Since I’ve learned that many of the “free” images from online sharing sites can be stolen, I’m beginning the process of switching over to images that I’ve taken or created. This is a watercolor from this spring, and I’ll be using it in many of my graphics.
Art can be a sometimes surprising way to express yourself when you need an outlet. You may already be an artist, or perhaps you believe that you're not "artsy." Believe me, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and besides, who says that art has to be beautiful? It can simply be for you, as a way for you to access your inner feelings that don't have words or that you haven't yet found another way to express. Creating art is a time to suspend judgement and let what's inside come out.
There are all kinds of ways of being artsy and expressing yourself, and they don't have to be beautiful or "normal" or aspire any kind of perfection. (If you'd like to hear more about perfectionism, then you may like this 3-part video series on perfectionism that I did with fellow DEI licensees, Sherry Olander, and Sarah Alexander, LCSW.)
Expressing yourself can come in many different ways: A spreadsheet with color-coded columns that compute your gross income automatically, neatly folded tablecloths in your linen closet, your jewelry or clothing choices for the day, planting a garden or flowers, doing masonry, pottery, writing, drawing, acting, textile crafts...there are so many ways to express yourself.
Expressing yourself is one way of accessing your emotions and the very important things they have to tell you. If you don't yet know how to listen to your emotions, then creating art, any kind of art, can be the intermediary between how you're feeling, and bringing that knowledge to your conscious awareness.
In my last missive, I wrote about the way that I am awakening to the uncomfortable reality of my own racism through silence and inaction. Two of the ways I've found that help me express my emotions around this are artistic: I've designed and begun knitting a banner that reads Black Lives Matter, to hang on our fence facing the road, and I volunteered for Reclaim Our Vote, and wrote 250 postcards encouraging black voters in North Carolina and Arizona to vote.
You can see the lower part of the Black Lives Matter banner in progress. For those keen on knitting, I’m knitting it in the round and I’m going to steek it.
The emotions I notice when express myself in these ways often include contentment, since I'm doing something I feel good about, anger, at the racism and injustice that happens all around me, and anxiety, as I wonder what I should do next.
It is by welcoming and leaning into our intense emotions that have important messages for us that we learn, and change, and grow, and let go of old parts of ourselves that are no longer useful or relevant. Often we don't want to hear the message, because it upends our sense of identity, or clashes with our ideas about how things should be, but the emotion won't truly recede until we hear the message. One of the wisest things we can do is trust our emotions and the truths they hold by finding ways to bridge the span between how we express our emotions, and what our emotions are trying to express to us.
What kind of "art" do you create, and how does it connect you to your emotions? I'd love to hear back from you.