body | SpiritSentient Art + Success Coaching

All Is Creative: Express Yourself

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Feb 22, 2009 in Confidence, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, SpiritSentient.com | 5 comments

What is style? It’s something most people recognize either consciously or subconsciously, and it pervades and affects everything we do. I’ll use an excerpt from KinoWear.com:

"[Style is] the total combination of the way you dress, talk, move your body, or do anything for that matter. Simply put, it’s how we express our inner being outwardly. This includes all of our thoughts, emotions, interests, and values. Everything on the outside is merely a reflection of what’s on the inside." – Jae, Kinowear.com

Over the past year or so I’ve really been expanding my self-expression through fashion, accessories, and a stronger sense of personal style. There was a time in my life where I’d shun all this as not worth my attention, and interestingly, I now feel completely opposite to that. I feel that everything I project into the world is an intensely personal part of my creativity and my art.

I’ve been surrounded with stylish and beautiful people my entire life, and I only see that increasing, which has helped my development in this area (and all areas) quite a bit. I believe Ronald Reagan said, "Surround yourself with the best people you can find." and in my experience, that strategy works wonders. My friends Barry (of Neutral Density Films) and Greg were particularly instrumental in my growth, always giving me amazing quality clothing when they were upgrading their oft-revolving wardrobe or as a gift. (In fact, Barry gave me a couple of amazing shirts yesterday!) They genuinely wanted me to have good, stylish items and as I began wearing them and broadening my horizons, I started to realize how much of an artform personal style + appearance truly can be. Like everything in my life, as soon as I begin viewing it as a creative art, I became quite engaged in it, and now I keep an eye out for things which I feel express my personality well.

During this post, I’ll go over some links, stores, pieces, and ideas that have struck me on my journey of personal style, and maybe you can take something from it. My current focus is on accessories that I can put on which take only seconds of effort but add so much… presence. To this end I’ve enlisted the aid of an awesome jewelry designer, Bella Agronik, of Opal Sky Creations (site launching late 2009). She’s provided me with 4-5 beautiful pieces that I feel exemplify me and what I’m all about, even better than anything else I own. I cannot say enough good things about the gorgeous appeal and amazing feel of this jewelry. A topic I’d like to get into another time is the phenomenal feeling of trusting an artist to be in touch with your soul and express your vision through their own personal creativity and style. Mm. (This must be what people feel like when I create something for them eh? )

"Take a plain, low-priced product like jeans and embellish it with design. Suddenly it becomes a ‘fashion’ jeans." – Howard Davidowitz

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Carnelian Pendant w/ Red Coral – Click to Enlarge/Details

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Onyx Necklace & Bracelet – Click to Enlarge/Details

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Fluorite w/ Hematite Pendant – Click to Enlarge/Details

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Wood Bead & Date Pit Necklace – Click to Enlarge/Details

What you can’t see from the pictures above is how I feel when I wear these pieces. Anything that makes you feel your best is not only something to bring into your life fervently, but it is something that has farther-reaching benefit’s than most people are aware.

Also in the accessories vein, I’m looking forward to this amazing stained-glass pendant crafted by Tanya Mustachi. I’ve known Tanya a long time, she is extremely talented and her artistry is wonderful. I like the bad-ass-with-a-touch-of-class-ness of this pendant and I don’t even have it yet!

style-watch

On top of all that, my parents gave me this beautiful watch this past Christmas, which I felt like getting adjusted and it suits me so well. I’m also looking at belts, wrist-bands, etc.

I’d like to mention that though I started with these, accessories are often considered the finishing touches of style and are looked at as the added details that help one shine and stand out from the crowd. Still sometimes I may feel strongly like wearing a certain piece, and base an outfit around that, other times, vice-versa.

Speaking of outfit’s, lately mine tend to unify and flow (concepts you may be familiar with from art class.. but are quite universal,) receiving attention from me much the same way an art commission would. Many of my clothes are hyper-functional as well as stylish, or they have a story of some kind to them or both. (Stories are awesome, who doesn’t like stories?) When I was younger I was in a bit of a rut. Life is always changing around me. Fashion changes, my body shape and attiude changes (for the better!), and I enjoy being able to adapt to these changes, and still reflect who I really am:

"Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress, and the way to live." – Gianni Versace

style-outfit

A lot of things I buy, I buy at MEC. My friend Jon, who is an energy management enthusiast, turned me on to the superb gear sold by Mountain Equipment Co-Op a long time ago, and I’ve loved it since. My lightest-yet-most resistant-to-the-elements jacket is from there, as are my fleece-lined winter dress-pants + the wicking long tees i wear for climbing. This winter I’ve been able to offer spare hats to a few friends, and I picked up the most amazingly stylish winter boots as well.

"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy: for the apparel oft proclaims the man." – Shakespeare

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MEC makes versatile, specialized, super-high quality clothing for all of Canada’s fickle-weather and crazy terrains, no matter the season, and they do so for not-a-whole-lot more than the average store. Personally, I think it is tremendous value for one’s dollar. Not only that but they are extremely active in all things environmental and their presence bolsters and aids and contributes positively to all sorts of green companies + consumers.

Another inspiration for me came in the form of KinoWear.com: a male-oriented style website, featuring articles like: What Asia Taught Me About Style, Why Passion Is So Attractive, and How To Choose Colors That Flatter) It’s run by Professional Style Coach, Jae, and their forums contain worthwhile discussions on all aspects of style.

(If I wasn’t already so dashing, I’d definitely get an Image Consultation from Jae )

"The creative universe begins with it’s essentiality, and, whatever path the imagination takes, ends with it’s purity… I love the T-shirt as an anti-status symbol, putting rich and poor on the same level in a sheath of white cotton that cancels the distinctions of caste." – Giorgio Armani

Next up: spiritsentient Shirts – All this art + style stuff prompted me to create my own shirts. Here’s an example: spiritsentient – Brainstorm.

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I had a blast creating this and have more in the works! Let’s see, what else… Sometimes I find ridiculously beautiful clothes in the unlikeliest of places, such as garage sales, the Thrift Store, or Value Village.

And even articles of clothing I don’t show-off that often (or do I), such as boxer-shorts and undershirts – I like for them to have my own personal style, flare, and preferences showing through – Bamboo and Silver-threaded stuff in summer and Polartec / fleece stuff in winter.

I’m placing my first t-shirt order from Silverback Apparel soon, and I’m making the switch to Bamboo Boxers from Joe Boxer, and I’m super excited. The little things in life can often make a big difference

There are entire stores dedicated to nutritional supplements, the shelves filled with products to cater to individual work-out/needs or growth-style.

Of course, there’s a lot more to personal style than just clothes, and I could go on about them for ages: there’s your walk, your posture, how you behave under pressure or how you express excitement. There’s your car, computer, furniture, or home. There’s your MSN name, facebook profile, or even the way you talk. Of particular interest, most people will tell you, is the that the way you kiss says a tremendous amount about yourself to others.

There are even modelling schools and deportment courses which delve into this in-depth. They focus on:

Deportment Stages – How you carry yourself tells people a lot about you. Learn how to sit, stand, walk and carry yourself to give the best impression that you can give… one of confidence, individual style and grace.
Correct Posture – Posture is one of the most important subjects of deportment, for not only health but also presentation reasons. Your posture says a lot about you.
Personality Development – Your personality is your most important asset. Confidence and self-assurance is the key to all areas in life. Allow us to help you obtain these precious qualities and excel to the top.
Speech And Conversation – Learn to converse and project your voice in a clear and confident manner with the use of breathing and vocal exercises. Just watch the difference in how you are received by others!
Wardrobe Planning – Fashion is all about style – creating your own INDIVIDUAL style without being a fashion victim. Dress to suit your shape, colouring and your lifestyle.
Nutrition And Body – Nutrition, correct eating and exercise all help to obtain a healthier mentality and lifestyle
Skin Care – Today’s beauty routines are compatible with the busiest lifestyles. Learn how to care and protect your skin for everyday. A professional skincare teacher will look at you individually, perform a skin diagnosis and show you how to care and maintain your skin type.
Hair Care – The importance of clean, healthy, shiny hair cannot be underestimated. Understanding your hair type; determining what colour and style will suit your face shape are essentials for good hair. Learn the basics of styling in a practical session.
Make-Up – Learn the tricks, update your skills and let a professional make-up artist give you a step by step demonstration on current fashion trends and classic looks. Make-up that goes from day to night, you will learn what colours suit you and how to apply them to your own face.
Manicure And Pedicure – Your hands and feet are always in view. Learn to keep them well groomed in this practical class to compliment your new image.

I hope this trip through my personal life can give some ideas on how style can say a lot, and regardless, on any level, anything we think manifests itself in the physical world… so think good things, your-style.

"Know first who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly." – Epictetus

I’m out… Love to hear your own style stories, inspirations, recommendations, etc.

How To Get a Handle on Attention and Opportunity

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Sep 1, 2008 in Abundance, Awareness, Confidence, Conscious Creation, Life Coaching, Personal Growth, Success, Thought-Management | 2 comments

Pay attention to this article… and don’t miss any opportunities along the way

Pay Attention!

It’s likely you’ve heard this admonishment at least once in your life. Most children hear it many times, though we may fail to heed the true-meaning behind it. I propose that the phrase ‘pay attention’ is wisdom of a high order, though it is often said in haste and without conscious thought.

People may tell you to pay attention to a lecture, or pay attention to their misery (or their accomplishment) or pay attention to the dangerous live-wire hanging menacingly inches above your head, and that’s all well and good, but I’m writing about paying attention to life, the universe, and everything.

Youth and Short Attention Spans.

When you were little, what got your attention? Shiny things? Magic tricks? Toys? Novelties and New Things? Other people?

Children are commonly thought to have short attention spans and thought to require training or teaching to ‘improve’ their focus. Yet they can play a single sport or stay at a single park for hours and hours on end — fully present and immersed in their environment — and neither hunger, nor adults, nor anyone can truly sway them from it until they are ready. That’s focus. That’s mastery of attention.

Perhaps children’s ‘short attention spans’ is not what is driving them, perhaps they’re simply far more open and attuned to opportunity. Kids are able to switch from activity to activity without limit or habit or neurosis or doubt. They’re ready and eager to learn something new. They’re ready to give their bodies a stretch or a break if they’ve spent too much time in one position, or maybe they shift in order to socialize with a different person. Children understand and embrace their need for a variety of stimuli to focus their attention on with no apology or doubt.

Many adults attempt to ‘stay youthful,’ many adults appreciate youthfulness in others. Many spiritual masters can seem almost child-like, and many of them have taught child-like-ness as a key to spiritual mastery.

This is because children generally have it right, and adults (like myself) have but to remember how we used to behave, and the inner-rules we used to follow before we ‘learned all of society’s bad habits’ along with it’s good. Children do not lock themselves into one task and ignore the needs of their bodies because they are worried about deadlines and not having ‘enough time’ to get things done. They’re not worried that they won’t make rent or that they need to find a mate now, otherwise it may be ‘too late to start a relationship’.

By not thinking these things, by managing their thoughts, they’re open to opportunities, and take them as they come.

There is much to be re-learned from our own childhoods, things that we’ve somehow dismissed as negative.

Multi-tasking and Focus.

We live in ‘the information age,’ and its been said that the irony is, despite all this information at our finger tips, we’re all generally ‘dumber’. The majority of people don’t actually multi-task efficiently, they are instead less-focused, less-driven, and spend less time on any given single task. People are being born into a world that pressures them to dilute their attention with a million distractions.

"[The symptoms of this are] when people find that they’re not working to their full potential; when they know that they could be producing more but in fact they’re producing less; when they know they’re smarter than their output demonstrates; when they start answering questions in ways that are more superficial, more hurried than they usually would; when their reservoir of new ideas starts to run dry; when they find themselves working ever-longer hours and sleeping less, exercising less, spending free time with friends less and in general putting in more hours but getting less production overall." – Dr. Edward Hallowell.

The internet is an extremely powerful information tool, but if we allow it to become twisted into what we believe productivity is, rather than seeing it as a tool to help us be more productive in ways we might not have been, it could be considered a problem. It’s quite easy to get distracted if one doesn’t pay attention.

For example, I’m a pretty good chef (if I do say so myself,) and cooking feels a lot like art to me, but I have degraded the quality of many dishes I’ve prepared by getting too involved with my computer while it cooked (burned). I’ve also degraded the output of my creative production and blog, while stopping to cook food (though some might claim this to be a necessity )

Often multi-tasking spreads our focus too thin and we’re not present or aware of enough to recognize opportunities as they unfold. I’d like to note though that through mastery over one’s thoughts and attention, a form of ‘multi-tasking’ is definitely an option. I’m not hating on it altogether and I feel pretty comfortable with it in my life.

Okay so we’ve discussed attention…

What Exactly is an ‘Opportunity?’

This is where the subject becomes a little trickier, as its personal for everyone. I’ll start with an example from my life, as I’m sometimes inclined to do: This weekend, I was pretty wrapped up in setting up an online store for SpiritSentient.com (now temporarily offline) and I’d committed a year ago to my cousin Gerry’s yearly labour day bash. Although many people wanted me to go, I seriously considered staying home to focus my attention on work, and hopefully start getting sales through the store, as money had appeared to be tight in my life at the time. Despite appearances, I know about opportunities, abundance, and attention, and In the end, I decided to take a break, spend time with family and friends, and get outdoors.

In doing this, I had the opportunity to show my art to tons of people who’d never seen it, and I benefitted from very strong interest in it. I was also able to brighten a child’s life by giving her a canvas print as a gift. After doing so, her father (my uncle,) proposed a commissioned work, so it turns out I may have gotten more money going to this labour day party than I would’ve shut up in my house working on my computer, which I sorely needed a break from anyway. So I got my break, some fun, exposure for my art, and a possible commission all because I took the opportunity to spend time with my family and friends.

It’s still very personal though, for another person, the reverse case might apply… it might go something like: they were invited to a party, but decided to buckle down and get some work done instead, just in time to impress or acquire some new customers or an important referral, and I cannot say for certain which direction anyone should go. Either way, each individual has feelings about their choices, and each of us knows what opportunity to take, they key is remaining open to them. The timing on taking opportunities tend to be guided by ‘gut-feeling’ or ‘instinct’ and the proof is generally in the pudding. An opportunity taken with proper timing generates impressive results (feelings).

How is this all tied in to creativity?

There are benefits from being creative that are sometimes tricky to instantly and physically measure, but it can be far more valuable than many people imagine. One of them is the sense of fulfillment you can get from accessing and acknowledging your own creative ideas. Coming up with something ‘good’ or ‘new’ in your life can make one feel alive and vibrant, passionate and driven, and can start a large cycle of passionate and inspired action that is far superior to seeking money or fretting about keeping it. These ‘strokes of genius’ tend to occur when we snatch an opportunity life places in front of us. Those opportunities are often one’s ‘next-level’ in disguise, requiring us to take a step (‘small’ or ‘large’) to uncover it.

I have missed many opportunities in the past. I’m not regretful about this, it’s just a fact. I often got so caught up in the rules, what I should be doing, and how things looked to others, that I missed opportunities going on all around me. It’s fine, and it can happen I made a choice to listen my feelings, whatever reality seems to be telling me, and to not to miss them any more. On top of that there’s always more opportunities around the corner waiting for us to accept them, and that’s the most beautiful part of it all. So take stock, open your senses to all the opportunities life presents.

Interestingly, I was not inspired to write an article when i went to sleep last night, I was focused on my online store, but when I woke up and found I could not access SpiritSentient.com and I was unable to continue work.

This could’ve been viewed like a huge problem, but trusted my feelings, and I chose to look at it as an opportunity to focus on something else, such as writing articles, so that’s what I did. As I was writing, an old employer and great friend of mine (John) stopped by to visit. We went for coffee and got to talking and we ended up deciding to try selling my art at his organic honey stand: art to attract people off the street, and honey to sweeten the deal, as it were An opportunity presented itself in the middle of my writing a blog on opportunity, I like it.

How Can I Recognize Opportunity?

I briefly touched on ‘gut-feeling’ and listening to your body to know when opportunity is near, and this is a very effective method of discernment. If you get those butterflies in your stomach pushing toward one thing or another, it’s can be taken as a sign. Nature gives many methods, tools, and techniques to guide all living things towards healthy actions for them. If you find it easier to pay attention to your mind than your body, perhaps you can notice your mind trying to talk you out of/into something with judgements such as “oh this is a bad activity, nothing good can come of it” or “you’re better than this, don’t waste your time with it” — those types of thoughts are pretty strong judgments and are usually quick to steer us away from opportunities which often have incredibly positive reprecussions for us. Either way, it’s up to each of us to pay proper attention to our bodies and minds and hearts and the signals that they send.

Another very good sign that life is presenting you with a ‘chance’ is when it repeatedly brings you a specific opportunity. For example, more and more lately, I’ve had women encouraging me to dance, and I very often turn down these invitations. It’s not that I cannot dance, or that I’m afraid I won’t be good (I’m actually pretty decent: behold, a chef and a dancer is I –) I just generally am not feeling that into it. Some people prefer not to workout or not to play ball, getting their activity a different way, similarly I prefer to keep my dancing to a minimum. The flipside of this though, is that I am well aware that there could be powerful opportunities hidden in the experience, and so I make sure I am consciously open to them and not just dismissing them out of hand. As it stands I did take one of the invitees up on it, briefly, and it felt great

The concepts I’ve discussed here may seem a bit foreign, or abstract, or unbelievable but I encourage you to remain open, aware, and attentive to the opportunities that life presents…

You may be very pleasantly surprised at just how effective that “extra” bit of attention can be.

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