There’s Always A Silver Lining
Amidst life's unpredictabilities and all the hardships, the pandemic is shoving your way, is it becoming increasingly difficult for you to stay afloat? Gripped with the fear of losing a loved one or burdened by the pressing financial concerns in wake of the ongoing lockdown and the uncertainty of it all, are you searching for a Silver Lining?
Your social media feed may be prompting you to minimize the amount of news consumption, practice mindfulness techniques such as deep breathing and meditation, or engage in some form of physical activity to manage your stress. While all these are fantastic ways to minimize your anxiety but to stay strong during this tumultuous period, you need to find something substantial! It's time to let your creative juices flow. Your creative outlet can become an excellent source to de-stress that can continue long after COVID 19 restrictions subside. This is an ideal time to take up things you wish you had that extra time to do or learn in the past!
You may be a financial consultant who doesn't know a thing about music and hasn't touched a paintbrush since your elementary school art class. Maybe you've always classified yourself as "left-brained," or dismissed any artsy activity because you never really got the hang of it. But know what? Art isn't just for the artsy — it's for anyone and everyone. In all its forms, creative expression is a unique experience that can be quite fulfilling and rewarding regardless of your level of expertise. When you chose to express yourself creatively, it actually helps you to break away from your stress, create something tangible and memorable from your accumulated experience, and transform the confusing and depressing thoughts into a positive art form. Creativity induces positive health effects, especially on the mind and heart.
Let me share with you my own experience. A few years ago, a debilitating illness left me almost immobilized. I went through months (which seemed endless at the time) of pain, frustration, and sheer hopelessness! Pain that was devastating for everyone involved. My loved ones were there to provide me all the care and support but even they couldn't prevent me from spiraling down the dark realms of despair, depression, and desolation! I started drifting away from everyone. My life started changing around me and I felt utterly helpless. I was desperate to find something outside myself to ease my pain. In that moment of despair, I had a funny realization that I had a yearning to become an acclaimed artist something I could never actualize because I neither had the patience nor the skill or even the time to learn how to become one.
I still can't fathom the ‘how’ or 'why' of it but all I remember is randomly calling my uncle one day and asking him to send me a carton of earthen glasses which looked more like miniature clay pots when they arrived. Looking pretty dull, just like me, they required real sprucing up so I ordered Camlin poster colors, six in all - white, black, green, yellow, red, and a pretty peach. I wonder, what made me ditch blue for the peach. haha. Next, I dug out the paintbrushes I had not used since my school days (most of them had frayed) and found just two to be decent enough to use.
Not in the state to sit on the floor or sit for a long period of time for that matter, I kept shifting between various sitting positions on a pile of old newspapers spread all over my bed and ended up with one leg stretched in front of me and the other folded at an awkwardly uneasy angle. Little did I know, it was to become my perpetual posture for the next two and a half months! I couldn’t wait to get started. It took three days of non-stop paint-mania to prepare just the base coat for those pots but for the first time in two years, I forgot all my pain, my anger, my frustration!
There was no stopping thereafter. With no prior knowledge, or particular plan, inadequate tools, and an absolutely blank mind, I ended up painting thirty pots having Warli art on them. The interesting bit is, I had no idea what I was going to draw and didn't do a rough sketch on even a single one. I just picked pot after pot, coated the tip of my brush black, and let my fingers flow...
This whole exercise knocked home a very crucial life lesson — you need to do whatever you can to keep yourself happy and positive even while confined to a home hospital bed!
If clouds of gloom are hovering above you and everything is appearing bleak, just allow your creative juices to flow. Take time figuring out what form of outlet makes you feel most alive. You don't have to be the next Picasso. Just be YOU. Grab a camera, a pencil, or some scrapbook paper, and see what awesome results can come from your expression! Give it a try, and who knows, you find your Silver Lining smiling at you!
I had clicked these pictures purely for myself and hadn’t known at the time that I’d be sharing them on my website someday! They are absolutely untouched, unedited, virgin if I may say so cause they felt so right in their original state.
