Trusting the Process
Process is a verb in noun's clothing...
Process (noun): technique, procedure, method, system, practice, way, approach, etc.
In the dictionary on my computer, the word process is given more weight as a noun than a verb. Its definitions of process as a verb do not represent experiencing process; the not-yet-knowing aspect, the one step-at-a-time aspect, the something-new-coming-into-being aspect. They represent a desire for order and control.
Process (verb): deal with, attend to, see to, sort out, handle, take care of, action, organize, manage.
To use the word process to express an activity of exploration and evolution requires a phrase that uses the noun, such as ‘in process’ or ‘engaging in a process.’ In this language/culture we often don’t recognize (engaging in) process as a conscious activity, even though it’s all we do, even though we are process.
We like products. We like nouns. They are crisp, specific and identifiable. I have nothing against nouns; I use and respect nouns. But our penchant for seeing objects obscures as much as it clarifies. It obscures interconnectedness, it obscures cause and effect, it obscures patterns of energy, it obscures constant change and transformation. It obscures realities that lie, perhaps, just beyond the range of our usual senses.
And yet. Our lives are process. We are in process. Aren’t all our stories about process? About things happening and then other things happening and people having challenges and figuring out what to do next, or not figuring it out, and changing, for good or for ill? And yet. Don’t we desire our stories about process to end with a product? They lived happily ever after. The treasure was found, the mystery solved. The good guys won and the bad guys lost, or whatever...
Why am I so in love with the idea of process?
Process is life force energy. Objects are corpses, or at least static holograms of energy patterns.
Below is the short description I wrote last September when I started this publication:
I’d rather be here now is an art blog, with an emphasis on process—an open studio. It's a soapbox, sandbox, sketchbook, journal, and practice. And an experiment. With cartoons!
And this is from my ABOUT page:
I’d rather be here now is an experiment in sharing… a train of thought, a description of artistic process, a rant, a joke, a picture, a story… we’ll see how it goes.
IRBHN is about life, art and process. It’s about the weirdness of being human. It’s about transcendence, desire, and living in a body.
I am beginning this project without knowing what it will become. That’s the only way I can begin. Make. Write. Draw. Share.
Examining process helps me to see myself. When I examine my own process, I am not judging myself; I am observing myself. I am giving myself room to move, to grow, to change. It’s not just an activity; it’s a practice. It’s an exercise.
I wish it were easy to observe myself with compassion and without judgement, but it’s not. Most of us have been shaped by a culture that traffics in blame, shame, and guilt as a primary currency, even when it’s under the table.
If you are a person who has not internalized shame, self-blame and guilt, I envy you. If you can lovingly see yourself as a work in progress (or process) then you are blessed with a relationship to life that frees you from the shackles of externalized self-judgement and all the crazy that goes with that.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I don’t want to see when I err, when I do things that do not align with my deepest sense of self, or that don’t accomplish what I want them to, but that’s not judgement as much as noticing when something doesn’t feel good or doesn’t work.
Examining process means body/mind/spirit awareness; it means feeling all the feels.
Examining process is noticing what it feels like to be human. It’s a way to get at something more essential than our bullshit stories about ourselves and everything else.
Now that I’m a few months in with this project…
I’m wondering whether I’m supposed to know what I’m doing, or whether it’s important to hold fast to not knowing. This is getting tricky, because on the one hand, I’m starting a business with the intention of making a living, and this publication is part of it. It is my job to think about how my business will work, what the income streams may be and how to set those up and make them functional.
At the same time, I know that what I want to offer, in various forms, is encouragement and support for not-knowing. For being in process. For loving and trusting the process. So I have to do that myself, and keep doing that.
It doesn’t mean that I can’t make decisions, or see patterns, or experiment to find out what works and what doesn’t work; it means that my big project—which is to follow the path of an artist—has to hold to its own still center of being and meaning, or I don’t in fact have a product.
I have to hold to my own still center of being and meaning. I just called it a ‘still center’ but it’s not really still. My center of being and meaning changes all the time, as I become more receptive. That’s part of the process.
Maybe the still center of being and meaning is trust in the process.
Trust in the process is faith in mystery. It’s acceptance of this strange journey with its hills and valleys, its sunny days and storms, its sorrows and its joys. Its relentless arc from birth to death.
If there is a difference between what we call art and what we don’t call art, it has something to do with the artist’s willingness to engage in a process without inflicting a whole bunch of ulterior motives onto it, benign or otherwise. Trusting the process itself as a guide.
Even though the image below gives the impression that we can move through stages and arrive at BEING, the reality, my reality, is that I slide back and forth on this schematic. One minute I am where I’d rather be, and then the next minute I’m back to fearing, or at least wondering.
And it is that I must trust. The process.
How many times I have misspoke, " a work in process," not "progress." Not going to beat myself up about it.
Both are good and true!