Archive for June, 2009

This is my latest painting entitled ‘Another Day on Earth’. It will be part of my exhibition commencing on 13th November (Friday 13th…love it !)  at Tasmania Shop and Gallery, 65 Salamanca Pl, Hobart 6000. Ph 03 62235022 .It’s 60 X 60 cm Acrylic on Canvas

Madonna of the Pasta Dinner

This is one of the “Domestic Madonnas” series ,eight of which are currently appearing at ‘Attitudes’ restaurant, Williamstown (see Press Release below) till end of July

The full show of 18 paintings will then appear at Smart Artz Gallery 2 Alfred Place Sth Melbourne  from 6th-12thAugust

PRESS RELEASE

If you feel like you need some Divine Intervention to alleviate all the doom and gloom of recent times, check out a selection of Bev Aisbett’s

‘Domestic Madonnas’ at Attitudes Restaurant,217 Nelson Place, Williamstown (9399 9155) commencing Wed 10^th June

Calling on her background as an established cartoonist and illustrator, Bev employed humour along with a bold graphic approach to celebrate the unsung Goddesses of the Kitchen Sink in this show which is sure to supply some much-needed levity in these dark days

Utilising a combination of acrylics and collage, Bev employs touches of quirkiness to illustrate the meditative moments to be found in daily

rituals of the marvellously mundane

Read the rest of this entry »

WE ARE THE WORLD

Ancient folklore has long suggested that the Earth will undergo major changes in the next few years.

In fact, both the ancient Egyptian and Mayan Calenders end at the year 2012.

Many in the realm of New Age philosophies see these next six years as ‘make or break’ time, in the sense that we either ‘get our act together’ in terms of our spiritual growth or find ourselves overwhelmed by what is to come.

Whether or not we subscribe to these predictions, it is evident that we have reached a time of crisis, not only in terms of the wellbeing of our planet but, because all is connected, our own wellbeing as well.

Recently I went to see the Al Gore film, ‘An inconvenient Truth’ which outlines stark and undeniable evidence that the environment is in serious trouble.

Giant glaciers reduced to ice cubes, polar bears drowning as they try to swim up to 60 miles to the nearest ice floe, seasons out of synch, record high temperatures, cyclones, floods and, currently closest to home, drought, to name but a few of the global changes we currently face.

Now, painting this picture of doom and gloom may seem an unusual choice to make when aimed at people suffering with anxiety, but there is ‘method in my madness’.

Indeed, I see this period of crisis as a wake up call on, not only a global but also a personal scale .It is a call to once and for all DEAL with the things that hold us and our world back from a true and perfect state of balance.

The recent epidemic rise of anxiety and depression is, in my view, not so much a malaise, but instead, an instinctive, primal, inner call to finally make the changes necessary for our wellbeing that we have been putting off attending to in the hope of external ‘rescue’.These conditions are, indeed strong motivators and they need to be, because as humans, we are notorious for dodging the issue until it reaches crisis point.

And the issue at hand is a simple yet profound concept: Love. We do not see ourselves in a loving light. We feel guilt and shame. We punish ourselves. We hold onto old hurts. We live to others’ standards then blame them for our own choices. We do not trust ourselves and thus do not trust life. We repeat old patterns that never worked in the first place. We deny our own power.

There are only two forces that govern our emotions-Love and Fear. Each cancels out the other. As a consequence of our lack of love for ourselves we likewise neglect our planet. As a species, we have so little respect for this gift, that we virtually vandalise our own home.

And so it is also on an internal level where we vandalise ourselves with negativity and fear. We forget out innate perfection. The urgent message of these times is that we can no longer assume that we can do nothing and hope that someone else will fix it.

All of this can seem overwhelming, unless one adopts a more philosophical view. It is time to think in ‘Big Picture’ terms.

The earth has undergone many changes over billions of years. It is naturally self-correcting and if pushed too far, will seek to balance itself. These shifts, both external and internal are not personal. They are part of a natural process and simply the consequences of choices we have made as human beings with free will.

And, because we are all one, the choices we make as individuals become a ripple, which becomes a wave, which becomes a tsunami.

It is time to get out of our ‘smallness’ and realise that we not only have the power to change ourselves but that each person who steps out of his or her own sense of limitation simultaneously opens the door to a world of endless possibilities.

You have the power. It begins with the next choice you make:

Love OR Fear.

I walk down the street.There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in.I am lost…I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.I can’t believe I’m in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in…it’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

From: “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche

I fell down that hole in October 1991. I had recently taken the giant step of setting myself up as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator. This was during “the recession we had to have” and, if I harboured concerns about my own future in this somewhat precarious business, these fears were certainly reinforced daily by the solicitous warnings from those around me.

As a result, by the time I travelled to Sydney three weeks later to attend the Stanley Awards (a sort of Academy Awards for cartoonists) my initial confidence had begun to unravel considerably.

In retrospect, the ingredients of severe sleep deprivation, the worries of setting up my business and, most of all, the intimidation of sitting as an unknown amongst three hundred of Australia’s best artists were combining to form a physiological and psychological time bomb which was to explode the next day when I found myself wandering in a daze of inexplicable panic and terror amongst the throngs of bright, happy tourists taking in the sights of a beautiful spring day on Sydney Harbour.

Having experienced my first panic attack, and not knowing why, I then put myself on permanent red alert for another and as such, by the time I returned to Melbourne a few days later, the hole I had unwittingly staggered into had become a chasm so deep, so surreal and so overwhelming, I felt as if I had fallen into Hell.

Each morning, I was wrenched into wakefulness with a racing heart from a fretful and meagre four hours’ sleep. My heart rate sat constantly at around 120 beats per minute and if I tried to secure the rest I so badly needed, the palpitations were so intense, I was virtually lifted off the bed. The smallest decision sent me into turmoil and confusion, the most innocuous professional, domestic or social demand beyond my normal range, incapacitated me.

The first psychologist I consulted described me as “the most frightened person I have ever seen”( not a very helpful statement-I was thus programmed to prove her right! ) and the next practitioner wanted to hospitalise me but I feared surrendering all control and I also feared the twilight world of medication.

So that was my hole-big, deep, dark and terrifying. And, as the opening quote suggests, I believed this was”not my fault, it just happened, I just fell in” .

To say that my life was irrevocably changed by that experience is an understatement, but my opinion of that change has itself changed from those first days of feeling that I had been assigned a Danteesque punishment for a crime I had no awareness of.

My opinion now is that anxiety (and alternate bouts of depression) was not only the most positively transformative experience of my life, but also inevitable.

My recovery began when I realised that I, and no one else,had been busy digging that hole all of my life.

So, what tools had I used to dig this hole?

Rigidity, pessimism, a lack of setting clear boundaries, an overinvestment in others’ approval, dependency, perfectionism, impossibly high ideals (for myself and others) and, above all, a poisonous, punishing and self-defeating internal dialogue so savage, it surpassed anything that even my harshest critics may have doled out.

Having recognised this, another epiphany of sorts came to me-living life in such a stressful way, how could I expect not to feel anxious?

Something had to change and my anxiety proved not only to be an excellent motivator for this change, but also a barometer for what needed to change.

Suddenly, my anxiety had become an uneasy ally and with this very realisation, came another enlightenment- my anxiety was my own creation, forged from an adherence to a faulty set of beliefs about myself, my worth and life that I had never disputed and had, in fact, perpetuated and endorsed.

In other words, I may not have started this, but I had certainly kept it running! My anxiety arose from a fear that the unloved part of myself would be exposed.

I am not a Buddhist (in fact, I shy away from “isms” of any kind) but there are essential truths (along with good old common sense) within the buddhist ideology which appear to be universal and certainly apply to the process of recovery as I understand it.

With the embracing of such notions such as

Letting go (of expectations, outcomes, perfectionism, people-pleasing and resistance in general)

Living in the present (one cannot feel anxiety in the present without introducing “what ifs”about the future or hurts from the past)

Acceptance (of change, others, life’s ups and downs and self)

Detachment (from controlling attitudes and from ones’ own problems)

Right mindedness (the essential key to overcoming anxiety being to monitor and redirect the inner critic) and, above all

Peace with self (how can one expect to be loved when the relationship with oneself is at war?)

From these concepts come a new perspective and a greater peace. Life becomes less intense, less earnest, less do-or-die and, as a result, less stressful.

These were some of the ladders and life-ropes that helped me out of the hole. Of course, it took several revisits to learn these skills and, because old habits die hard, even now, I will occasionally stick my toe into the abyss.

The difference now is, I know how to get out straight away but above all, I now know that, by exercising the ability to choose that is my birthright, I can walk down an entirely different street.

Each month, Bev will choose a reader’s question on anxiety or depression to answer which will provide valuable information for others.  If you would like to submit a question for this section, please use the contact form.

You will remain anonymous, apart from a name of your choice and state/country.