March 24, 2023
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Booking THERAPY INTENSIVESfor February and March!
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Now, before you click away with a proclamation, “I’m not an artist” or “I could never draw something good enough,” bear with us for a few moments. Breathe.
This is not for masterful artists who can create stunning portraits, clean lines, or breathtaking landscapes—not necessarily. This form of art is for those who carry stress in their backs and the world of responsibility on their shoulders.
This week, we’re drawing up an art exercise to calm the mind. You can have shaky hands, imperfect circles, and be bad with color mixing because (spoiler alert) the end product does not matter. We’re focusing on the process.
In a world filled with billions of people, we tend to make things personal. With access to nearly the entire world on the internet, we see thousands of other people, and naturally, we compare ourselves to others.
We measure them up, we measure ourselves up, and then we tend to draw a conclusion on all the things that make us “lesser than” the other person. We may also latch onto aspects that we do and form it into our identity, which can create a sense of belonging or become helpful in finding friends.
However, by personalizing things and forming our identity around a small character trait, we may be preventing ourselves from living the life we desire.
So, you’ve started a habit. You’ve kept up good progress for a week. Each day, you’re marking off that you hit your daily goal. The momentum is building, and you have a good roll with this new habit.
And then, one day, several weeks later, the day gets crazy, and you forget. Or you fall sick and can’t find the energy to meet you daily goal. You broke your streak.
Now what?
Are women more likely to be anxious than men? Research would show that women twice as likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder than men. So, does this mean the men experience less anxiety than women?
It could be, and yet it is more likely that our definition of anxiety is a gendered construct. That is, what we know as anxiety is more likely to fit a woman’s experience of anxiety than a man’s experience of anxiety. Our understanding of anxiety is too narrow.
We usually think of mindfulness as noticing our breath or paying attention to the present moment, but there’s another angle: noticing the little storylines our brain creates from everyday life. Instead of drifting through routines on autopilot, we invite you to bring awareness to your expectations and the “scripts” we follow without even realizing it.
While you likely will not find this in a conventional horror story, the scariest things sometimes are the tasks on our to-do list. So this week, let’s understand why this happens and why the “just do it” mentality is not helpful.
Congratulations on taking this step!
We look forward to working with you!
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