🖌️🎨 How painting brought me out of a panic attack...
Society has taught us art is optional, BUT... That hasn't been my life experience. In fact, art has saved me in some very big ways in the past. Here's just one story… I had a horrible panic attack at the beginning of the shutdown in 2020. I don't usually have them, so I didn't know what to do when I came home from work that day and started hyperventilating. I just remember thinking that I didn't know what was going to happen to me or my family or my friends during the pandemic, and I just lost it. I must have mentally blanked out because a few minutes later, I found myself sitting at my art table watching paint colors pool into the water on my watercolor paper. It was mesmerizing in the best way possible, and in just a few minutes, I was calm, forming normal thoughts, and already coming up with what to do next. I still looked around, wondering how I got from the door where I was standing to the art table. I never remembered walking over! What I did know was that painting in that moment was so powerful, it literally brought me back to myself. What I painted was it particularly good, it was just an abstract piece but I saw a beauty in it that shocked me. It was raw, honest, vulnerable, and I knew I had stumbled into something big. That's when I knew that being a watercolor coach was WAY more than fluff. It's actually a powerful tool that anyone can access on a good day, or in their time of difficulty (stress, grief, illness, frustration, and more). At this point, I've helped 3000+ students through a lot of hard things, and seeing them go back to their painting time and time again is so satisfying! If you've ever had the dream or desire to do something creative, I encourage you to do it! Society teaches us that art is fluff and that you have to be "good" to be worthy of creating. But that just isn't true! Science says we are inherently creative. That's why there are paintings on cave walls older than we can imagine, and why products we buy with art on them delight us.