Tag: life

music and distraction and joy…

I love music. Lots of different kinds of music.

I love music just for the music itself, but when I’m feeling stressed or anxious music can provide even more than enjoyment. It can be a way to shift my mood and offer distraction (at least somewhat) from the difficult stuff.

In our home, we have a local radio station playing in the kitchen literally all day long. This station plays music from the 70s through the current time, and we love how much air play the DJs give to our favorite music decades of the 70s and 80s. We also really enjoy the special interviews and features they do at regularly scheduled times. (And yes, there are actual, human, real-life in real-time DJs on the air.) It provides background sound for the day, it keeps me company when I’m in the kitchen cooking or painting or washing dishes, and it generally brings joy to our lives.

Although the kitchen radio provides most of the music in our house, I’ll also turn to the CDs we still have in our collection, as well as music online. Sometimes when I’m feeling anxious or stressed I’ll go to youtube and find a long video or playlist containing lots of 70s or 80s songs, and I’ll listen to the music while I do nothing else other than relax and breathe. Almost always, it will help.

Are there songs or genres/periods of music that help you feel more uplifted? That help you feel calmer if you’re feeling stressed or anxious? That help you feel more capable of making it through a hard day?

Music can reflect mood, definitely. But music can also impact mood and shift mood. It can be useful for calming and de-stressing.

It can be an important tool in an anxiety-reducing, stress-reducing toolkit.

❤

when anxiety tools aren’t working…

High anxiety has been part of my life for a very long time, and some days are worse than others. And sometimes, those high-anxiety days turn into high-anxiety weeks (or longer). That’s the way it’s felt recently.

There are tools I keep in my metaphorical toolkit for calming and de-stressing. These are things that have proven to be helpful for me over the years, things I turn to time and time again. Things like breathing exercises, prayer, painting, taking walks, tapping, aromatherapy, brain retraining, porch sittin’, watching comfort tv, meditating, and other tools and techniques for quieting an anxious nervous system.

But I’m going to be honest. When my fear is stuck in high gear, the tools don’t always seem to work.

When that happens, I’ve found that it’s best to layer tools. I need to do a combination of different things, and sometimes I have to experiment to find which combination will work on a particular day. And sometimes I have to do this in an off-and-on sort of way because the effects might not last long.

And I’m going to be honest again. If the anxiety is super high, the effects might not only be temporary for me, the effects also might be quite limited when it comes to how calm and less anxious I feel.

But I consider any reduction in the high anxiety to be a positive step.

Do you have a metaphorical anxiety toolkit of techniques you can turn to when feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed? It’s worth it to have one and use it…and if it seems like the tools aren’t working, try layering them.

❤

creativity begets creativity…

Something I’ve noticed over the years is that the more I create, the more I create.

It’s true that there are cycles of creativity, and sometimes it seems to flow abundantly and sometimes it slows to a point that makes me wonder if it’ll turn back on. But all the same, it seems to be true that the more often and more consistently I write or paint, the more likely it is that I will continue to write or paint, and the more of it I’ll do. Even with the ebbs and flows, and the stalls and starts, the overall trajectory is that creating leads to more creating.

For me, this is the case with writing as I continue to slowly and gradually work on the sequel to New Life in New Melody.

And it is the case with painting and doodling and art journaling as I continue with my personal at-home summer art retreat.

Big blocks of time aren’t necessary to engage in some creativity – even brief bits of time work really, really well.

The thing is to do it. To create for its own sake…and for our own sake.

And if your experience is similar to mine, you might find that the more you create, the more you create.

♥