…it's a release of Neuropeptides!

I am very aware of my sighs, and mostly associate them with something wrong. I am SO aware that I developed a process to counteract a sigh that expresses emotion, anxiety, or melancholy…or exasperation.

I turn them into a song! As if the sigh is a deep breath taken to begin singing.

I do this:
Sigh (deep breath), segue into a rousing da-da rendition of Dixie. Now that that has been deemed racial, I segue into a da-da Yankee Doodle Dandy. It works! I even describe it as "blowing", as in "Man, I'm blowing a lot today!"

I can spend a few hours in my studio and I am unaware of "blowing" as much the rest of the day.

What if you don't have something positive to distract yourself with? What if your days are filled with boredom? Everything changes in the process of reaching a certain age…some folks are flexible and embrace the change, some are rigid and try to linger with the past.

These changes can be as innocuous as a haircut, or as devastating as being pushed off a cliff. How do you deal? Would you fold your tent and creep off into the sunset? What do you do when a major change presents itself suddenly? Do you have a solution?

Have you realized that these changes lead to you re-creating yourself? You go from student to marriage, to developing a corporate life (or being a corporate wife), to children, being a soccer mom, PTA mom, carpool mom, chief cook and bottle washer. Suddenly you realize that you are of a certain age where your nest is empty, your corporate life boring, and you feel a need to develop YOU. Find out what makes your heart sing, take up something that you were told would not support you or a family. Something totally frivolous, something you enjoy just for the fun of the process. No creation of a product to sell for a business, no making something useful or for a deadline…just something that brings you joy. Sighing will disappear.

BTW, there is scientific evidence that sighs are also necessary lung function, but that is not as romantic. "A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh." Louis Armstrong.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey, nonny nonny.
No Fear Shakespeare → Much Ado About Nothing → Act 2, Scene 3, Page 4

nonny-nonny = nonsense in Elizabethan time

You got this! Be sure to get my free "Axully Art Roadmap" and learn how I did it. Age 51, empty nest...hell, NO NEST to empty...daughter didn't make it out of our house fire on Christmas morning...and my entire life exploded. Art became my focus, my salvation, my burning desire to learn. Along the way, I discovered that the act of painting gave me peace.

Peace where I could heal. Peace I could laugh again.

xxoo