ungrounded, unmotivated, unmoving.
walking in squares and hitting dead ends just to repeat it again.
i don’t know what’s happened to me
or to my dearest.
all tangled in electric knots, in mounds of pity
and I wish to whoever’s god that I could start over
try on a new avatar
leave it behind
without adding more sorrow or sinking the ship further.
so naturally, i’ll have to stay
one more day
and probably the rest too if that’ll make it better for them.
How are you changing the world?
Woah, this one’s intense. In all honesty, I’m not sure yet. I’m still figuring that out myself. What I do know is that I’m passionate about many issues from women’s rights (especially when it comes to bodily autonomy) to mental health services, children’s rights/care, environmental protection, creating better systems to eradicate the poverty crisis in this country and to help establish a long-overdue work-life balance so people can do what they love and spend time with the people they love, etc. If I can put a dent in at least one of these issues and raise awareness, I’ll feel like I’m making an impact on the world.
One of the small ways I try to do this now is by sharing my voice in my writing and artwork when it comes to taboo topics about women’s issues and mental health. I still have a long way to go if I want to be fully honest in my work, and I still have many stories to tell that I’m not comfortable sharing yet. I’m working on it. I know I needed a place to turn to when I was struggling myself. Being a safe space for people to see their own issues reflected back to them so they feel less alone is my way of changing the world right now. With time, I’d love to expand this and eventually host healing abstract art workshops where people of all artistic backgrounds and communities can be free to express and literally pour their hearts out. I just want people to feel like they have a place to be loved and held.
I also think we change the world in small ways with every gentle act of kindness. I try to remember that when I feel like I still have a long way to go. Every time I FaceTime my little brother and we talk through his struggles at school and I see that I’m helping him process something or I hold space for a friend’s vulnerability and creativity, I know I’m making an impact. It’s like Van Gogh said…
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
#bloganuary #bloganuary2022 #dailyprompt
What is on your music playlist right now?
Instead of writing about what songs I’m listening to at the moment, I feel this prompt pushing me in a different direction. It’s almost 6 pm for me at the moment and I just got home from an ideal Friday afternoon spent mini-golfing and making memories with my boyfriend. I try not to gush often, but today’s simple bliss feels worth it. We had a wonderful time in each other’s company as we often do, listening to our favorite songs together on the way back home. A mix of old and new.
Rich and I are nearly two weeks into a social media and health cleanse that has completely changed our daily routine. Books have replaced YouTube, video games, and bingeing Netflix. No Instagram. No fast food. We’ve filled our calendar with hike dates and new hobbies like roller skating, bowling, etc. I even signed myself up for a dance class tomorrow morning, and I haven’t danced in a class setting in over five years! I’ve been writing every day and letting the silence bring up uncomfortable thoughts when normally I would’ve shut them out with the quickest distraction. At the thought of all of our improvements, we raised a glass at lunch to how far we’d come as individuals and as a unit. It was worth celebrating.
When we got home, I shook my ass to some Top 40s dance hits in my living room. Typical. Rich strummed on the brand new strings of his guitar. Music has always bonded us since the day we met. It brings memories of our collective wins and losses to vibrant life again. I often go back to songs that remind me of when we first met in college or playlists we listened to during our trips together. Maybe I’ll listen to “Rake it Up” by Yo Gotti & Nicki Minaj sometime in the future and remember this simple, easy day too.
#bloganuary #bloganuary2022 #dailyprompt
If you’ve ever felt like your life’s on autopilot or you can’t remember the last time you asked yourself what you want, this one’s for you.
Life moves fast. We get on the train and go from one stop to the next. We rarely ever stop to ask ourselves where we’re going or if our choices are actually our own.
I can pinpoint the moment this began in my own life to junior year when the pressure to pick the right college and a career path started piling on. Can anyone actually believe they expected 17- and 18-year-olds to know jack shit about their futures? Regardless, you follow the rules. You pick a major, a college and ride the wave. Eventually, it’s your senior year and now it’s time to find that dream job. Maybe you’re about 21 and you find the perfect fit right out of college. Maybe like the vast majority of us, your degree and university don’t help you find a job when you need it most. Meanwhile, your student debt looms over every passing day. By the time you do find a job, you’ve already given up on trying to reach for something that makes you happy or that at the very least challenges you intellectually and creatively — you’re desperate. You take what you can get. This is when you give up.
In my own experience, I bounced from one unfulfilling position to the next. It’s hard to believe you have any other choice as adult expenses and responsibilities accumulate. It’s all too easy to get sucked into the cycle even after you read all of the self-help blogs about traveling abroad and following your passions. Not all of us make enough money to eat, pray, love. Not everyone has the support to make their dreams come true at that time, and it starts to feel like the system is rigged against you.
Eventually, you reach a point where maybe you’re in your mid-twenties and you’re burned out and deeply unfulfilled. You don’t have any real reason for it because, hey, you have a job! You did everything right. You can afford all of the basic comforts of an “easy” life and you’re given the weekends to invest in your hobbies and the things you love. Why are you so depressed?
Let’s consider “The Great Resignation,” a name used to describe the millions of workers quitting their jobs after the COVID pandemic. Think about why this cultural shift is happening now. During the pandemic, all of us were affected differently. What we had in common was a collective introspection that forced us to rethink what actually mattered. When the stakes are this high, people remember what they want to live for. Turns out 40- to 60-hour weeks in an office doing something you’re not passionate about and having two days for yourself didn’t make the cut. It’s no wonder people started craving more.
The good news is that millions of people are using this shift as an opportunity to prioritize themselves for the first time in their lives. Whether it has to do with their relationships, work environment or location, people are shedding what no longer serves them and taking a leap of faith to find what does. For me, this meant saving enough money until I felt like I could take a break. I needed time to reassess what I actually wanted, time I didn’t have before. I asked myself questions I hadn’t been asked since I was a kid. What do I love to do? How do I want to spend my days? What actually matters to me?
It’s not easy to make this jump, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I didn’t work my fair share of unfulfilling jobs. While I no longer lean on my family for financial support, I do have a wonderful partner who’s been looking out for me during this shift as well. I fully recognize my privilege and the ways that I’m also putting myself at risk. Now that I’m taking this “work break,” my money is slowly draining. I can’t lie, though, I’m also the happiest I’ve been in a long time. With this new freedom, I started meditating again, working out, reading, writing for myself and prioritizing my artwork. I’ve started selling my paintings again and developed a new business plan for my Etsy shop. I’m working every day, but I’m doing it for myself and for the things I love. I forgot what that felt like. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced that feeling in my adult life so far. I’m not sure many of us ever do.
Choosing you in whatever way that manifests in your own life is scary, but it’s incredible too. I wish I could give every single person the same opportunity to stop the clock and make their own choices again, find ways to make that possible because I know how impossible it can feel. If you’re reading this, I hope you’re able to start making a plan that works for you. I hope you’re doing it in small ways every day, and I hope the tugging in your heart that craves more never fades away.
You can pour sun into the darkness
and still never see the bottom of the well.
If you’re spiritually-minded like me, you might already be well-versed in the Law of Attraction. You might envision the life of your dreams or even little things you want and hope that they materialize as if conjured from a Harry Potter Accio spell. You might also know that the process doesn’t work as instantaneously as a summoning charm. If you had told me this when I was thirteen and watching The Secret for the first time, I would’ve been crushed. I thought manifestation was just saying abracadabra in your head and the universe would hand you the life of your dreams. Not quite.
It took years for me to come to terms with this. I was on a loop of wishing for things and getting upset when they would manifest in other people’s lives instead. I’d carry that negativity around and resent people for finding their happiness. I didn’t realize that walking through life on a jealous autopilot was blocking life from presenting its magic to me. I think most of us don’t realize we’re doing this, but it’s possible to find your way out of this pattern once you find your own version of a manifestation routine that works. And, trust me, it can still be just as enchanting.
Here’s what I’ve discovered that really works:
1. Limit Social Media Intake
“Intake” is the keyword here. Instead of labeling social media as simply bad or good, we have to consider all of the benefits it provides and find our balance. For me, it’s about indulging in a healthy dose of scrolling through other peoples’ lives for inspo and using social media for your own creative expression/benefit. Instead of spending hours on YouTube or Instagram absorbing how amazing someone else’s life is, you can devote more time to sharing what makes you happy and what you’re creating. That way, you start to become the person you look up to.
When you’ve put yourself out there, try not to cling to the phone to see how everyone’s reacting. Spending hours obsessing over likes and reactions can be just as toxic as going on a binge of someone else’s life. Try to take a step back after you’ve posted and give yourself a little separation. Ride the high of sharing yourself creatively and indulge in that feeling — that self-love and inspiration is exactly the kind of headspace you want to be in to create more of the life you want.
2. Create a Vision Board
This is my favorite part of the process. It’s when you get to pick and choose images of your dream life — you take in all the things you love most and sit with those inspiration butterflies stirring in your stomach. The universe loves when you feel this surge of excitement because it’s how spirit (or whatever you prefer to call it) picks up on your manifestation signals.
The best thing about a vision board is that it can look however you want it to look. You can build it on Pinterest, print and glue pictures in a journal or copy and paste your favorite images into a Word doc (the latter option is what I recently opted for). It doesn’t have to be aesthetic goals. Remember, it’s for you. I’ve organized my vision board into the sections of goals I’m currently working on (i.e. future home surroundings, my dream art studio, health & fitness and career). Once I’ve found the images that inspire me most, I place them in front of me so I get those tingles and then I journal about whatever comes to mind. I write about the life I’m manifesting as though I already have it. When it starts to actually feel real to me is when the energy in the room shifts. That’s when I feel like the magic is working.
3. Meditate
I know what you’re thinking. You’ve read countless self-help articles and you’re sick of people telling you to meditate. I understand because I’ve been there. I’ve scrolled through post after post feeling once again like I’m being force-fed the same tips from every guru out there. The problem isn’t that you’re being told to meditate, it’s that you’re not being told how unique this process is to everyone. You don’t have to meditate every day to reap the benefits, although it’s amazing if you can. Your relationship with meditation doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s (see my previous blog post about how a meditation routine can even look like taking a long bath).
When it comes to manifestation, I find that setting aside time during your week for even just one meditation practice where you focus on your purpose or the things you’re wanting works wonders. Just last week, I found a guided meditation on YouTube about finding your way. I went into it wanting some answers about what to do next. Five minutes in and suddenly my spirit guide is urging me to pay attention to birds and symbolic synchronicities in my life. I start seeing birds flying everywhere, hearing their chirps and birdsongs. I get this overwhelming feeling within the meditation that I need to be free and I sit with that feeling for the rest of the day. Later that week I get asked to paint a commissioned abstract painting for a coworker and I’m offered the opportunity to work remotely sometimes so I can travel more to see my family (they live out of the country). The wildest part? The theme for my coworker’s abstract painting is centered around her mother’s garden and the three birds that have a deep spiritual significance to her family. I nearly spit my coffee.
4. Soak in the Present Moment
Lastly and most importantly, living in a state of gratitude for every little detail of your day attracts more of the positivity you seek. If you convince yourself to wake up excited about even the most mundane aspects of your routine, you send signals to the universe that life is good and the universe rewards you for it.
I used to think I had to reserve all of my creative, positive energy for the part of my day when I clocked out of work and finally had time for the things I truly loved. I didn’t realize how much of the day I was throwing away, how beautiful my lunch break walks were, how amazing and fortunate I was to eat a hearty breakfast and so on.
When life is moving at 100 miles per hour, it can be hard to take a second to just be. I struggle with this so much and feel like there’s always something to do, something I want to achieve. Just remembering to take a deep breath and allowing yourself to be overcome with gratitude that you’re alive in this moment has all the power to shift your reality.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post and that some of these tips help attract more magic into your life! Let me know if you have your own manifestation tips so we can keep spreading the joy. Much love to you all!
I haven’t blogged or uploaded a YouTube video in quite some time. My excuse? Me time.
Our bodies have a knack for telling us when to slow down or speed up — it’s usually a good idea to listen. I go through phases where I can’t be stopped and feel guilty if I’m not being productive or creatively stimulated every day. Other times, I can’t seem to find the energy to do anything at all. In the past, those less productive times would result in a lot of binge-watching someone else’s life on YouTube or consuming media until the guilt made me feel lightheaded. These days, there’s a mix of that (let’s be honest with ourselves) and a few other key nurturing additions that have helped me find peace when I don’t feel like checking off to-do lists.
So, if you’re looking for some *realistic* advice on how to prioritize a little self-care AND get that guilt-free satisfaction of downtime well spent, here’s my take on it:
1. Take a long bath:
This one’s pretty standard, but it requires a few magical touches. When I’m feeling particularly depressed and sloth-like, sometimes the only energy I can muster is the energy to drag myself into a bathtub. I’ll light my favorite candles so the space matches my moodiness and play a relaxing Spotify playlist or mystical ambiance on YouTube that transports me into a different world.
Even just playing nature sounds starts sending tingles down my spine and makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay. If you know what sounds or smells make you feel safe and comforted, fill your bathroom with them. If you don’t have a bathtub, a long shower does the trick too. The key is to slow down your thoughts and be present.
This is your time to be still and vulnerable. Sometimes that can be uncomfortable, but sitting through that discomfort even as pestering thoughts arise is part of the magic. If you’ve been struggling to meditate, I find that this process is a great first step.
2. Move Your Body with Humility
I am not going to tell you to work out because, honestly, fuck that. You’ve heard it before. I’ve heard it before. That’s a personal commitment that you can choose when it feels right. Plus, everyone’s different and fitness doesn’t come in a one-size-fits-all package. What I will recommend is movement — any will do. Something as simple as taking a quick stroll outside and breathing in the fresh air works wonders when you’re anxiety’s running rampant. Just the sound of birds chirping fills my soul with serotonin. And if you’re like me and work from home, getting up and using your legs is crucial. My back and sanity need it.
I also recommend dancing — and I don’t mean taking Zumba classes or learning choreography (although go off if that’s what does it for you) — I mean just finding random moments in the day to put on headphones and get down in whatever way feels good to you in that moment, even if you’re not a dancer. Sometimes I sway fluidly to a song that fills me with emotion, other times I twerk and pretend I’m a stripper. It’s all about assessing the vibe and not overthinking. THIS is dance therapy at its best. Trust me, once you get over feeling awkward and remember to go easy on yourself, you start to feel the divine catharsis and confidence course through your veins. The magic of this practice is that it teaches you to resign to the idea that you have to be good at everything or achieve certain goals to be active. Sometimes life really is as simple as moving around like a Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Man. Isn’t that such a reassuring thought?
There’s something to be said for yoga as well, how accommodating it is for newbs and experts alike. It’s become a staple in my movement practice simply because it feels good and, if there’s anything you should take away from this, it’s to follow what QUEEN Yoga with Adriene on YouTube tells us: “Find what feels good.” But more on yoga another time.
3. Remember: Playtime is Not Reserved Only for Kids
I don’t know when and why adults started committing to the idea that we have to be so serious all the time, but I would guess that this probably has something to do with why we’re all so depressed. There’s just “never enough time in the day,” am I right? When we were young, nothing stood in the way or ever seemed more valuable than playtime. I think we were on to something then, which is why I deeply believe some of our greatest lessons can be learned from our childhood selves.
So what does playtime look like for a twentysomething with anxiety? It starts with a question: What did you love doing as a child that still fires you up today?
For me the answer would be pretending to be a witch, making art, daydreaming about life’s infinite possibilities, dancing in front of the mirror like I was a rockstar and spending endless hours outside.
Even on the busiest or lousiest of days, there are little ways I try to bring this same magic back into my world. Sometimes it’s as simple as journaling about my deepest manifestations and desires. I write journal entries about the life I want like I already have it, which combines the mystical and the pretend I knew so well as a kid. Other times, I light candles and do a little tarot or oracle reading for myself in the moonlight. This really makes me feel like the witch I wanted to be when I was ten. Just last weekend, my boyfriend and I had one too many drinks and filmed ourselves dancing like we were in a music video. I was immediately transported to all the times I used to do this with my best friend when I was a kid and it made me feel just as much like a rockstar now as it did back then.
The best part about all of this? All it takes is an hour or less of your time to do one small thing that makes you feel like you at your most raw and free.
4. Be Easy On Yourself
Don’t freak out when you still feel the urge to do absolutely nothing at all. Some days, even the easiest things like hopping into a bath or going for a walk feel impossible to do. Please don’t bully yourself for not achieving even your favorite tasks. The whole point of this easy approach to self-care is that it’s exactly that, easy. Easy on your mind and your heart, not another reason to stress yourself out. I hope you find comfort in your own version of this realistic self-care routine and that you find the little things in your own life that make every day an adventure.
When my therapist confirmed that I have an anxiety disorder with depression lingering not far behind yesterday, I wasn’t surprised. Instead, I felt relieved OR was it more like validated? It was a mixture of both. It’s strange how visceral the rush of serotonin was that came over me in that moment. It felt like I wasn’t carrying the load on my own anymore. Oddly enough, it didn’t matter that I had already guessed what was wrong and that my therapist had only confirmed it — the fact that I was having an open conversation about it at all and that my concerns were valid…? Groundbreaking.
Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about what a diagnosis means. Does it change anything? No. Does it magically fix the problem? Not at all. What it does is offer a point of reference, an outline to work off of so we can take the actionable steps needed to function with our diagnosis. It’s like adding another flavor to the rich, complex meal that is your life. If you’re anything like me and have to work a little harder to find order in your life, a diagnosis can help break through all the abstraction and confusion to give you something solid to hold onto. The irony is, it can actually help you feel like you’re not crazy at all.
Up until very recently, unfortunately, I thought I was defective. I thought everyone around me was moving through life normally and I was five steps behind. When I discovered that drinking made the symptoms go away, I leaned on that like it was medication. It was especially bad during my freshman year of college when I was pretending to be someone else and fear filled every room I was in. I was drinking constantly, numbing myself in social gatherings to present myself as fearless and crying myself to sleep every night. Eventually, I flunked out. The sad thing is everyone around me thought I was outgoing, happy and calm. Inside, I was working overtime to make it appear that way. Nobody knew. It was exhausting and I needed help.
I look back at this time in my life and if it hadn’t been for a hip injury that forced me to sit at home for months, I don’t know how I would’ve found my way. I so deeply wanted to be happy and stable that I did everything in my power to start over. I know now that I’m very fortunate to be able to say that, not everyone has the ability or the support to keep climbing. Although I developed healthier habits as time went on, the fear was always present. That’s where the diagnosis comes in.
There’s comfort in knowing that I’m not weak, off or incapable. Those were the labels I put on myself when I didn’t have an answer for why I was struggling to do seemingly normal things. Now, when my hearts starts pounding in my chest and it’s hard to breathe, I know why. When the weight of the world seems to press down on me, I know I’m not the only one that feels that way. Even when I fail to manage the symptoms — and I know I will sometimes — at least I won’t feel alone and broken. For a long time, I put off seeking help and addressing what I was feeling. It kept knocking on my door until it kicked the door down. Just last month I opened a bottle of wine at 9am to get through something that most people do every day, but that was making my whole body shake because it meant that people would have to really see me. While I feel ashamed and embarrassed sharing this, it’s worth it if my story helps someone out there who’s perfected the art of pretending everything’s fine. It’s okay if it isn’t.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope you’re all doing well and intending to prioritize some much-needed self-care this year. Whether you’re planning on starting your mental health journey or channeling those buried feelings into art, I sincerely wish you the best along every step of the way.
Let’s talk about anxiety!
We’ve all experienced it at one point or another. Maybe it was before you had to present something in front of a class or maybe it creeps into every conversation you have with someone. However constant or random it is in your life, it’s there all the same and it is the worst.
My relationship with anxiety is still very much a gray area in my life as I’ve only recently found a therapist and haven’t been properly diagnosed. I don’t have a professional’s stamp of approval that I’m an anxious person but trust me, when answering phone calls at your job makes your bowels contort and has you looking for any excuse to run to the bathroom so you can cry and breathe, you know something’s off. That’s been an ongoing pattern in my life since before I can remember.
I don’t understand my anxiety yet, but I’m looking forward to getting to know her as my therapy journey unfolds. She’s sort of like a very on and off again partner — sometimes we can’t help but fall back into our toxic patterns. In the past, that’s shown up as getting drunk before noon to head into my serving jobs — it’s how I would transform into my “calm, cool self,” into a version of me that didn’t shake in challenging situations where I was being watched. I convinced myself that handling stimuli like this was okay, that it was only temporary and that I just needed a push before finding my footing. Now I realize I was harming myself to appear like I was healthy.
Anxious feelings are a common thread in all of our lives, which is why many of us find unhealthy ways to cope with them. More often than not, people think “the anxiety label” is only for people who’ve been told they’re “sick” and need medication, when really there are millions of anxious people out there who don’t have the proper resources or privilege to even get diagnosed in the first place. They go their whole lives with that fear left unchecked and numb it the only way they know how…alone. And that, my friends, makes me so fucking sad.
Therapy and mental health education weren’t prioritized discussion topics in my upbringing, which I know is the case for many other families. In my Portuguese household (at the risk of speaking for a group of people and being misunderstood), I was taught to be resilient, to repress things and to carry on. Having a therapist or talking about seeking professional help just weren’t commonly on the menu, but Bacalhau was (gotta love a silver lining). Looking back, I know this wasn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just the pattern we knew best. Unfortunately, it’s the pattern most people know best.
While I didn’t have a point when I started writing this, I guess I just wanted to remind people that you never know what’s going on behind closed doors. Humans have an incredible knack for burying their shame, even if what they’re afraid of is nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m still very anxious (roll credits) about sharing my own mental health experiences. I would never have made it this far without the help of all the people who shared theirs so boldly. So, with that being said, I want to open up a nurturing space to talk about it, to remove the shame and to make getting help something worth being proud of.
If you got this far, let me know if you want more blog posts about topics like this. I’d love to go more in-depth about my own experiences, too. Please feel free to share your own with me in our judgment-free zone and know that you’re never alone, even when it feels like no one gets it.
As my relationship with abstract art deepens, I find myself wanting to share all the juicy benefits it’s provided me with the world like a healing elixir. I think if more people knew how welcoming and nurturing painting like this could be, we’d alleviate a lot of the collective tension. Who doesn’t want that?
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing three ways abstract painting can help you achieve mindfulness and how you can start benefitting from this creative process regardless of your level of experience.
Let’s start, shall we?
To begin, I want to try to describe the process of abstract painting and what it feels like. To me, the thrill of it stems from freedom — every ounce of feeling and subconscious thought makes its way to the canvas without hesitation. It’s grounded in pure expression and never dictated by the pressure to create something perfect or recognizable.
That’s what makes it so inclusive. Whether you’ve been painting for years or never held a paintbrush in your life, you know you’re safe to channel your authentic creativity on the canvas and give in to the process as it unfolds without fear of judgment.
This specific type of freedom always reminds me of how you create when you’re a child; without inhibitions, not trying to stay in the lines. I remember coming home from school and spending time at my desk with all this energy inside that needed somewhere to go. I would tear through construction paper, rip apart old fuzzy posters, and start throwing any paint and assorted crafts I could find into this mass of controlled randomness. All the pent up energy made its way to this thing that wasn’t a thing at all. I didn’t think the result was pretty when I was done, but the aftermath was a fullness that’s stayed with me since. I’ve come to understand that these are the reasons why:
For anyone with a busy mind, abstract painting can provide a comforting stillness much like meditation. When you’re not focused on a clear vision, result or specific form, you let yourself wander into the subconscious. Vered Aviv writes in his Frontiers in Human Neuroscience article that “abstract art frees our brain from the dominance of reality, enabling it to flow within its inner states…and activate brain-states that are otherwise harder to access…it enables the exploration of yet undiscovered inner territories of the viewer’s brain.” With this freedom, you can express feelings and forms of energy that don’t fit the mold of something humans have quantified or defined.
For example, last year I went through something physically and emotionally traumatic that left me feeling deeply isolated even when I was given support. I wasn’t prepared at the time for the feelings that came up and I didn’t know how to articulate them. I tried talking about it (to myself and loved ones) and writing about it, but words didn’t do the experience justice. So, on one of the days when it all felt especially unbearable and claustrophobic, I pulled an old canvas out of my closet and faced the discomfort head-on. I poured every tear into a process that had no structure and allowed myself to feel each emotion while the painting naturally unfolded. It was the most healing I had felt since the experience because I didn’t have to define it — what came out of me was unfiltered feeling itself, all the ugliness and beauty of my “inner states.” While the process of painting through the trauma was painful, the aftermath when it was done was like drawing a full, clean breath.
2. Abstract painting helps you focus on the present moment
As previously mentioned, even if you’ve never painted before, you can achieve the mindfulness from abstract painting very early on in your practice. All you need is a canvas (or your medium of choice), some paint (I recommend acrylic to start) and paintbrushes or palette knives. The real magic unfolds the moment you begin concentrating on the canvas and experimenting. As you mix colors, discover new textures and play, you find yourself so focused on the task at hand that you enter the flow state. The flow state or “being in the zone” is a psychological theory that describes being so fully consumed by the present moment that the outside world, time itself and self-conscious thought slip away. You step outside of your typical thought patterns and into something bigger than you.
Often when I tell people about these benefits they’re reluctant to paint because they think of art-making as daunting, something you need the perfect training and materials for. While I won’t deny that my time studying art in college helped me build a strong foundation, it upsets me how many people feel like they don’t have “what it takes” to paint. Sadly, I think a lot of this shame stems from childhood. It might’ve been a bad teacher, hypercritical parent or friend who judged your artwork so harshly once that you gave up on art altogether. I understand, and I faced that shame every day in many of my art classes where the pressure to be perfect clouded the high of free expression. It took time to find a space where I could express myself without limitations, and when I finally did I stopped obsessing about the final result. Abstract art allows you that freedom to rediscover your voice.
3. Abstract painting can change your brain
Once you get comfortable enough to start playing with your new materials and painting consistently at your own pace, you’ll start to notice a drastic mood shift. For me, this was gradual but also completely life-changing. I’d notice the same release of energy and calmness wash over me that followed after a yoga or meditation practice. The more time I committed to creating freely like this, the less my anxiety or depression crept in (which was especially healing during the early stages of quarantine when I thought I might lose my shit for good). I was able to address those feelings, release them and put them somewhere.
Research shows that through this process you activate your brain’s pleasure and reward system (serotonin). In one particular study done in 2014, fMRI scans were used on two different groups of post-retirement adults — one half of the group engaged in a 10-week art intervention while the other did not. The results showed a significant increase in stress resistance through more functional connectivity in the brain for the group exposed to the art-making. No effects were reported for the group that did not participate, which further proved the “neural effects of visual art production on psychological resilience in adulthood.” You can read more about this study and others here on Art4Healing’s special report. The results are mind-blowing — from improved critical thinking to increased empathy and reduced depression/pain.
All of this research and information is to say that abstract art (all art really) is nourishment for the soul, and the benefits are universal. Whether making art helps you translate feelings that are otherwise impossible to explain, stay focused on the present moment or heal longterm wounds, I’m a firm believer that this practice is worth every bit of effort. For me, it’s made all the difference — it’s been a friend, support system and a guide into my inner self that’s helped me grow more than anything else ever has.
For those of you who are curious but embarrassed to try, please take this blog post as an official loving push into your abstract art journey. For those of you as deep into this practice as I am, please let me know if any of this resonates, and let’s connect!
If you enjoyed this post and would like an in-depth guide on what materials I recommend starting with along with some tips and tricks I’ve learned over time, I’d be happy to share what’s worked for me. As always, thanks for reading and happy painting. 💕
References
Mariana R. Cabral 