Holiday Grounding Through Creative Gratitude

This winter solstice I’ve decided to celebrate the increasingly longer days with creative gratitude. The holidays can feel very hectic and rushed at times and that’s when we need to feel grounded most. If not, the stress can get to us and bring our spirit and mood and immune system down.

How do I prefer to get grounded? If it were warm out, I love walking barefoot on the sand or grass, but with it being very frosty out lately, I choose to create art instead. Being creative and expressing ourselves helps us return to the present moment we’re living right now and let go of worries or concerns or to-do lists for a little bit while we dive into a creative project or canvas.

One of my favorite ways to create art is through collaging. I love the freedom of ripping and tearing inspiring images and words out of magazines or junk mail and making something beautiful and unique from it. I also love that it’s a green, eco-friendly art form, using old or unwanted magazines and other printed material in a new and artistic way.

This evening I’m hosting my first online class to demonstrate just this–how to feel more grounded this holiday season by creating gratitude art. We’ll be focusing our collage on what we’re grateful for from this past year. I find reflection around this time of year so helpful and grounding as well so what better way to celebrate the increasing light coming with this solstice than by reflecting on what we’re grateful for.

If you’d like to join me live, follow this link to the Facebook event where I’ll be broadcasting my free class this evening at 5:30pm PST. Looking forward to feeling more grounded and creative with you!

Happiest of holidays!

Maret

Releasing the "Gunk" We Sometimes Carry Around With Us

I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to lately. Of course as a new mom with a mobile 10.5 month old, it’s easy to imagine why, but writing centers me, it gives me space to reflect and share my experiences, to record what I’m feeling, and to release what no longer serves me. Without that, where am I to let go of the gunk that comes up occasionally in all our lives? 

Letting the gunk hang out too long is really not an option because stuck gunk is a recipe for disaster for a highly sensitive, emotional person like myself. It’s not good for any of us really. Letting go of it is of course easier said than done. And what do I mean by “gunk?” I refer to “gunk” as the doubts, overwhelm, pain, and fear that we carry around if we don’t have a regular way of releasing it. And let me tell you, carrying this gunk is a heavy business. 

I know I haven’t spent enough time releasing it when I feel heaviness in my heart center or chest area, when it’s hard to breathe really deeply. I also know I’m carrying too much of the “gunk” when I feel unorganized and almost flighty, like I’m floating around without any direction. I like having some kind of direction, even if I’m not the most organized person in the world. I like feeling grounded in my breath and trusting that everything we experience helps us grow and learn. I like feeling lighter once I’ve let go of the doubts, overwhelm, pain, and fears that have been collected along the path of too-busy-ness. 

This is where regular self-care routines come into play. Over the past few years before becoming a mom, I did my best to keep a daily practice to enhance my well-being and self-care. Becoming a mama has definitely created a new element to it but this work is so vital at any point in our journey.

I’ve started sharing simple self-care ideas on my Instagram feed, if you’d like to follow along. 

What self-care routines do you practice or hope to begin?