Mindfulness and Meditation – Self-Care and Being Digital in the Arts

A FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY: TEACHING, LEARNING AND RESEARCH IN THE MODERN ACADEMY, Ball State University, Indiana, US, April 2022.

Maybe you feel like most of all (art) students: Do you feel drained from all the digital input you are supposed to deliver, and all the digital output of others you consume? How does this affect your own creativity?  In these digital times, do you also ask yourself how to deliver content, catch up with everyone, motivate yourselves, inspire others, stay creative, stay on track, stimulate discussion, be high-level intellectually, and deliver artistic excellence? All at the same time? Online? Wow. That is a lot.

In the last years, I taught graduate courses called “Mindfulness and Meditation – Self-Care and being Digital in the Arts.” We studied self-care methods. We learned ways to strengthen ourselves energetically. We identified the changes we individually want to see in this world – aka what to focus on and what to let go of. We expanded digitally, but only in directions we actually want to grow. All with the question: How to stay sane in the digital world as a creative human being.