Two days in a row this week I was feeling wildly out of sorts: trapped and self-absorbed and generally bad. Was the heat to blame? Lack of exercise? I couldn’t quite figure it out, so I did my own personal art therapy. I sat down with my sketchbook yesterday morning and doodled the things that were troubling me, labeled them with the feeling I had about each, and then in a stroke of insight realised I could also write down how to make them better. So I did and this is what I came up with:
I posted the drawing on Facebook. Making them public meant I acted on my own advice. Plus I got some lovely and encouraging comments from friends. (Thank you!)
By this afternoon, I have followed my own advice for each of the problems. That’s what all those nice green checkmarks are about. Some happened by magic – my shoulder doesn’t hurt at all today, even though I just took one Advil yesterday. Marketing my workshop has had a boost from friends reposting it on Facebook. Others were only a bit of work that yielded good results: I cleared out my closet and made a big pile for the flea market; organised playlists for my workshops; spent a lot of yen to buy a new computer to replace my old one. At lunch in an air conditioned restaurant today, I think I decided on the song for this year’s World Hoop Day dance and the choreography is already moving along.
I hardest one to tackle was my body image problem. So I challenged myself and bought a bikini for our beach hoop outing this weekend. Then I put it on and levelled up the discomfort to take this picture:
unfair and obviously not my own friend. This will continue to be a struggle, but at least I have proof now and a new beach outfit to boot.
And in addition to resolving or making progress on all of my minor life problems, I’ve had a couple of pleasant surprises in the last 24 hours, ranging from a delicious meal at a restaurant that was ready to close for the evening to being contacted by an old work colleague. And I’ve been selected for that thing I auditioned for last week.
There is power in naming your troubles, putting them out into the world and acting on them. I feel a lot better now.
