~By Parick McNerthney
I need to reframe a piece of art. During my family’s recent social isolation-inspired Nerf gun battle this piece of art somehow fell off the wall, breaking the frame. I didn’t do it.
It’s a watercolor painting of a goose (yes, a goose, as in Canadian goose, next to a goose (yes, a goose as in Canadian goose) a decoy, c’mon, stop laughing. I bought in Italy. Thus it has sentimental value and it’s important I reframe this thing. This process reminds me of the power of reframing as a life skill. You know, the annoying kind of reframing, the kind where we look at things, typically challenges we face, through a different lens. For example, I recently read this on a blog post:
The constraints from social isolation can lead to new inventiveness.
Hmph. Sounds like work to me. I can feel my hackles rise in resistance to this notion, mostly because if I just focus on. Okay, that sounds bad. Maybe it’s time to reverse course and reframe how I see the constraints I’m experiencing because on where I’m stuck, I don’t have to do anything about it. It’s called complaining, thank you very much.
But wait.
Okay, that sounds bad. Maybe it’s time to reverse course and reframe how I see the constraints I’m experiencing because of the pandemic. The book A Beautiful Constraint claims they can be “fertile, enabling and desirable,” and when I really think about it, I’ve spent quite a bit of time hiking and otherwise experiencing nature with my son thanks to the fact we can’t do much else.
And to get really funky, you know how Mick Jagger has these iconic, idiosyncratic dance moves? He kind of wiggles like a worm on stage, it’s crazy, and even inspired a song. According to his bandmate Keith Richards, this came from Mick attempting to “wow” the audience despite the confined space of the tiny venues they first played. Which reminds me of what I must look like as I wheeze through an attempt to workout in this tiny corner of our living room – although technically I’ve lost weight.
So are there social isolation-inspired constraints you can reframe into opportunities? Is there an iconic dance move of your own you can develop in our new world of confined spaces?
Sometimes you need a little help figuring this out, and here at Fine Art Miracles we love to help! Please take a look at our resources – they’re designed to improve feelings of self-worth and connection in the elderly and other vulnerable populations through creative expression. In other words – we offer the perfect tools for reframing the constraint of social isolation into an opportunity for your residents to experience joy and possibility.
I’d better get back to reframing my beloved goose.
