Welcome back to another installment of #coloringforclarity. I had a small break from social media, including steemit, to focus on some day-job hunting. I had been looking to remove myself a bit from directly treating patients and take on a more education/counseling position and I stumbled across an opportunity with a wellness coaching company. While I do not have a degree for providing counseling broadly, it is certainly in my job description as a speech-language pathologist to counsel people for their feelings about changes in their speaking, thinking or swallowing functions. To do research for the position, I rented the book that was associated with the corporate coaching program.
The "lifelong habit of wellbeing" is a goal that I have been working toward independently and I am so grateful that I came across such a fantastic tool! Along with a combination of current scientific research, ancient and modern philosophies from Aristotle and Epictetus, the authors have developed a training system with daily habit routines that introduce meaningful practice of the most impactful ideas.
There were several digital drawings submitted (check the post out here) allowing for really cool moving effects and patterns/gradients. There was even a hand colored entry and I wanted to participate too. And then life happened.
I returned to that design when I opted to use coloring as a model of meditation the other day and I grabbed my crayons and got busy. I loved the extra patterns that I was adding to the design and then I had an idea...marker ink won't cover crayon wax. I had learned of the art of batiking (an art form that I plan to explore in a future post) that used the same concept: wax to create negative space when applying dye/ink, and I wanted to try to emulate that style. Then that darn life showed up again.
After the crayon application, I tried using a marker over top and...it didn't block the ink... honestly I think it just gunked up my marker and made it hard to use after. (The blue triangles on either end did work out when I used the white crayon, but still messed with the marker) I found myself feeling frustrated with the smear of color that muddied up my design. I was wanting to be able to create crisper lines with my crayons, but they were unsharpened. I found myself desiring a lot of things I could no longer change. I noticed my negative feelings, I shifted my mind to the peace that coloring had been giving me, allowing myself engagement and calm, I rewired my brain to celebrate these small shifts from the positive to the negative. I started attached to the goal of a perfect design, but the growth happened when I embraced the imperfect.
I started creating patterns using lines and circles in the leftover spaces and was really enjoying that creative process. I used my favorite color without worrying about color theory, I played with size and shape and I had fun. I am grateful I have made time for meditation practice in my life and know that color can become a great setting for tackling anxiety, perfectionism, brain fog...so please join me in #coloring for clarity!
Still hoping for a bit of participation on selecting my next design. I have some ideas for some non-traditional coloring mediums, but am always open to hearing about new options! Let me know about your favorite medium and I will feature your work in a future post. Thanks for reading!
And remember, the STEEM work makes the dream work! ;*