Jane’s Journey Part 2 – Opening up to One-to-One Creative Self-care
Jane came to me recently, wanting to engage in my one-to-one 3 month creative self-care journey.
In her first session, she opened herself to creativity and grounded herself where she felt supported. Read about the first session HERE.
Opening up to possibilities: 1-to-1 self-care sessions
Jane returned to her second session full of curiosity and intrigue.
She had had several vivid dreams after her session and wondered if these were connected to her drawing. Her senses had played an important part in her dreams. She remembered a dog she had in childhood and could actually smell and touch the dog. She mentioned how real it felt. She had never felt in a dream before.
Jane wanted to keep things simple. She didn’t necessarily want to begin attaching meaning to things or finding an answer. She wanted to play with the idea of simply doing something because she enjoyed it. This idea brought her a sense of freedom, a sense of opening up to different perspectives on how to view things. Could she be a little less rigid in how she thinks?
Jane kept coming back to this idea. Letting go of how things should look and feeling the need to do something, and instead opening up to the possibility that there was other ways of looking at things: that things may be multidimensional.
Exploring and opening through meditation and visualisation
I suggested to Jane that we think about how we could turn this idea of ‘opening’ into a form. We did a meditation and a short visualisation exercise and Jane began to draw. She chose crayons and an A4 page and intensely drew for about 20 minutes.
Jane had drawn 9 Easter Lilies, surrounded by a blue sky and green leaves. The lilies reminded her of the opening of the throat.
She appreciated the way the creative process allowed her to open up her imagination and released her to draw whatever pops into her mind. There was something in the drawing, in the not knowing how it would turn out on the page, that allowed her to live a bit more with uncertainty.
That even though we don’t know how something will turn out, we can still pay attention and draw from it.
Jane recognised that the Easter Lilies appeared to be giving a voice to something. When I asked her what the Lilies might be saying, she wasn’t sure. I suggested that she have a dialogue with the drawing over the next few weeks, to see if the Lilies had something to say.
Once again, she was intrigued and curious about what might be waiting to be said. She looked forward to listening out for what might emerge.
What does a single lily have to say? Follow Jane’s final steps in her journey HERE.
For more information on my one to one programmes, read HERE.
