Mapping A Moment

A couple of years ago a colleague of mine proposed we host a series of workshops for mums with postnatal depression and asked if I would consider being the facilitator. This was such a tremendous opportunity, and it meant so much that my colleague recognised something in me that could contribute to this.
So, naturally – I said ‘NO’.

We all have that one story that gets in the way of us achieving our fullest selves, in our relationships, our careers, you name it. And if you don’t, well teach me your ways because I have lost many an opportunity to that one story.

It’s the relentless story about what I am, or am not capable of, that disrupts every cell in my body and impacts the choices I make in how I will proceed or more commonly say ‘No’ to an opportunity that arises.
Intensely aware of this habit to eject myself from situations where I perceive myself as ‘not good enough’, I wanted to know:

What happens between the moment an opportunity is proposed to me, and the moment this relentless story steals it from me?

So I mapped the moment to get an idea of what my process is, to see where I stumble, what the byproduct of this behaviour is and what I could do differently next time. This was initially a 2000+ word assignment with a more complex map! But here’s a simplified breakdown.

Here’s a closer look:

Do you have a story that gets in your way?

Wellness in the Unwellness

The class assignment was set.
A wall with 2 parts to it. One titled ‘Wellness’, the other ‘Un-wellness’. The task was for us to visually represent what each of these meant on a sheet of paper and stick it under its corresponding title. It seemed straight forward enough.

Only when I touched the paper did it become clear to me:
This is a false binary.

I remember so vividly how my body immediately signaled to me these states of being are not separate. I took both pieces of paper and nestled them within each other.

There is wellness in the unwellness.
The search for what is already well within me in times of dis-ease. The questions that were birthed. The growing that was seeded. The words that found voice. The constellations of clarity against what needed to fade away.

There is unwellness in the wellness.
The recognition of what happened. The traces. The disbeliefs that accompanied new beliefs. The ungraceful changes. The inconvenient truths. The growing pains. My altered shape coming out of where I was, into the next step.

My experience of wellness / unwellness was: Symbiotic. Collaborative. Communicative. Responding to. Back and forth. Light and shadow. Angular. Laced with.

One side of the wall wasn’t enough to hold my experience.

A Creative Bone in My Body

‘I don’t have a creative bone in my body…’

We worry about presenting a ‘finished product’ of anything we do, including ourselves. Moving along, we realize (hopefully) the significance of process – the actual doing. A finished artwork can hold volumes about an experience we want to represent. But the process of making is equally – if not more - revealing of our internal structures.

How are we choosing the materials we’re making with?
Are we hesitant or are we impulsive with our decisions?
What reactions do we have towards our work along the way?
What happens to our emotional state from when we first started to when we finished?

There is meaning in the making.

A Different Approach

Things reveal themselves differently when you approach them differently.

The process of art-making encourages you to expand your experience of an event beyond a single form of expression and provide a richer understanding of it.

In an Art Therapy session, what you once defined as ‘good versus bad’ with words, might reveal itself as deeply interconnected with braided threads of wool.

A simple art-based activity not only enhances your understanding of an experience, but also shapes what your next step could look like.

The Task of the Writer

‘The task of the writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.’
- Anton Chekhov

As a practitioner, daughter, sister, friend and colleague, this is something I strive for.

So many times we are convinced we know the shape of the issue we’re facing, armed and ready to start chipping away at it.

We need that person who is willing to sit with us and question the layers of our older voices and convictions that have mutated this experience into something else - Something it isn’t.

Until we can learn to question ourselves.