Self Kindness and the Modern Maker

If you’ve ever been in one of my live workshops, you’ll have heard me expound upon the limitless benefits of making things with our hands. There’s research folks! That is, research about the brain-hand connection and how it all works together for good. Ideas, planning, trying, failing, trying again, it’s a process that we can all benefit from in every day life, but we like to cut out any risk of failing. The failing part is where learning happens and where we push our abilities and problem solving skills to plow through to triumph, or success. Don’t get me wrong, success can be many things to different people, and success can be experienced in many different steps of the process.

So, when you start to make something, fix something, design something, try to be gentle with yourself and let the process flow. If you begin down the path of self criticism, the entire process loses its fun. Here’s an example. Yesterday, I was trying to put some very snazzy chrome legs back onto a daybed I had just repaired and reupholstered. The legs, which consist of one long bent chrome tube for each side, appear to be too wide to connect to the frame. Well, I know I removed them from that same frame. I tried a few things and then began to get frustrated. Why? Because I’ve never encountered this before. My tendency is to get anxious if I don’t know if, or how it’s going to work. In the past, I may have experienced a clinched feeling in my stomach as I entertained a feeling of impending failure. That way of thinking is about as productive as trying to staple fabric onto a chair using a banana.

The new me, the one who has done a boat-load of self examination in the past five years, stopped and became ‘curious’, as they say. Why was I getting so uptight? Why did I feel helpless? Did this make me feel stupid or inexperienced? Do I struggle with imposter syndrome (another trendy phrase). After answering those questions, I shifted my mindset to what I have done in the past when I didn’t know what to do, how I persevered and kept trying, how I couldn’t be stopped. Then, kept at that thinking process–how did those mindsets work out? Did I figure out a solution? Did the world crumble all around me? And most important of all-Did I learn something new? Yes! And as we age, learning new stuff is very healthy, as well as reinforcing the confidence that I CAN do hard things.

The lessons learned far outweighed the tangible solution of the legs and daybed dilemma. I got a clear view of my pattern of self judgment, and then, how changing that, no matter how hard it is, completely shifts the entire story, process, outcome. Once you can glimpse what’s going on, things shift rapidly. The hard part is being able to stop, observe what’s going on and then taking over the driving of the bus. It was liberating. I’ll add that to the ‘Emotional Toolbox’ that I’m carefully curating.

As my business shifts from upholstery and home furnishing classes to creating a Makers workshop space for kids and adults, I imagine students of all ages will feel frustration like this while trying to create. One of my goals is to gently and compassionately guide students through their frustrations and let them discover there’s another way. A much kinder, more patient way to create. The result of those failure/success experiences go way beyond my workshop.