Creative self-care is not just about regular exercise, eating right, and making time to relax.
Creative self-care is about feeding your soul.
It’s making sure that you have something to be excited about when you get up in the morning. For me, that’s family, art, and running. For you it might be something else. Or, perhaps you aren’t even sure what gets you going anymore.
If you are feeling, low, anxious, or generally “blah,” passion is an excellent way to combat these feelings. Taking risks and facing your fears shows anxiety and depression what you are made of.
This is what we are going to be all about in this year at Mindful Art Studio:
Take chances. Fail. Get creative. Get rejected. Meet someone new. Try a new sport or class. Pick up your paintbrushes. Take a dance class. Most of all, GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY. (Can someone remind me of that later?) If you like this idea, check out how to Use Art to Relax, Simple Drawing Techniques for Anxiety, and my podcast on How Even Non-Artists Can Use Art Journaling to Relieve Stress.
Getting Fear Out of the Way
This weekend I heard a great story about a man who was so afraid of being rejected that he rarely left his house and the company of his four cats. To conquer his fear, he decided to actively seek out rejection every day. He did this successfully, because he’d made it a game, every time he got rejected, he actually felt good.
The most amazing part of his “rejection therapy” was that he discovered that there were far more people willing to accept him and his random requests than he thought. The world is full of far more yeses, than no’s. Click here to hear the whole story on NPR.
This year I will be talking a lot more about the intersections between fear, creativity, and mental health. We’ll also be engaging in some fun, silly, creative challenges. I’m hoping you’ll see that you, and we, are stronger than you thought.
Let go of your expectations, your attachment to the outcomes, and join me in making space for a spark in your day. I am beyond excited to hear what you report back.
Will you join me?
Creativity Challenge #1: Paint with Your Non-Dominant Hand
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Just pick up the brush with the “wrong” hand and see what comes out. This exercise is about getting out of your own way. You don’t need to be an “artist” or “creative” to do the creativity challenges.
Think you have “no artistic talent?” Good. Paint something really ugly. That’s stretching your comfort zone, taking a chance, and facing a small fear to say, “In your face!”
To help get you started, you might try some of the following tricks:
1. Hold the brush like you are pointing at something, not like a pencil.
2. Embrace the wobbliness, and “mistakes,” they are exactly what you want.
3. Turn on some music to help you relax.
4. Do more than one painting to give yourself a chance to get into it. If you tend to do quick pieces with just a few strokes, do some more complex ones, or vice versa.
For More Inspiration:
- Try one of the 5 minute art exercises in this post.
- Make simple drawings for anxiety relief.
- Take an online art journaling class to learn to use that wonderful blank journal to express and heal!
Join the Creative Self-Care Facebook Group!
I have set up a group on Facebook so that we can share our images. Click here and request to be added to the Creative Self-Care Facebook group. You can share what you create in the Creativity Challenges and see what others are doing too. It will be a fabulous, supportive, creative community.
What Sparks Your Creativity and Passion?
Tell us about it in the comments and share some of your own tricks for staying inspired and interested.