Day 2 - Giving Your Feelings Physical Form

 

Expressing an emotion by putting it on paper feels like taking it out of your body. Externalizing what we feel often brings an immediate sense of relief.

To help you connect to your emotion, I’ll guide you through a visualization exercise that will allow you to drop beneath the surface of your thoughts and get into the space where you feel ready to create.

You will experience what it feels like to externalize and witness your emotions instead of being run by them. Sitting with a part of us experiencing pain is transformative in its own right, and art makes that process much easier by creating some healthy distance between us and our feelings.

Let's get started - in three steps

1. start with guided visualization

Please listen to this guided recording first. It will help you drop in and get in a space where you are ready to proceed.

 

2. Create an image

Now, let's move on to the next step. I invite you to start drawing or painting immediately after listening to guided visualization. 

If no images, shapes, or colors come to you during guided visualization, just look at art supplies and intuitively pick any color you are drawn to. Pick up this color and allow your hand to begin making marks on the paper spontaneously. Just start with some scribbles, lines, or shapes. Add more colors without overthinking your choices. Just sense what calls to you.

Please do not censor yourself; your image does not need to be figurative or in the likeness of anything recognizable. As you draw, you will see a form beginning to emerge. That form may lead you to add more shapes or colors. Just follow the process.
 

3. Witness your image

  • When you feel you have completed your image, tape it or pin it to a wall so you can view it from a distance. You have externalized your painful emotion, and now you can you can witness it instead of being swept by it.

  • Look at the image and try to feel its emotional content. Don’t try to analyze it or ascribe any words to it. Not yet. For now, just be present with your image and keep it where you can see it. Honor your creation and refrain from any critical remarks. 

4. What's next

Next, we will engage in a powerful process of dialoging with the symbolic content of your artwork. Yes, images can talk, if you let them. But really, you will be communicating your emotions with a part of you that placed your emotions on paper.

If you feel ready to tackle that now, you can skip straight to the next exercise.