“Someday” is not a real day. Tomorrow is also not a real day. Not until it turns into today.

Today is a real day. Today is the ONLY real day.

Because the only real time is now.

Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is a dream… today is what we have.

You are worthy of receiving support. Piles of it. As much as you need - it doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t mean you’re not enough on your own, and it doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

Going to say that again - receiving support is not proof that you’re not good enough.

What do you need, and how will you get it?

These are two of my favourite questions. They’re deceptively simple, and deceptively powerful.

They can give you almost anything…

There’s something to be said for having no idea where you’re going in life. When you don’t know where you’re going, the journey is the point. And when the journey is the point, you have all the time in the world. To me, this is a thought that feels kind and soft.

When there’s no destination, there’s no pressure to get anywhere. No pressure to do anything. No pressure to be any particular way. A weight lifts and all my fears ease. Fear of judgement, fear of not being enough, fear of failing.

It’s so spacious, having all the time in the world. Time to stop and smell the roses. Time to be curious and follow that curiosity. Time to try things out just because they look fun. Time to wonder and delight. Time to share a story or two. Time to pick up feathers and stick them in your hair. Time to dream.

And… dreaming is where it begins.

Right now I’m feeling…

This is a little but powerful prompt I use to check in with myself whenever I think of it throughout the day. I make a game of it to find the exact words to describe how I’m feeling, and I know when I have it right because part of me lights up and I feel seen when I get it exactly spot on.

For any healing process, we need a quiet moment.

There’s something about that sentence that settles me, helps me take a deeper breath. A quiet pause.

Lots of us want to feel better. Not many of us take the time to create a quiet moment to plant the seeds of whatever feeling better is to us. We don’t create quiet moments to tend to those seeds as they grow.

We’re so often caught in our heads, so removed from the physicality of our own bodies that sometimes we get around in a state of ‘body? What body? I’m just a floating head’.

And yet… our bodies are where feeling better starts.

Today’s public service announcement:

Do nice things for yourself. Treat yourself kindly.

Find small things that make you feel cared for, and do those things.

Find small things that make your days feel brighter, and do those things.

I read someone's Instagram post the other day with these words, and it struck a chord.

I sat down to write my own list and it went: read, write, draw.

And that was the end of the list.

About a second later, I got an attack of the guilts that I hadn’t put moving my body on there. Or eating amazing food, or the work I do in the world, or having interesting conversations with interesting people, or spending time outside in nature.

These are still important parts of my life, but right NOW, this day, this week, all I want to do is read, write, and draw.

And when I stopped trying to sneak other stuff onto that list, I felt a lot of different things…

I want to offer kindness, as a lantern in the dark.

Kindness as a recognition of our own humanness. Kindness that tends to our fears and hurts. Kindness that sees we need a loving word or a gentle touch, and offers it to us, unasked. Kindness that feels like a gentle breath, a softening through our bodies, knowing that we've got this, knowing that we're here for ourselves, knowing that we're walking with ourselves through the woods, knowing that we're deserving of this kind of solid, unwavering love.

We are worthy of kindness from ourselves.

“Well, the thing about trauma is that people suppress a lot of their feelings, a lot of their experiences, and art by definition is the opposite of suppression, it’s expression. Instead of pushing it down, you get it out.

Now, when that’s done consciously, when there’s conscious expression, that’s where the healing takes place. And that conscious expression, that conscious pushing it out, can be verbal, it can be emotional, but it surely can be facilitated by artistic expression, which bypasses the intellect and comes right from the emotional, gut level…”

Calm is the eye of the storm.

Calm is safe harbour.

Calm is a regulated nervous system that has the capacity to handle the challenges of life with grace.

Calm is a super power when holding space for others - like the doctor, other people’s nervous systems pick up on the calm of mine, and they start to feel that things are okay. They start to feel that nothing’s wrong here. They start to feel like THEY’RE ok, exactly as they are.

Into the woods…

In the woods, you can’t see the forest for the trees. Can’t see anything for the trees, and that’s kind of the point - when you journey into the woods, you’re leaving certainty at the door. Check in any inkling that you might know what happens next - you can collect that again when we return. If we return. If you want it back..

Making tiny altars is one way that I bring moments of space and sacredness into my ordinary hours. They're a way of intentionally connecting with the unknown. They’re also good way of bringing some kind of creative practice to your day without needing to know how to draw - art therapy can take many forms!

I build tiny altars usually for one of two reasons. To hold an intention, or to hold a meaning.

This is a week for imagining things.

Why? Mostly just because. Any week is a good week for imagining things.

Imagination is a thing that's downplayed when maybe it should be revered. 'It's "just" your imagination'. It's fanciful and frivolous and fantastical and also the most powerful thing we own.

I like thinking of imagination as a place. It's a place we can visit.

Everything starts there.

You’re doing it right, this human thing, and you did life right, today.

Recently I had the great pleasure of talking with my friend and colleague Kellie Stirling about grief. It was a rich and rewarding conversation - I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

You know that song from the Sound of Music that goes:

Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start?

Sorry (not sorry) if you now have that stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

She has a point, though - the beginning is a very good place to start. Another good place to start (I think maybe the best place to start), is right where you are. When I think that thought, I feel light and hopeful. Beginning right where I am means that I must be in the right spot to begin, and that feels freeing.

When you’re stepping into using art and creativity to heal or to grow or to manifest what you want in your life, how do you know where to start? “Make something” could mean literally ANYTHING (that’s part of its magic), so how do you choose where to focus?

One of the best ways to start exploring the healing and growing and manifesting potential of making and creativity is to hire an art therapist! We’re basically your guide on the path - it’s our job to create a way in for you.

Spontaneous gestural drawing is one of my favourite things to fill my art journal pages with.

That’s a lot of big words - what do they mean?

It's a way of making an image that encourages stepping away from our thinking mind and letting a different part of us choose colours and marks.

Instead of thinking about what colours, and what shapes, I like to let my eyes go a bit soft, a bit blurred, and instead FEEL the colours and shapes. What colour jumps out at me? Start with that. What shape feels nice to draw? Draw that.

I don’t have a 10 step process to anywhere.

My lack of answers sometimes dismays me.

I want to be able to tell you - here’s the path. Do these ten things, one after the other, and then you will arrive, and live happily ever after.

Alas…

Life, relationships, healing and growth don’t really work like that.

Know what they DO work with, though? Curiosity.