An ‘Art Cures’ Offering:

A Series of Creative Exercises for Personal Healing and Social Impact.

There is always a place in the body where a sense of ease can be found. The body is our home that carries us through the world; it helps us connect with others and our environment. The way that our body functions contains a vast amount of intelligence and resilience.

When facing current events and sensory overload, it is a useful tool to tap into an anchor/resource in the body as it can give us relief from the mind’s preoccupation with fear, worry, self-criticism and over-analyzing. Using the arts and somatic (body-based) awareness can give us many opportunities to be more embodied which can lend to finding more ease and comfort inside and out.

This Weeks Exercise:

CREATIVE RESOURCE

Identify a Body Anchor and Create an Image as a Touchstone

Time: 20min - 1 hour

• Begin with a short meditation focusing on your breath and tracking sensations in the body. Feel free to use a recorded meditation from YouTube or a meditation app.
• As you focus on your body, notice where you find ease or comfort through sensations or in a specific body part - such as feet, arms, lower back, etc. You may feel pain/stress or discomfort in the body. If so, direct your attention to where you feel the opposite sensation(s).
• Continue to identify body part or sensation where you feel the most resourced (i.e. warm, cool, relaxed, spacious, calm, grounded etc.). Expand your awareness of that body anchor through your breath.
• In your journal or on a sketchpad, draw out colors, shapes and textures that tap into the feeling of the body anchor. It can be literal or abstract.
• Use this image as a touchstone in your days to help you come back to the body anchor as often as you can to shift focus and get out of your ‘head’.

If you have questions, or do the exercise, I would be delighted to hear from you with reflections. Send me an email here.