Art Soothes the Nervous System (an art peek video) | Something from the Studio 18
Four months have passed since I’ve posted here at the blog specifically… time to dip back in.
What better way than with a short video peek at a bunch of practice pages, demos and invitations from parts of my Painting inSpirit exploration over on Patreon so far this year?
As I flipped through some of the videos and pages that you’ll glimpse in the video, and then sat at my studio table and worked on a simple contemplative landscape painting this week… I’ve just been struck by the gratitude I have for my creative practice. It’s very much a part of my whole mind-body-spirit wellbeing care.
Making art is how I so often soothe my nervous system, relieve anxiety, come back into my own experience, let things percolate and process, re-member and reconnect with my joy, or just get deeply present, without outside measure, expectation or pressure.
It is good medicine for any fight, flight or freeze patterns of stress, for sure. It is tactile, embodied (off-the-screen!), holistic, welcoming of all the ways we might feel or be in a given moment… and a wonderful mindfulness practice and reset.
I don’t know about you, but I have really needed that space these past four months of 2020.
The space that art makes and holds for all the parts of us, when we take the time to make art for no reason but the making and communion and renewal that can come alive within that space, within us.
I don’t think this ride of uncertainty and change in the world is anywhere near over either.
Every day we can pause and engage with our gratitude for the creative energy of Life is a gift.
May we all find and practice the ways of expression, healing and being-with that ease, soothe and nourish our nervous systems, and align us with a greater sense of trust, beauty, spaciousness and connection as things unfold, and as we play our part where our feet and hearts are planted with what is ours to do.
Join my Creative Practice explorations and warm community on my Patreon, which is where I have been doing most of my posting, connecting and sharing lately. (now with a new annual membership option, or month-to-month)
