We are familiar with the concept of de-stressing, we have seen individuals choose ways to manage pressure, loss, conflict, and even just to pause from busyness and monotony. Many individuals have eventually found their calling — in performing art, individual sport, public speaking — within an interim of healing from trauma, loss, and life-changing events.
Frida Kahlo, one of the most accomplished Mexican artists of all time, began to paint while bedridden and recovering from a near-fatal accident. She was required to wear a full-body cast for three months. To kill time and alleviate pain, she began to paint and completed her first self-portrait the following year. "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best". This simple outlet to alleviate personal suffering led her to become one of the 20th century’s most iconic and impactful artists and champion of feminism.
It is well documented that many artists, painters, writers, and their craft revealed and gained prominence as they retreated into self, experiencing a need to withdraw from the clamour outside, and they discovered and explored their most intimate medium to express.
Closer home, my own experience of finding the urge to write, as an outlet and as a means to finetune ideas — in the midst of a life that felt rudderless — has brought beautiful rewards emotionally. I see my teenage son retreat to his music and guitar as a means to refresh and reset in the middle of stressful study schedules and pressure to perform.
However, let me flag that not every serendipitous outlet of expression becomes a calling, and nor does everyone find in it, a means to fame and livelihood. Moreover, neither is every creative habit born out of sorrow or pause-inducing life event. Yet, finding an outlet to cleanse accumulated stress, is a veritable lifeboat to surf the choppy ocean of life.
Recognise a de-stressor
Let us assume each of us has a uniquely inherent process that we resort to, often subconsciously, as a means to unwind. Feeling rejuvenated at the other end of it is an outcome we recognise and hence return to, rather automatedly. Can we, then, identify a deliberate process around it and build it into our self-care system? A therapeutic process?
The beginning lies in watching ourselves closely. Simply becoming aware of times in the day when I resort to, perhaps, scrolling news or content. What is the kind of content I am usually drawn to? Is it fitness, fashion, music, current affairs, books, poetry, painting, or even running and building muscles in the gym? What is it that I love watching others do that tugs at my heart as “I wish I could too”? This is the stage of self-observation.
Once I begin to notice the frequency of my own meandering attention, it can switch to the stage of intentional action or inculcation, when I follow it up with acting on it. E.g. if running outdoor has piqued my interest, I try running a mile or two every other day for a week or two and notice how my mind and body respond to it. Whether I continue to be eager to run despite how lazy or tired I feel. Does it rejuvenate or sap me? A habit of journaling a simple stream of consciousness is a tested method to document and notice emergent patterns. In this process, we will often spot guidance around this new activity, which allows further practice and curation of the process. Running alone can soon switch to running with a group or signing up to run a 5K marathon. And who knows, journaling the transition can become a doorway to penmanship, as for many in the internet era.
How do I describe my unique refuge? I often describe this experience as something that wants to be in contact with me, intelligence in the universe that waits to find us, in whichever way we individually know. These are signs that are more difficult to explain than to believe that they exist, once we are open to such a discovery. As we honour it by listening to the signs (patterns) and acting on them, hope and optimism build despite the stress clouding life. Acting on it means becoming a conduit of expression of your inherent creativity. Once you see the piece of art that you never thought you are capable of, or the 5km run that you never dared to dream of, a logic, a method, a plan appears. This is a rediscovery of self, renewal of interest and respect for your capabilities. In finding new ways to express ourselves, we erase old, overused, weary ways of living and coping, and gain access to a therapeutic process for navigating life.
Nivedita is an executive and life coach, mentor and writer. nivedita@lifealigncoaching.com
