When I painted, I had very little anxiety over how it would turn out because I knew that how the painting looked when I started was not the way it would look at the end. I would make revision after revision until little of the original remained. I might decide that more color was needed and turn a brown coconut into a striped watermelon. I might decide that a monkey best represented the subliminal message I was sending and sketch several until one stood out from the rest. Then he would become my focal point. All along I experimented with colors, with light and shadow, animals, plants, and other figures. While I was working, nothing was set in stone and nothing was unchangeable. At any point the painting could morph away from my original conception and assume a different direction completely. The advantage of working in this intuitive way was an adaptability that less experienced painters lacked. I allowed the brushes to lead me. Like a dancer I followed as gracefully as I knew how without stepping on my own feet. I understood that it was I who both led and followed the conscious mind of Frida.
If you are not an artist, you may have a more difficult time realizing this concept. But many are the times when your unconscious has functioned on your behalf. Have you ever driven your car and began daydreaming, losing track of the road before you, and traveled quite a distance as you were entertained elsewhere? Who do you think was your autopilot? None other than your subconscious mind. It is just that artists become accustomed to tuning into the subtle cues of the unconscious. They have learned that it is more imaginative and clever and almost always is conveying a message. It is the task of the artists to hush and hold their own ideas to make room for the brilliant gestalts of the higher mind. I always was aware that it was not wholly me, but the I AM that expressed itself through me. Christ referred to this power on the cross when he said, "Not my will, but Thine be done." The "thine" was that piece of God that lived within. And the message to each of us seems to be: If you get out of the way and let your higher mind do the driving (or the painting or the list of things you have planned to do), your autopilot will assume command.
In practical terms, what does this mean? Shouldn't you always be in the driver's seat of your life? Up until today you may not have given the unconscious mind any serious consideration. You knew you had one, because occasionally it seemed that there was another part of you functioning apart from your awareness of it. But it seemed mysterious and unknowable, so you did not question. What if, instead of leading 100% of the time, you switched on the autopilot? While accessing the subconscious is not as black and white as I am making it out to be, it is a choice. Christ had a definite choice: go his own way or follow God's lead. Getting out of your own way will produce surprising results. The conscious mind assumes it knows the best way. However, it is not the only way at your disposal. Aren't two choices always better than one?
The question is, how to get the chattery mind, the obvious mind, to step aside? One's ego must be willing to follow. One must trust, mustn't that be true? If we are lost and you tell me that you will lead us out, I must throw in my lot with you. My plan must step aside, which means my ego must show humility. Humility is the willingness to be led and to listen. Men are not as naturally adept at humility as women. Their egos bark louder than a woman's, and this is evolutionary. Someone in the group of ancestors had to take the lead, so evolution chose the biggest and strongest, as they could defend the group that came behind them. It isn't that they want to lead; their brains do it for them. However, once men learn how to harness the power of the subconscious, they can cooperate beautifully with it. The secret is in making it work for you. When you are out of creative ideas, when you have a problem with no apparent solution, you are blocked. You may have writer's block, or like Thomas Edison, you may be looking for a scientific solution. He learned to put his subconscious to work for him by napping in the middle of his workday. When he was stumped, he would lie down on the cot in his workshop. Many times the answer or next step came to him just before or right after sleep. This is because he was willfully handing over the wheel. The act of napping was a signal to his unconscious mind to take over. The key to success is not in what signal you use, but in laying down your worry about it. Refuse to think about the problem; shift gears. Get it completely out of your awareness. But let the unconscious know that you are out of answers and awaiting its lead. This permission is key. This thought must be clear and convincing. Tell yourself, "If I continue to fret, I am not trusting." To trust is to listen and follow. Do not deal with it again until you have realized a breakthrough in your thinking. Would you be sent all alone into life without guidance? That is like sending a rocket to the moon without an operating system. You were born with the ability to switch your conscious mind off and your unconscious mind on. When you do this, the unconscious system takes over. Sleep is a natural way for the body to power down so your circuits get refreshed. This is why sleep prompted Edison's solutions. He was flipping his anxious mind off long enough for it to be reset.
This advantage of tapping into the unconscious is especially urgent for artists of all kinds, or anyone needing greater access to creative imagination. Imagination is all and everything to the artist who uses it as a blueprint. There are those who paint only what they see, a landscape or a nude, and there is nothing at all wrong with realism. But in the wacky world of surrealism, imagination must take over and run wild. When you do not have a model before you, when you do not have a writing outline or a drawing, when as an inventor you do not have a prototype, what you do have is your vivid imagination. Writer's block is simply a lack of imagination.
Now that I have made a convincing argument for partnering with the unconscious, you must practice. In couples' dancing there are two positions: the lead and the follower. You might think if you have never danced before that following someone's lead would be a simple matter. They take you by the hand and spin you around the dancefloor. However, serious dancers know that following is every bit as difficult as leading because the follower copies every step the leader makes, only she does it backward! When he steps forward, she steps back. As in dancing, it takes practice to be a good follower. Mostly, with the unconscious, or shall we call it the imagination, the ego simply has to get its feet out of the way and follow. Once the ego is checked, fresh ideas can be introduced. It is resistance to new ideas and a rigidity that robs the world of greater imagination. You may think, "I don't have an ego—someone else has one, but not me. I am the epitome of grace under pressure." However, should we ask your partner, family, and friends if you can be stubborn, and would they nod sheepishly? Every human has a will. I am not asking you to not know what you want. Having your own will is healthy, and if you had asked those who knew me if I could be stubborn, they would have all laughed! Have a strong will! You must in order to survive. I am asking you to practice humility, listening, and following so that your higher mind may come to your rescue.
You will know when the unconscious is unlocked to you, for your imagination will return. You will receive pictures and instructions, and the intuitive ones will have extra sensory perception, including receiving messages from the spirit world. During most of my lifetime I failed to practice the faith of my family. But as my body went into decline, I was confined to the bed. I was alone a great deal. The isolation was difficult for me. I longed to do the simplest things for myself: walk around my garden, take care of my animals, and paint while sitting in a chair. However, I learned a deep and spiritual humility that I could not learn as "Frida the great artist." The only way to learn humility is to be humbled, and illness will cut you down faster than anything. In my last years I was cut to the quick. Every day I contemplated my miserable fate: polio and a leg disfigurement, the bus accident that pierced my uterus and rendered me barren, the unsuccessful back surgeries that put me in a body cast, and finally, the greatest indignity of becoming a helpless invalid. Strangely, none of these physical trials amounted to anything when compared to the indignities my heart suffered. And by "heart" I mean that my love was thrown away. There is no greater pain than a broken heart, nothing as wretched. If I had not unlocked my imagination, if I had not learned how to follow, I would have been empty-handed. Art became my oxygen. It gave me a purpose when all hope had flown, and I want the same for you. When everyone is gone and it is finally you in the silence and stillness, can you find your spark, and will it kindle a fire within that you can warm yourself by?
With Love,
Frida
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