educator and activist whose work embodies a message of hope, healing, humor and humanity. When she isn't traveling to perform, present workshops or show her artwork, Kay lives a quiet little life in a Mystical corner of southern New England. In Kay’s Quiet Little Life blog, she explores the challenges of creating a meaningful artistic life while working to make a living from her efforts.

If you’ve chosen to make creativity an important part of your everyday life, perhaps even your source of livelihood, then you have experienced the challenges of making meaningful work while responding to the demands of the marketplace and a daily domestic routine. Kay and Eric Maisel will look at practical suggestions for using Ten Zen Seconds to address these challenges.