Trauma & Art

Gratitude

I don’t keep a gratitude diary, although I may begin morning journaling with gratitude for waking up to another day, to begin with, but it is mostly throughout the day and during meditation that I mostly express my gratitude or/and get in touch with that place of opening of the heart. Gratitude at the end of the day also helps me put things into some sort of perspective.

Some of the things I am usually grateful for …..

The fact that I am still here. So, health always comes first, mine and all those I carry in my heart. The food and all the comforts and material goods available to me and my family. The sunny weather and the smiles my pets bring to me. Fresh flowers and a walk by the sea. The writing and / or the artwork I get done each day. The courage to post on any particular day. The daily practices that nourish me like meditation, tapping and prayer. Inspiring stories and valuable new information that come my way….

Some additional things that I am grateful for today…..

The videos from the Tapping Solution World Summit.. for the information and the opportunity to do new variations of tapping exercises. The scripts are too long to share here, but I have personally found that tapping is one of the really effective tools to release underlying or repressed emotions and increase clarity

Dr Terarai Trent’s inspiring story of how she fulfilled her broken dreams……..  at: https://www.marieforleo.com/2019/03/tererai-trent-achieve-your-dreams/?uid=14be0be331533d9a5c8caddc9a3e1f12

And her book, The girl who buried her dreams in a can, which I bought as a small treat for myself today.

Three things: art, intuition and tapping

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Today I am posting two samples of the artwork I am making at the moment, which has been waiting for over a decade in my psyche and arts supply cupboard, in the form of ideas and quick sketches in a file. To some extent I owe the fact that I have finally decided to engage with the process to my coming into contact with Seth Godin’s ideas in his book The Icarus Deception (see previous post), which brought my own carrying around the Icarus myth and relevant old lessons to the foreground, and in some sense gave me a nudge to finally turn the ideas into artwork. (The quality of the scanning may not be very good, but it’s the best I could get, even though the scanning was done by professionals in town…. because my home device is not suitable for A3 size paper)
2. Making art has been a big part of my life, and has also, assisted me on this journey; however, it is not the same as art journaling, which I have also engaged with to a smaller degree. I have explored this process through engaging with it, doing an art therapy course, reading books on art therapy, and eventually, using ideas that spontaneously evolved. However, over the last year I got into the habit of trying all sorts of ideas that I found online or in my inbox without always evaluating their value or underlying intention, which very recently brought home to me how often we don’t listen to our intuition and disregard what feels right for us, and also, that one size does not fit all. So, a little while ago I was watching a video to do with art journaling. The art material required was a journal, coloring material and duct tape. It more or less involved writing all the practices, interests and activities that support and nourish us in a container and then covering it with duct tape and sort of creating zebra stripes. Then this was covered with blobs of paint in various colours. Then the duct tape was removed and more painting was applied until the positive experiences were out of sight. I noticed that I didn’t feel comfortable with the process and started wondering about the goal and underlying intention of this particular structured activity, so, I simply decided to respect my feelings and listen to the associations that were coming up. The duct tape zebra design was reminiscent of rails or a cage and the duct tape and layers of paint over the positive experiences felt like a process of silencing or pushing positive experience and processes out of sight. However, ultimately the experience proved positive because it brought home to me the importance of being present and respectful of our gut feelings or right brain processing and insights, and also, the necessity to always engage with things with our critical appreciation centres online.
3. Finally, a little mention to tapping or Emotional Freedom Technique. Tapping is a powerful and easy technique, which I use, definitely not often enough. I often think that mindfulness practices and tapping should become part of the school curriculum if we are truly invested in creating more resilience, self awareness, presence and a sense of empowerment in our children. Anyway, The Tapping World Summit 2019 is on and I have been watching some of the videos. One tapping exercise I have engaged with comes from Jack Canfield. In brief, we tap on a physical pain, emotion or critical thought, which we then take further by exploring its relationship with our childhood, which allows for much deeper relief and clarity.