YES!!!

I was driving my girl to kindergarten the other day and she was in the back seat in her booster talking and singing to herself as she does, when I heard her say, passionately, YESSSSS!

You know there are probably books and magazine articles and scientific studies that I could look up and quote and hyper link to but assuming they are all in agreement my sense is that saying the word YES!!! in a positive passionate way is pretty darn good for us and our momentum our physiology our brain state and moving us along with our paintings, business goals, dreams and whatever else we are doing.

What about working on a painting and we do something that we are really happy with and saying YES!!! out loud and having a mini little celebration? Now wouldn't that be a great re-enforcement to keep going. ( I think when I start 

teaching Illuminate the Artist Within (R) workshops we will incorporate this somehow into the class. YES! the concept perhaps being to 'embrace' our mistakes and allow the process)

Now, what abut taking that even another step and doing it when you think you've fucked up and something happened with the work that wasn't planed, expected, wanted, anticipated - say in my case Ruthie comes in to the studio and decides to "help out" with my paintings ( we caught a great clip of this for the video and it ended up being an awesome co-painting experience! YES!) and at first we are initially not so happy about this thing. So what if we say YES!!! with Passion and enthusiasm?

Kinda like a  big YES!!! to life even if its going our way or not our way. Because its all beautiful. The mess the planned and unplanned parts. 

and YES I am intending on seeing YES Man as soon as I can get a sitter! 

Ruthie Firefly age 5 1/2 my little Yes girl, shining bright.