Last week I started feeling overwhelmed. And when I feel overwhelmed, I want to go home. I really really want to go home. And because my home is quite far away from where I live right now, I can’t do that. I can’t see my best friend, or my mom or my mom’s cat. I’d need to get on a plane for that, and leave my toddler with my husband. That would cause quite a scene.
So I reconsidered the idea and found something else to do.
I went home in my body instead. Went home in myself. Went home in my art.
Even my art wasn’t feeling too good. It didn’t feel like me. It took a different path at some point. Maybe it’s because I’ve taken too many classes, seen too many art videos, read too many books. Because I’ve added too many things, experimented too much.
That always happens to me. I get into these rabbit holes, I find millions of things that fascinate me and new ideas, and I get lost and overwhelmed. And while experimenting and play is absolutely part of the process of making art, it needs balance.
I can always tell when I’ve ventured too far. My art starts feeling like a stranger. Like it’s not me anymore. I feel it in my body. My art is always changing, but somehow even if I make something completely different than my normal style, I can always tell if it’s coming from me or from someone else. It’s a feeling. It’s a disconnection.
So I came up with a practice to help me when it happens.
I call it my grounding practice, and I do it as often as possible.
It’s started to be a kind of routine for me and I love it. It’s also part of my emergency kit for my overwhelm.
The practice is simply painting a shape that feels like me. Over and over again. Until I feel better. I call it my homecoming. Since I came up with this practice, the shape hasn’t changed, but it might in the future. It’s a shape that came to me in a meditation at the end of last year. I clearly saw it in mind. And it always takes me home. It feels so clearly and completely me. It feels safe and grounding and I love painting it so so much.
So what do you think? Do you have a shape that calls you to paint it? A symbol? A colour? It could be anything.
Take some time to find it. If you’re anything like me, when you find it you feel it in your whole body and you will just know. It’s an intuition I cannot really explain.
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