Art as healing

@Icaruslanded love that you're on a roll posting, this one definitely resonates with me because i'm going through one of the hardest seasons of my life but i picked up pipecleaner flower making and it's just the right amount of difficulty but the outcome is exponential. i've really been enjoying slowing down my thoughts and just putting on a tv show and make some flowers with my hands. it's 100% another way for me to express myself, and to physically share the love when i make a bouquet to gift my mum, or friends 🙂 I did try to pick up colouring which i felt was intimidating at first which sounds silly but even the cosy colouring books i felt overwhelmed like was too focused on how i wanted to colour or what colour to use. then i discovered 'satisfying patterns' colouring book on amazon! so simple, just some geometric shapes, i pick the colours i like and i just go for gold. love that i'm able to pull back some simple arts n crafts activties to get through the day productively!!

Hey @carmine1809 ! Pipecleaners are awesome - the tactile sensation is uniquely satisfying, I am glad you found them. Flowers are fun to do as well (you don't need to worry about this complexity, just enjoy making them, but you might like to know that part of what makes them fun to make is the unique math that makes up the number of petals (its found everywhere in nature and hidden in plain sight - most people never notice!
Art is especially healing because it allows us to explore our deeper senses through connecting our physical senses like touch, smell (ever smell the unique scent of oil paints, for example?), it stimulates our visual senses of course and then there is colour and its language. Overwhelm with colour is interesting - not at all unusual. Some people actually link colour to sounds and "see" them with numbers. Its called "synaesthesia" and its pretty cool. Communication with the subconscious mind is not through words but through the deeper mind - symbols, pictures, sensations, sounds, feelings - it's how dreams communicate with us too. Since every experience we have is recorded in the deeper mind, art has this cool ability to bring forth our deepest selves. The simple act of giving these to your mum and others links a very primal need in the brain too in a beautiful way - keep it up, you are onto a good thing doing what you do. So glad this resonated well with you, I love hearing this. Your personality is one of processing your world primarily through sound and touch I reckon, so this is a wonderful way to connect with yourself - keep it up. I also wanted to add, reading your comments about how colouring overwhelmed you, could it be possible you are a bit of a perfectionist? Remember, the whole point of colouring is release your inner self and relax, not to "get it right" (I'm smiling inside because I used to do similar with my art, then I learned to go with the flow and it worked much better for me). Simple things like pipe cleaners, colouring books, arts and crafts of all kinds bring out a richness in us we cannot easily find otherwise. Some of my best pieces have come about by me just starting and seeing where it goes...the picture forms slowly and then develops from there. When you take the pressure off, wonderful things can happen. Awesome work with what you are doing, sounds like a very positive thing.

@Icaruslanded 100% it's the perfectionist in me.... hahaha i am trying to push myself out of that mould! at least with pipecleaners i just say let's give it a go and nothing else matters if i get it wrong the first time or not hehe.