This year a chapter in my life has come to an end. It began in 2013 when as a growing family we moved 150 miles from one coast to the other to live in the seaside town where my husband is from. Until then I’d only lived in cities.

I found it difficult to get used to this way of life. I had nowhere else to run away from myself to, no option at the edge o…

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Recently I watched a documentary about the artist Gwen John, the sister of Augustus John. She created some very beautiful artworks and the one that sticks in my mind as I talk about being in the present moment is a simple painting of a chair by a window; but the quality of the light, the essence of the brushstrokes, the description of the scene is captivating, It’s utterly beautiful and if Gwen John hadn’t sat down that day to capture and describe that scene with that feeling we wouldn’t ever have seen or known about it. Along those lines there are millions of infinitesimal similar scenes that were not captured. It could not be possible to capture all those and so the present moments in art which are captured, I believe are quite special.

A Corner Of The Artist’s Room in Paris by Gwen John

In the studio when creating a piece of art, again it’s the focus, the flow state, the immersing of oneself into that situation, into that creation, into that description of a mood, in a place, in a feeling. In the case of abstract art it’s still in the present moment because the mind is not elsewhere at the time. I think abstract art capturing a moment in time is fascinating because it’s not just a scene or a picture that is being described, it’s more elemental than that. It is a mood, it’s a feeling, it is an emotional landscape and I find it fascinating.

Just as much as the act of creating brings us to the present moment, when I’m standing in an art gallery, when I’m looking at something I am in that moment in that gallery. I haven’t just walked past it when I’ve got off the bus or chanced upon it inside a book, I have deliberately and consciously made a decision to walk into that building and to stand and communicate with the items which are on display. So in that environment there is a sense of the present moment when I look at a painting. It can cause multiple different responses and when those responses are being created by the communication I have with what is hanging on the wall, I am very much in the present moment with the artist, with the scene, with the emotional landscape. I am not at that point considering what I might need to buy from the shops, where I might go next, what the weather is like outside, the email that I need to remember to send that day. I’m not considering any of those things, I am in the moment with that painting and whether that invokes joy, shock, horror, beauty, sympathy, delight or inspiration - those are present moment feelings and that is why being inside a gallery communicating with artwork is special for me.

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I was looking today for an audiobook to listen to while I do housework and things like that. I wanted something by Joan Didion and there wasn’t anything available by her in the audiobook library. She isn’t an author I know very much about and I haven’t read her books. I discovered a book that I didn’t know existed which has the title ‘I Write to Find Out What I Am Thinking’ and this is exactly what I found when I read back some of the stories, poetry, books that I’ve written; when I’ve read them back, I find exactly what I was thinking. I believe it comes from the subconscious, like my subconscious is trying to tell me something or it’s creating a connection between my subconscious and my conscious mind. This is why I use the sentence that writing can be an expression rather than a communication. I suppose the communication in that context is a communication with myself. I’m not writing to somebody, I’m not trying to convey something to somebody, I am purely expressing something. If somebody chooses to respond to that, then it becomes a communication, but communication is not the driving factor of that piece of writing’s existence.

When I was at university, working on my dissertation on fashion design, I went to Northampton to visit the shoe museum. On the way back to the station I went into a bookshop and found a book on brain laterality. As a left hander it was absolutely fascinating to me, not least because at the time I was studying for my dissertation and I was making a great deal of notes. I didn’t have a computer yet and I was writing everything backwards. I found that in terms of retaining information I did better when I used mirror writing. When I wrote my novel I wrote much of that by hand and I found I could be more creative and the story flowed better when I wrote from right to left instead of left to right. This is what led to me having a ‘Confidential Psychological Report’ via the university which detailed several issues including what they called ‘dyslexic type difficulty’, deficiencies in working memory, organisation and executive function, among other things. Basically they diagnosed me with ASD and ADHD without diagnosing me with ASD and ADHD. That was in 1998, how much different could my life have been if anyone had taken any notice of it?

The last point I’m going to make about writing is Asemic Writing. It is a more visual sense of writing and mark making without a specific context. It looks like writing but actually is an illegible expression. I have used this multiple times in my work, particularly the artwork I made when I was really struggling with my mental health and crazy energy as I was going through menopause (unmedicated) and feeling quite ferocious. I needed a way to express and have an outlet for those feelings. Asemic writing allowed me to express what I needed to express and say what I felt I needed to say in such a way that got it out of my system without it being obvious to anybody else being able to read and understand what it was I was actually saying.

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So now the question has changed. No longer am I searching for ‘what is wrong with me?’ Now I am searching for ‘well who actually am I behind the version of me that has been performing for acceptance for over half a century?’ There is a version of me which is no longer required to live in a permanent state of discomfort in order to achieve some form of acceptance. There is a huge dissonance. I’ve talked about before the discomfort / pain / difficulty that we live with for so long but we don’t even notice it anymore, it just becomes part of who we are. I’m also at a point where HMSN/CMT has really began to affect my life. Until now I spent a lot of time ignoring it. I refused to dwell on it. I felt like if I gave it my attention it would take up space in my life. It would perhaps get worse more quickly but now it’s got to a point where fatigue (also a factor of ASD and ADHD and hypermobility) is becoming a real thing. Muscle weakness is becoming a real thing. Muscle atrophy is becoming a real thing, particularly in my dominant left hand. For somebody that spent their whole life being a creative person - an artist, a designer, a maker who loves to do DIY, who enjoys multiple practical pursuits - this is also my biggest challenge. Who am I within the confines of what I can still do and how often I can do it?

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I do believe though in what I’m doing creatively. There is something quite special and helpful in everything I’ve learnt. Adopting a creative practice can only make a better world in my opinion. One thing I learned by using creativity in a situation where an answer has finally been found after a long journey of self discovery: It never means that you’ve arrived somewhere for very long because every answer provokes some new questions. Which means I can never feel ‘ready’ and can only share where I’m up to.

Sometimes I find it confusing, this broadcasting method of communication. But I persevere with it because I do really think that what I’m doing is useful and important. I invested so much of myself into everything that I’ve learned and discovered and practised - and still practice, that it feels like a bit of a waste not to in some way share it.

I’d love to know what you make of it and what has helped you. What you would like to see more of or have further explained? How do you feel about sharing your life or creative journey? You can let me know HERE.

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This is part of a quote from In Search of Lost Time that caught my eye when I was browsing through a book. I haven’t read any Proust and this is a quote that I wasn’t familiar with which is why it caught my attention.

Description, self perception, self discovery through creativity are my interests and this quote to me says that there are other versions available if we choose to look at them through a different lens. Or you could translate it as ‘wherever you go there you are’.

Those two points might not seem connected but actually to me they completely are, because if you move somewhere new or visit somewhere new but still see it with the eyes with which you view your previous surroundings, you may gloss over some of the wonders of your new surroundings.

Conversely, if you don’t go anywhere and you stay where you are, but you choose to look at your surroundings from the perspective of seeing all the wonders, then you reverse the situation.

If you can see elements of your current situation that you may have overlooked previously which, if you were in a different environment you would spot and benefit from, but because you haven’t had that change of scenery everything looks the same and feels the same, then if you went somewhere else and felt the same; you wouldn’t appreciate it.

So ‘the only voyage of discovery would be to possess other eyes’, translates to me as - the point in which you operate with regard to what you choose to see in your current surroundings-. If you train yourself or remind yourself to look at the wonderful things in your current reality with your eyes you look through every day, then if you look through those same eyes somewhere else, you would also notice the beauty.

Wherever we go our baggage comes with us; we can choose to leave some of it behind or we can choose to see it as an asset rather than a burden.

To this end, I have been to see a neurologist today. I’m losing muscle and have nerve damage in my hands and feet, particularly on the left side which is my dominant side. While I could choose to see it through the lens of losing my mobility. I can still walk, at least for now. I can choose to paint when my left hand allows it and when it doesn’t I can use my right hand to do photography. I can’t type much but my phone has dictate mode. When living with a progressive condition you can only work with what you have at that time. This is why it is important to look with the eyes of appreciation.

I felt bad about myself for a long time which I now know was due to undiagnosed autism. Looking back that was pointless but it was all I could do at the time, everything was a struggle (still is) but thenI blamed myself. I can let go of that blame now in the same way that the mobility I have now is an asset rather than the lack of it being a burden.

Read on to find out how I’m managing this in the studio and upgrade to paid if you want to support my work, thank you :)

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I took some canvases and began to paint abstractly on them and the relief I felt from doing this was enormous. In the snatches of time when my daughter might be at nursery and my son might actually have gone to sleep, I would paint. I felt the physical benefits. I sensed my nervous system unwinding; my mind was able to switch off and it was like a form of meditation.

Around the same time, I went to a local yoga class a short drive from where I live. I hadn’t long had my first car and I would drive to this group of other women in a social environment that I felt quite uncomfortable in whilst thinking this should be good for me. Alongside the yoga we did meditation. One time we were in this meditation for about 20 minutes and I had the most outrageous panic attack but I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t let on and I think the yoga teacher could tell that I was struggling and made a reference to it afterwards. I never went back to the yoga class. That form of meditation in a group setting didn’t actually do me any good, but being alone in my studio with some canvas, some peace and quiet and some paint did me the absolute world of good in that respect. This is what I began to study and this is what I began to pursue and it was extremely enlightening.

I undertook some courses in psychology, mental health and creative mindfulness. I’m now a certified creative mindfulness practitioner and modern psychology coach as a result. This really taught me the benefits of creativity and art as meditation.

One of the most beneficial things to do in terms of art practice is just to dive in. Get some materials, plug into them and absorb yourself in it. This creates the flow state.

I have a five part course called Art For Self Discovery about how much you can learn about yourself and your subconscious through creative practices that generate the state of flow. Find out more HERE.

I learned about more specific methods of accessing the subconscious mind, giving the nervous system a break, answering questions, finding solutions, asking questions of yourself that through creative meditation can be answered in ways that day-to-day logical thinking can’t always provide.

I have experienced over and over the meditative element of creativity. Even in practices like making handbags, cushion covers, embroidery in particular. I stitch onto my canvases sometimes and it’s the repetition, the focus that it requires to create those items - that you can make purely for your own enjoyment and benefit - that create the meditation. You don’t have to make them to sell or to show to anybody. You don’t have to display them in your home or even tell anybody that’s what you’re doing. There’s no pressure involved and it is just a beautiful freeing activity that impacts your whole being in so many positive ways that in terms of slowing down and getting into a state of meditation works better for me and many other people than conventional meditation techniques. I definitely recommend giving it a try.

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When we become particularly stressed or experience traumatic situations, are living in stressful environments, whether physical or psychological or both, the vagus nerve can be overstimulated and can become damaged. This causes a range of mental health issues, physical issues and it can get into a fight or flight situation which can become very hard to come out of. You can get to a point where fight or flight can be your normal, and getting from that into relaxation - what’s called the rest and digest mode can become extremely difficult. We can get so used to living in fight or flight that we don’t even realise that is our default setting.

So where does creativity come in?

Before I answer that question I want to make the point about the vagus nerve being an actual thing, an actual part of your physical makeup. When we learn about something like the vagus nerve it can seem to be an abstract concept. I find it helps to take a minute to just consider where it is in your body to gain a sense of awareness of its existence inside of yourself and how it’s connected to all of your organs and functions and make it about you and your physical self.

I imagine it like a vine, a living plant that needs certain conditions in which to thrive. In much the same way as water and sunlight, it requires relaxation and a sense of safety. The majority of people don’t live in a environment which affects them that positively, everybody is very busy. We all need to provide an income for ourselves. We have families, social commitments, life admin, cleaning and maintenance activities.

After doing these things just sitting down with pens, paper, paints can feel uncomfortable. We feel like we have to be busy all the time, productivity is everything and we measure our success by it. Making art may be something we do intermittently, with a limited timeframe before our energy is required somewhere else. Fitting creative activities into those pockets of time - as I say a lot - a little goes along way, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated. When we get involved in creative projects the vagus nerve is able to slow down. The heart rate calms down, cortisol levels drop and neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin are released and they counteract those situations that are caused by the frazzled vagus nerve.

Taking time to engage in creative activities has multiple benefits and if it became a part of the expectation of life in the same way that exercise, practising yoga, getting a good nights sleep, all those things occupy a similar bracket and I think creativity needs some space within that bracket because it is often overlooked. The benefits outweigh the initial effort it can take to make a start, but once you start, you’ve got a friend for life.

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This is from the American painter Edward Hopper. It resonates with me because when I paint, when I make things, I am trying to express something. I am trying to regulate, calm down and maybe expunge myself in some way. The way that turns out on the canvas, in the drawing or collage - or whatever the thing - is because I can’t articulate it in words, I can’t explain how I feel in my body. I can’t really quantify the sensations. I might be feeling things that don’t make sense or add up to me but are familiar when probably they shouldn’t be familiar and perhaps it is a rebellion against how I think I should be feeling.

For me making things heals because it can remove that ‘should’. Especially being an abstract artist. There is no should in abstract and I think that’s perhaps why I’m so drawn to it. I enjoy creating landscapes and still lifes and things like that as well. Much of that comes from all my life, especially when I was a child, being told by everybody around me, particularly adults and teachers that I was doing everything wrong. All my decisions and my actions seemed to other people not to be the right ones. There seemed to be a great deal of fault finding with me.

Now I have my autism and ADHD diagnoses, I can understand why that might have been. I grew up and became an adult who questioned every decision. I still do question every decision. Constantly feeling like you’re doing something wrong is not a very easy place to live in. Making things, creating things, makes me forget. I find a place where that perceived criticism doesn’t exist. Perhaps why I’m drawn to abstract is because nobody can say it doesn’t look like the thing it’s supposed to look like. It is what it is and it is an expression of how I feel and by expressing how I feel I have a colourful canvas and a better nervous system as a result.

When making things there is a sense of accomplishment, achievement. I used to spend my days making handbags - the process, the repetition, the cutting, the pressing, the pinning, those things take concentration and it takes that ruminating overthinking mind away. Because the concentration, the focus on the creation of the item, at the end of the day when I’ve got a row of finished handbags that didn’t exist that morning, that I’ve essentially created out of nothing, there’s a satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment with that. I think that can be very healing because sometimes we can feel that we don’t have much purpose, a bit useless, and when we can see that we’ve created something - whether it’s jewellery, homeware, painting, crochet - whatever medium, it comes by the fact of there being something which did not exist before you made it.

This is a positive feeling to have and that’s why it’s good to have a creative practice.

If you are looking to start or continue your creative practice and would like some avenues to consider healing. I have made these:

The Attentive Art Creative Mood Tracker

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Dealing with our emotions, whatever neurological type we are, isn’t something we are taught. Subsequently those emotions can get stuck in our nervous systems. Neurodivergent people often struggle to regulate emotions. With hindsight, I realise that I became saturated in some very negative emotional situations, which, now I understand the patterns, were really unnecessary. But, necessary or not, they will be stuck in my system somewhere.

This is despite my mid menopause angry paint flinging artwork - something I’ve mentioned many times, because it really showed me the difference having access to paint, paper and a dedicated art studio can make, without creativity I don’t want to think where my emotional savagery would have taken me.

When I was a teenager, I struggled a lot emotionally. I spent so many afternoons fully absorbed in drawing a still life, recreating a picture from a book or a magazine, or altering, painting, or dyeing second hand clothing. This led to me

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When I say I spent years searching for answers, I’m not kidding.

I don’t know when I first began to realise that something wasn’t right because I was so young when I took it on board that I was defective, inadequate, incompetent, useless, stupid and other helpful labels - that I blamed myself.

Why else would the people who were raising me constantly find so much fault with what I was doing?

Why was I easily lead? Contrary? lazy? difficult? I didn’t mean to be those things. I wasn’t trying to be a problem, so I presumed that there was something inherently wrong with me.

There are labels for some of the situations that I was in as a child, one of them being Hyperlexia - just because I could read at the age of two - and taught myself apparently - did not make me a genius. Much to everyone’s disappointment.

ARFID is something that I came to relatively recently - that particular lightbulb could’ve saved me a lifetime of eating disorders.

RSD Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is really a thing. I’ve since found records of situations which affected me massively. I didn’t get over them for years, if ever. It turns out the people who ‘did’ those things had absolutely no idea, it never occurred to them I might be upset about it.

I found a photo of me in my room aged about 16. You can see I’ve painted my walls. I remember squeezing out all my oil paints and painting with my hands. Took forever to dry. It is a tiny room and I had to air it for ages. I didn’t care at the time though.

Now I am unraveling the tightly knotted, zipped up, padlocked self that is underneath the labels.

This isn’t a place for me to lament the life I could’ve had. I’m trying to explain how creativity and art brought me to where I am now.

I wonder whether me at preschool playgroup refusing to paint actual pictures - and instead creating abstracts - was me trying to express my emotions in a way that I couldn’t do with words, which is something I still do now.

I wonder whether my dislike of eating was substituted by me drawing multiple food stuffs from our kitchen - when still at primary school.

I wonder whether the landscapes and the drawings of buildings were pleasing to me because of the geometry, the symmetry, and the structure. Some escapism involved in there too. I’ve always been interested in buildings and have always had recurring dreams about them too.

So when I talk about the first thing that actually helped me, I don’t know what that is. Maybe it was the finger painting. Maybe it was the pleasure I found in things that rhymed and the rhythm and the pattern of poetry. Escaping into, not just reading, but writing, fiction. When I wrote my first novel (which is still unpublished but I am considering putting it on KDP) it was a revelation - I would sit at the computer and literally kind of compartmentalise my brain and be in the story and it was wonderful. I don’t feel as though I’m responsible for having written that story because it kind of wrote itself.

But I clearly remember the first thing that actually helped at the beginning of this discovery journey that I have come to this point with. Twelve years ago when my son was asleep and my daughter was at nursery.

I went to my studio, took some canvases, and just painted what I felt and then stitched them, embellished them. Interestingly this is the same process - and I didn’t connect at the time - to the first set of paintings I made and sold when I was fresh out of university. Abstract paintings embellished with shiny sparkly things and this process I noticed regulated my nervous system, and although that wasn’t how I noticed at the time, it just became a ‘this feels better this act this process is going to be the thing that saves me and I want to find out why’.

I am experiencing my past in snapshots. I have a choice. Keep quiet and fester internally. Or give an account of what it is actually like to live fifty years pretending to be okay and not doing that great a job of it. Then to find out that it is okay because actually I am defective - sorry impaired.

So I was right all along really.

I’ve been thinking where can I write down these snapshots of my life which illustrate how it was? It is new territory. Which is scary. Then I realised I have a paywall. Here:

TW: SH/ED

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In that moment, in a metaphorical lifetime of drowning; the water was thick, …

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When it comes to making art there is a question around authenticity because everybody is influenced by something. One artist can be influenced by another and another. It’s the same with writing, with music, as well as visual art, photography and many other creative things. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what makes culture what it is to a degree.

I believe if you’re making art for yourself, there has to be an element of authenticity in it. Particularly when working on the Attentive Art self discovery kind of creativity. (Exercises and practices of which included in the paid subscriber section every week of this Substack.) They are particularly designed to bring out some authenticity. That’s the whole point of making this art; that you don’t have to show anybody. You’re really doing it to learn something about yourself. Even if you’re making art for a commercial purpose, there’s going to be authenticity in there.

If I sit down with a group of people, then we all draw the same view out to sea, or we all draw the same bunch of flowers, not one of those outcomes and not one of those paintings or drawings is going to look the same.

Therein lies the authenticity.

A part of yourself will always come through whatever the creative thing is that you do.

I think that as we grow and develop as people -

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Burnout can be caused by a number of different situations; an accumulation of small stresses; taking on too much; juggling too many things, this stops the body being able to relax. You can be in a state of fight or flight for a long time, which creates a high level of cortisol in your system. When cortisol is present for a long time without sufficient dopamine or oxytocin - hormones which are more about relaxation and feeling good, it has an overload on the system.

This can also happen with high intensity demands. When you’re required to perform in multiple situations; at work, at home, in the local community, in the extended family - when people have expectations and rely on you, you can find yourself unable to recover because you have used up your emotional, physical or mental energy, so you find yourself running on fumes.

Burnout can also happen in the workplace; if you have your hours cut but your workload is the same, or your money doesn’t go up in line with inflation, there are lots of different ways in which you can feel the constant pressure - which in terms of work and earning money is massive. It can be one of the most stressful things; the worry of not being able to make ends meet. These are just some of the ways in which burnout can happen but ultimately, whichever way you arrive at burnout, when you get there it is the result of the combination of too many demands on you and not enough energy to meet them over a prolonged period of time.

I think there are two kinds of burnout. One is where you operate in a state of burnout for a very long time and it just becomes your normal and you know at some level that’s what’s going on, but you still can’t find a way for it to let up. Being in that state of fight or fight for a long time starts to feel safe to your nervous system and so coming out of it can feel like a threat to your subconscious. Then you have the other kind of burnout which is where you just crash and you just can’t do anything and in extreme cases this can lead to chronic fatigue syndrome and ME.

I believe that if you are living with the type of burnout that can last for a long time, if you have an element of creativity in your life, that can be what facilitates the ability to run like this because the creativity just provides enough of a relief that you can manage in fight or fight for years without really being able to function properly but without it getting sufficiently bad that you realise you need help. If you are in the situation where you have just completely burnt out and nothing‘s going to happen until you’ve rested for a period of time, worked through it and healed, then creativity can be immense on that healing journey.

This is because doing activities like painting, writing, mindful photography, crafting, embroidery, making things with clay - whatever the thing is that helps - it lets you complete the stress cycle which will allow the body to come out of fight or flight and relax and be regulated again. This is important because if we are in burnout we don’t ever learn to fully relax and so the stress cycle can’t complete and that is damaging us without us knowing it.

There’s the meditative aspect which I’ve talked about a lot that comes with making art and being creative - the flow state, the mindfulness, the way it can provide insight. How it can almost open a window and create space in the mind. Often insights, understandings and solutions to problems can just pop in there when you’re creating. The activities that you’re occupying your attention with when you’re working on a creative project, when you’ve got the paintbrush in your hand and you’re applying the colour, it helps to balance out the mental exhaustion that comes with burnout because it provides the dopamine that helps to balance the cortisol.

The self expression which comes out in your creativity can help you reconnect with yourself. It can be a frightening place when you burn out. You can feel helpless and feel like it’s never going change, never going to end. When you create from a real place of self expression you see flashes of yourself. I find my creative writing always reflects back to me something about myself that I wasn’t aware of. It shows up in what I paint as well, even the choices of colours and the brush work on an abstract canvas teaches me something about myself.

It’s easy to get caught in thought loops, cognitive cycles of catastrophising, rumination and overthinking: Why has this happened? Why am I like this? How do I get out of it? Will it ever change? Working on a creative project, involving yourself in a creative act pauses those thoughts and gives your mind a break. That is possibly the biggest positive for your nervous system and helping it to regulate in this way can also show you positive aspects of yourself. If you’ve been feeling bad, feeling as though you’re putting pressure on yourself to do more, to perform more, to keep going and struggling and not having the energy to do it. Or becoming stressed and angry or short tempered which is actually a natural response when we haven’t got the capacity to do the things that we’re required to do and this can bring a lot of guilt. From this place, if you look at some beautiful photographs that you’ve taken, you see a canvas you’ve painted, you read a poem you’ve written, it lifts you and helps you feel better about yourself and that’s a really important factor when it comes to overcoming any aspect and level of burnout. So if you’re feeling frazzled, if you feel that you need a break, if you feel there’s too much to do - go and grab some pencils, get the paints out.

There is a saying the more you have to do the more you need to rest and I say this is true. The more there is to do the more I need to paint.

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Do artists make art because it helps their mental state, or are they naturally drawn to creating to try and understand why they find life difficult or experience it differently?

I don’t think there is a one size fits all answer. In my experience it comes from a need for avoidance of unpleasant feelings that I can’t overcome by any other means. Sometimes working with paint or pastels can take on an almost violent outpouring of overwhelming emotional energy that feels intensely necessary at the time. I can’t speak for any other artists but certainly when I was a child and a teenager with not much to do or inclination for, putting pen to paper or brush to canvas kept me so focused for a few hours I forgot about feeling bad (that flow state again).

I also wonder if we make art to try and prove ourselves able to do something which is difficult to quantify? Some depression stems from an internal lack of belief in oneself. Feeling worthless or useless, maybe art is a way we can show or feel there is at least something we can do. You can’t say I’m lazy if I’ve just finished a painting. You can’t call me contrary if I’m building a portfolio. I can’t really be that useless if what I’ve put on paper looks like the thing it’s meant to. I wonder if we seek validation through our art?

Depression can render people unable to function altogether at times. There doesn’t seem any point to doing anything. In some cases doing something creative, even for five minutes a day, can be the first step on the road to recovery. Others of us who are able to function, just live with depression. After long enough with no support we get used to it and might not even realise we’re depressed because it’s become so normal. In this situation, a regular art practice can be essential to maintaining a mental and emotional equilibrium even if it sits a few notches below that of non depressed individuals.

Is it possible that our need to write or paint and express something exquisitely comes from having a mind that is so intense in its pursuit of describing our world as we need to express it that it doesn’t exactly cause depression, but invites it to sit alongside that intensity which for some people can never be described even though they spend a whole life trying. I sometimes wonder what would happen to us if art were not available? I remember when I worked as an English teacher in Italy with no art materials with me, I sat up late at nights making digital patterns on my computer, I wrote a diary, I still found ways to create because it felt like the most necessary thing for me to do in that moment.

Depression and art can often go hand in hand. How they interact and which goes first maybe we will never know. I’m sure I will always be fascinated by this relationship and wonder if I’ll ever find out.

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What I am discussing here is using creativity to alleviate the constant anxiety that can live alongside or inside us for years and years until we become accustomed to it. Sometimes it’s worse than others; a lot of the time we can go about our day, and other times we can be immobilised by it. This kind of anxiety can manifest physically in the form of feeling weak, feeling shaky - a constant internal thrum.

It’s this anxiety that can be helped by creative activities because you focus and concentrate on what is happening in front of you and your hands and brushes can take on their own journey across the paper or canvas. Most of what I talk about is paint on paper and variations of that but really any activity that involves focusing multiple elements such as hands and visuals will help. For my husband, his therapy is making music, usually electronic music with multiple layers. Sometimes I engage all my senses by playing the piano. Writing, especially free-writing with a pen or pencil on paper is another way for dealing with anxiety because the movement of the pen on the paper leads to the flow state. This can be very beneficial because not only have you alleviated the anxiety by the act of writing but you may have written something insightful as well. The main point here of all the creative activities is that your concentration is so focused on what your hand eye coordination is doing that your nervous system creates a window in which anxiety takes a back seat.

What is actually happening in our body when we create art, when we engage in making, is a multitude of different elements which go to make up the nervous system. The act of creating regulates the nervous system and this interrupts stress patterns and allows us to express from a place of deep self. There’s no need to justify, rationalise or explain what we’re doing to anybody. So rather than having a scattered focus we can go into deep immersion where time is distorted. You can spend hours and feel like you’ve only been in the creative act for minutes. The autonomic state can move into a place of safety if you’ve been in fight or flight. Your inner critic goes quiet because you have closed the door on that part of your brain. As a result, all of these aspects which come together to make us feel anxious can be greatly alleviated by the act of being creative.

This is why creativity is so important to me. Anxiety is something I have always lived with but for a long time I didn’t have a name for it. Since going through menopause, the escalation of my CMT and receiving my ADHD diagnosis (with a very ‘high score’), finding enough energy to create can be a challenge. Sometimes I have to paint with my non dominant hand, use voice recording and editing to write, or admit defeat with a good book. I have a library of creative activities, which I will often prescribe in my coaching/mentoring. Recently I began categorising them according to how much physical or mental energy they require. A few people said this would be useful for them too. So I have made the Creative Recalibration - a 12 page guide to working with your energy and creating what you can, where you can, with the energy and time available. A little goes a long way when it comes to being creative and this guide gives you permission to rest, allows you to be who you are and there is no judgement involved whatsoever. To get your free copy of Creative Recalibration, full of helpful, therapeutic creative activities, laid out according to your energy levels, upgrade to paid today.

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Last week’s activity was to create a representation of the transition from winter to spring. A reset of sorts, thinking about where you are so far in the year, are you on track with where you thought you might be? What has changed? Are you on a different path? With that in mind. If you upgrade to paid today, you will receive a complimentary copy of Creative Recalibration.

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I use the term madness with an element of irony. I am aware it is seen as an insult and I notice historically it is used when talking about less respected persons in society such as women and artists. As I am both of those things, I decided to look into it.

I’m exploring the connection between society and madness. I have read a lot about, for example, women being locked up for being ‘hysterical’. Psychiatric asylums where people whose behaviour did not conform to societal expectations were sent. Over the years in different cultures and societies, people who are wired in a way which does not conform with what society expects have been stigmatised; they become a misfit. Maybe they want to publicly sing or dance, or they choose to dress in nonconformist ways. What if they choose to paint controversial subjects? Keep unconventional hours? they’re not hurting anyone but that behaviour isn’t accepted.

Paper Jack lived in Croydon in the 1920s and 30s. He wore newspapers for clothing and lived outdoors, choosing a life out in the open despite being well educated. Accounts record Paper Jack as a local character who would usually be given a cup of tea if he turned up and asked for one. I suspect if Paper Jack had been a woman she would have been sent to the asylum.

When people perform in ways which society views extreme, they are often ostracised and experience prejudice and discrimination. This can lead to stress and ultimately mental illness. Which then compounds or reinforces society’s diagnosis of them. People find they need to conform to societal expectations. They need to earn money, they need to eat, they need to house and clothe themselves. Yet conforming to a 9 to 5 typical working week doesn’t work for them. Progressing through a standard education system doesn’t work for them. Especially as we’re growing up and we’re dependent on adults, we have no choice. No matter how uncomfortable, anxiety producing and stressful these things are, we have no option than to force ourselves into boxes we don’t fit, play roles we are not built for, because we’ve been trained, conditioned, to believe that if we don’t we will be homeless, we won’t survive.

That disparity, that friction, is a place where a lot of of creativity blooms. It grows through the cracks in the pavement and it blossoms through the cracks in our veneer. It trickles out of us whether we’ve chosen it consciously or not.

Many artists and writers over the years wrote and painted because they felt that they couldn’t survive without that creative practice. Four that jump out straight away are Yayoi Kusama, Vincent van Gogh, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath but there are many many more.

I’ve read all of Virginia Woolf’s books and in those lines there is a stream of consciousness as though style of her writing is born from the flow State. Sylvia Plath said she wrote poetry to distract herself from the fact that she wasn’t writing a novel but when you know her tragic story you see it there on the page. Vincent van Gogh famously cut his own ear off and Yayoi Kusama voluntarily lives in a psychiatric institution. She suffers from hallucinations and my other things and has stated that if she doesn’t create she will die. Her creativity has clearly helped her survive as she is now 97 years old.

I’ve spoken previously to therapists and experts about some ways in which I have been able to use my creative practice as an adult to substitute some of the more destructive coping mechanisms I used as a younger person. Whether those coping mechanisms could be defined as madness I’m not sure, it certainly felt like it at times. One or two hundred years ago I’m sure they would be. I’d definitely have been in an institution. These days there’s still a stigma around mental illness, but one artist, one photo, one story, one voice at a time, we can help to reduce that.

Maybe one day madness as a concept will no longer exist. It will have been entirely replaced by creativity and everybody in their own way will be able to exist in a nonjudgemental society. I suspect this may be a long way off, but it would be nice to think it could happen one day.

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When we engage in a creative practice, it has a positive effect on our self-esteem. This is partly due to the presence of flow. When we’re in the flow state we can detach ourselves from negative or distressing feelings and perceptions, which creates a space in our brain, in our mind - a kind of mental vacuum. Once we have created something we can look at what we’ve made. Maybe you don’t feel proud of it, you feel critical of it?

The criticism comes from probably teachers, parents, friends, peers and so on based on things we were made to do as schoolchildren, which has no bearing on a person‘s ability to be creative in a whole myriad of ways that weren’t even on the school curriculum. Many people can be held back by beliefs instilled in those ways from childhood which may inhibit them from feeling confident to take up something creative.

Being creative is not the same as being good at art. Being creative is allowing yourself to express some elements of your being in a two dimensional, three dimensional or digital fashion that will teach you some wonderful things about yourself and provide incredible insights. That mental vacuum can allow space for new ideas, solutions, perceptions to come in. By taking some time to consider what you are telling yourself, what messages you can find, little mirrors and moments of realisation that can come to you when you lose yourself in the painting you’ve made, or read back the story you’ve written, study the sculpture.

There are clues everywhere within the work that you make and when you do something creatively you don’t have to tell anybody or show anybody. You are your only audience and that’s how self-esteem can flourish. You can develop a relationship with yourself which allows you to grow in so many ways and has a potential to lead you in a great many positive directions. Your self-esteem can shine as a result and you only need to share that with yourself.

There is never an expectation on what the finished result or the outcome of any creative practice should be, so it cannot be judged as good or bad. It is a reflection of a feeling, a situation, an understanding - so many things. Creativity sparks curiosity - you can start to think ‘what if?’ and that is a really good question to ask yourself. When you lose yourself in your creative practice and grow self-esteem with colour, pattern and texture, it can only enrich your life.

Below, I’m sharing a little more of my own experience with this, what’s been happening in my studio this week, and a simple creative practice for you to try.

Continue reading for my personal experience with self-esteem and creativity, this week’s studio thoughts and a new idea, a therapeutic creative exercise for you to try.

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Within that space already you are defining yourself creatively in terms of what practice you are undertaking. Are you painting, drawing, making ceramics, stitching? Those are all different creative identities within themselves but then how you use those dictates the flavour of the work that you are creating. For example, if you are choosing to make your own representations of your local landscape that’s a very different identity than if you are making work to demonstrate your political views or highlight a particular issue that is prominent in your life or in your community.

You also may be transforming your creative identity from a student, to an expert, to a teacher, to somebody who can influence other artists and creators, somebody who can provide inspiration. Or maybe you’re on a journey of self discovery and exploration, which, over time will also change your identity because you then learn more about yourself, your habits, your feelings, and from that viewpoint you’re in a place where changes can naturally happen.

Creativity can also be used to change who you believe you are. You might surprise yourself in what you can create and how it’s received, and that might influence your self identity. Whilst creating you can come up with solutions that may not have been obvious to you beforehand. There are many ways that your creative identity is shifting all the time - when you’re walking somewhere, do you keep your phone in your pocket so you can whip out your camera and record the beautiful pattern in the clouds, and then use that to make artwork? Or are you somebody that has your head down or looks at the ground in front of you while listening to music? Neither is right or wrong but all of these different tiny choices shape who we are creatively. It is a landscape like all landscapes that are always changing and always shifting and you have more control over your creative identity than you may realise.

You can try techniques such as my Creative Visualisation Workshop which invites you to create an abstract canvas and in that process you are transporting yourself into a future situation and imagining it with all your senses, using colour as your representations. Doing this, you can influence your future by believing, even temporarily, through a form of meditation, that you are in fact the person that has achieved something or has earned something or has altered a situation in your life.

You can buy the workshop this week with 20% off.

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Keep reading to find out how I did with last week’s creative activity and see what this week’s is - plus what I’ve been working on in the studio and out with my camera, as well as this week’s special offers and discounts - including 10% off everything on my website.

Your weekly dose of Creative Therapy - £6.00 a month

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