Realityarts - Inspiration, Art and Creativity: unwind

Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Saving Yourself - When you feel like your disappearing

Saving Yourself When you feel like your disappearing addresses the need for us to make sure we think about our own health and well-being on a daily basis.

Have you ever found yourself doubting your own feelings and emotions, or that your feelings didn’t matter? Do you even know how you feel right now? You sometimes hear people talk about how you should be feeling based on their own needs, but they never really ask you, and never seem to have the time to listen to what you might have to say.

It is easy to feel as if 'you' don't matter, you’re not used to shining the light on yourself and you really don't want to make a fuss when people don't acknowledge just how much you have done for them.

Lots of us go through this problem, we've spent years caring for others, whether it is our children, someone else’s children or we've cared for an elderly relative. We often find it difficult to think of what it is that we do like and it seems as if we have slowly eroded who we thought we were. Often not being able to answer the question 'what is your favorite......?'

I can totally relate as I found that when I was caring for my mother with dementia and when my son was little I often felt that I didn't know who I was any more. I spent the majority of my time trying to cater for the needs of another that I didn't know what I wanted, or how I felt and it has been a long journey to rediscover the 'me' I know I can be.

I found that when I didn't have some 'me' time whether it was 5 minutes or 2 hours, this was when I was more likely to feel undervalued emotionally drained and stuck just longing to be rescued somehow!

The easiest way to ensure that this feeling of stuck-ness doesn't happen is finding that much needed time, even if it is 5 minutes you need to schedule it and put it in your diary. Let others know that you are taking the time, set your watch and go do something creative.

I have 5 easy things that you can incorporate into your day you can do all 5 or just one and this will help you fit creativity into your day and jump start your creativity

1. Write down your ideas, you know you have them. Find yourself a set of index cards, or write in a journal and list them, things that you might want to do, try out, go see. When you start writing things down it helps take you to the next step of putting them into action. Dust out those corners of your mind and see how many you can come up with in 10 minutes – you can give yourself 10 minutes right?

2. Identify all the things that you can do in a short space of time say 5 minutes for you, list them, and these are the things that you will take the time out to do when you have shorter pockets of time to spend on yourself.

3. Take your time – whenever you schedule time for yourself focus on what it is that you are doing, don’t try and do a whole range of things, value you in that space at that moment and really enjoy spending time on you!

4. Where can you go for inspiration? Think of places you can go, it could initially be around your neighbourhood, the local park, a garden, you might be able to incorporate a once a week trip to a museum, or gallery.

5. Try something new! Think about the art supplies that you have and try something different, you might use them in a different way, or try a new technique, just allow yourself to play.

Once you start giving yourself this much needed time you will find that you’re not so stressed, and you can breathe again. You might even be able to hear the birdsong outside your window!