In 2020, I took a course called "Guided Drawing" with Cornelia Elbrecht.
It's a really wonderful course - I highly recommend it.
You can learn about it here.
In the most reductionist explanation ever:
Guided Drawing is an art therapy intervention where you use both hands and make drawings with your eyes closed. It is a process of body mapping where you can identify the pain, distress or tension in your body
and then use specific body movements in your drawings to help release those tensions.
And through these bilateral drawings, there are words that come out that feel really empowering.
In my personal Guided Drawing practice one day, I was using a lightning bolt technique (imagine using both hands to draw strong lightning bolts that shoot off the page at the same time)
and the words that came were
I CAN CHANGE MY MIND.
I CAN CHANGE MY MIND.
I CAN CHANGE MY MIND.
I have never forgotten that drawing. And sometimes I refer back to it to clear space or to change course when things aren't going the way I planned.
Today is one such time.
I decided to cancel the Morgan Harper Nichols poetry workshop.
I decided to cancel the Journal to the Self workshop that was scheduled for April.
I decided not to run in the Spartan Race next month.
Sometimes you over-commit yourself.
Other times, you realize that other projects are a higher priority and need more time and attention.
It's okay to change your mind.
Nature is the perfect example of change. Maybe that is why the lightning bolt is such a powerful drawing symbol?
You can find examples of using nature to embrace change in this new book.
(And it has my children in it! How cool is that?)
ANOTHER PLACE TO PRACTICE CHANGE
IN THE SANDTRAY Build, change things around, bury/unbury, smooth things out
Robert Jason Grant teaches us how to use traditional sandtray therapy methodology, and unconventional methods to help autistic children develop skills in relation to connection and engagement, regulation and sensory processing, and social navigation.
Even though we cancelled the Morgan Harper Nichols workshop, I found guidance in her book, All Along You Were Blooming.
On page 12, there is a line in that poem that says:
Let today be the day you make the mindful decision...
Use that line as a springboard for your journal.
What decisions need to be made today?
Let today be the day you make the mindful decision to....
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