WE are enough

An activity to help you decompress - wherever you find yourself.

Paid Subscribers: Please be sure to listen to the audio recording of this post at the bottom. Thank you!

I waffled this week about whether to write you today. I have been feeling extremely worn out with all the uncertainty - desperate for a break from the news cycles and day to day of pushing work up mountains and then sitting in the uncertainty of it all. You know it is time for a break when your wiser self gently shares with you that it is not a good time to call Sewing Supplies Online and rail at them about how your new Gingher scissors must be knockoffs because they are lighter and cheaper feeling than my original pair and don’t cut as well - despite the fact that I’ve been cutting with the original pair, without sharpening them for 2 years! OK you get the point. When this sort of situation threatens to cause you to explode on some poor customer service person who knows nothing about Gingher supply chains - you know that it is time for a break.

Because the truth of it is that things do seem as scary as they’ve ever been. The weather has been wild and the dramatic cuts to organizations who are supposed to protect us even wilder - like those to the National Weather Service or local radio stations where we get info about evacuations, emergency response etc. I am finding myself listening to the news in the morning, worrying about that and then texting friends who may have been fired from dramatic funding cuts to government or who may have been harmed from extreme flooding (like the flooding in Durham, North Carolina and the surrounding areas) and then waiting back to hear if they’re alright. It is scary.

How do you respond to this moment of fear and uncertainty? For each of us - this uncertainty will trigger different big, hard feelings. For me - it is a story that if I could only do more - be more - valuable, productive, creative - you name it - that things would be more certain. It is pretty easy to see how false this is when you write it out. But nonetheless that is what my brain gnaws on endlessly - if I were only enough - things would be OK - the world would feel more certain. I could be at peace. I could feel worthy of all the blessing in my life and all that are to come.

And I am clear on the fact that I need a break. My partner and I tend to book our vacations in the fall - and somehow I always get to July and feel like a boiling cauldron of frustration - my cue that the time has come for a break. So for those of us who are having trouble getting away right now - for whatever reason - maybe like me you dropped the ball on organizing a trip away until everything was booked - I wanted to write to share a really great, short recharging activity that you can do to decompress some of the heat and anxiety and to create more space wherever you are.

muse.shannonshine.com

Sunday night, my friend Shannon Cook hosted her monthly muse gathering - a virtual class to use art for healing that includes meditation, journaling and super relaxing, easy for novices, meditative art practices. In the wake of my recent push to create more community here - I invited a friend to the house to do a satellite class - where we could both tune in virtually. The theme was expansion - and wouldn’t you know it - the heart of the lesson was on realizing that I AM ENOUGH. That each of us in the class is enough exactly as we are.

Shannon has a number of nice, easy art practices that she suggests to participants of ALL abilities but I wanted to share the idea that came to me - since I found it so helpful to really decompress for a short few hours and recharge at your house if you are say - stuck at home caring for a convalescing pup. I knew I really needed to sit with the idea that I Am Enough since this has bubbled to the surface as of late as something I really need to get a handle on - the idea that I AM ENOUGH just as I am - without doing anything, creating anything, being anything. This means that if I choose to work hard on something I am dedicated to - that the underlying motivation for this work has nothing to do with proving my worth. I am ready to let this go folks. Who’s with me?

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

So the activity that I envisioned was to create an organic looking pattern that looks like the light reflected on the bottom of a pool - since swimming brings me such peace - and to color in each of these shapes with a trio of watercolor colors that I love. And to use this activity as the background for a sign that I write out in Sharpie - I Am Enough. Something I can place prominently and reflect on every day.

This is kid friendly!

Materials

• White pastel crayon (I bet you kid’s white crayon would also work)

• 3-4 watercolors blended or straight out of your pallet that make you smile

• A black Sharpie

• Whatever watercolor paper you can find - it doesn’t have to be fancy but should be called - watercolor paper -12ish by 9ish inches

• Scratch watercolor paper to test colors

• 4-5 medium sized paint brushes

• 2 jars of water

• Snacks - suggestions - tea, hummus, veggies, blue corn chips, dark chocolate etc.

STEPS

1. Write in the center of the paper, with your black Sharpie, “I Am Enough” or whatever message you need to absorb (you will be able to go back over it with the Sharpie again once everything dries so just getting the letters down, in the center and in your own handwriting will do)

2. Take your white pastel or crayon and draw a pattern across the entire sheet of paper including over the top of the lettering - it is fun to make organic shapes - whatever pattern you want so long as the crayon is forming shapes closed on all sides to trap the watercolor. Feel free to use my pool inspiration described above.

3. Mix up generous puddles of 3-4 watercolors - test that you have the intensity of the colors to your liking on the scratch watercolor paper

4. Set aside one of your brushes and one jar of water to “paint” water into each of your shapes - doing your best to get the water up to the edges you created with your crayon

5. Dedicate 1 brush to each color and dab the color into your shape - and watch with awe as the water spreads the color - LOVE IT

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 as you move across your design

7. Take a break, eat snacks, let it dry

8. Touch up your lettering so that it is big and bold so you can easily see whatever important message is scribbled on there

9. Hang it somewhere where you will see it everyday

10. Bask in the peace that can come from fun and simple activities that you can do at home with minimal supplies!

Suggested playlist: Peaceful Rhythms on Spotify

For those of you interested in joining Shannon’s Muse gatherings they are monthly and wonderful. Bring a friend or neighbor to create a satellite gathering to have the best of the virtual and in person experiences. More information here: muse.shannonshine.com

I am going to take a break for a few weeks to recharge out in these gorgeous mountains of ours. I will resume Substack posts on Tuesday, August 5th.

If you are not already a paid subscriber and would like to support this work, please consider upgrading your subscription or sharing my work with someone who would like it.