It’s here. The season in which walking into a grocery store will reveal large bags of halloween candy, advertisements for prepping the perfect Thanksgiving meal and perhaps to some people’s surprise, Christmas decorations. The holidays often bring parties, family and food among other things into the mix of your daily routine. It’s a fast paced and busy time of the year and when our mental space is occupied with thoughts of others and future gatherings, the first thing to slip is often how we can calm our mind and take care of ourselves. Here at Sageborn, we believe that taking time to calm your mind is just as important and effective when it comes to taking care of your skin and body, and there are numerous ways to do it. In lieu of the busy holiday season approaching, we would like to guide you through how you can practice meditation while simultaneously engaging in the parties, cooking, decorating, etc. Whether it be through making homemade gifts, costumes, or a new dinner recipe, there are many ways you can create to calm the mind.
Using creativity to calm the mind is nothing new. In fact, it has been implemented for over 50 years in the form of art therapy, a type of therapy that often uses painting and drawing as a way for an individual to express, overcome, and arrive at new realizations and perspectives. It works because it allows for self-awareness, exploration of emotions and much more. Creative outlets are known for relieving stress and they come in so many more forms other than just painting or drawing.
Here are three ways you can engage in mind calming creation this holiday season:
#1: Make Your Own Halloween Costumes
This is for the individual that likes a challenge and finds comfort in accomplishment. Making your own costume literally lets you be a part of your own creation. As dressing up can be a way of expressing the self, this particular type of creating is a great resource for introspecting. What exactly are you trying to express? Within costume making there are so many subcategories of creation: painting the face, sewing, compiling odd bits and pieces into the perfect wardrobe. You are the artist and yourself the art. Enjoy the time spent on this project and be proud of your creation. Enjoy the new sense of self you may have discovered.
#2: Take on Thanksgiving Dinner Collaboratively
This is for the people who enjoy contributing to something larger. Or maybe you loved group projects when you were in school. Making Thanksgiving dinner can be a stressful thing, especially if you have allergies and food preferences to consider, or if you’re trying to impress the in laws. Cooking with a team can allow you more time and focus to spend on a particular dish. Break out that recipe you’ve been dying to try and put all of your focus into making it just how you want to. Let your stress roll out with the dough, find solace in the simple act of carefully placing berries, and let everyone know it’s your creation by the flakiness of crust or the sprinkling of cinnamon on top.
#3: Write A Short Story Documenting Your Christmas
This is for the one who takes an interest in reflection and, of course, storytelling. It is also for the one who likes to have an escape plan throughout the day. Because writing is so much more than a pen to paper, you can be in your car or doing laundry or making breakfast and all the while taking mental notes and thinking of ways you might form your story. It requires you to be present, but also to retreat inward to your own mind. The act of actually writing out your story is an excellent processing tool and can relieve anxieties you might have been holding onto. And in the end, you have a personalized documentation of Christmas!
There are so many opportunities for creating and it’s likely that you are already taking part in a large majority of them. Sometimes we just need to be reminded to enjoy the act of creating, and to take advantage of its calming effects. Enjoying the holidays does not just come from participating in all of the activities, making the appropriate foods, and checking off the list of traditions. Rather, so much of the enjoyment comes from having a mind that is capable of enjoyment. So, when you wake up ready to start your busy day, ask yourself, “What’s one thing I can create today?”