I use visual journaling to explore my feelings and understand what’s going on inside this messy chaotic head of mine. Art journaling helps slowing down the erratic firing of my brain’s neurons, snaps me out of the autopilot mode for a while and re-roots me in the present moment.
Sometimes my journal pages are chaotic, a perfect reflection of my racing thoughts. Other times, the process begins with simple colours or doodles and suddenly images start of magically force themselves onto the pages maybe in an attempt to add some sense to what seemed so non-sensical. And, this was the image that popped up on my journal page last week.
Sometimes my journal pages are chaotic, a perfect reflection of my racing thoughts. Other times, the process begins with simple colours or doodles and suddenly images start of magically force themselves onto the pages maybe in an attempt to add some sense to what seemed so non-sensical. And, this was the image that popped up on my journal page last week.
If you didn’t hear me talk about it before, my favourite metaphor of the conscious and the subconscious mind is Jonathan Haidt’s, “the rider and the elephant.” In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt depicts our subconscious mental reality as an elephant that has its own will. And, our analytical, logical conscious mind is the rider who is supposed to direct that elephant. Yes, the rider holds the rein… yet, the rider can never force the elephant into a direction it does not want to go. The elephant is the one running the show.
I take it that the image in my journal that day was trying to warn me that I am stuck in a futile attempt to drag my “elephant”. And, my poor elephant is in full panic mode.
Lately, I have been putting so much pressure on myself to achieve more than I could bear. I was desperately trying to tie all loose ends and put all my ducks in a row. The drawing made it very clear how ridiculous my attempts were. I simply cannot drag an elephant! I needed to slow down… maybe have fun with that little mouse dancing in the corner. It’s a tiny harmless mouse (I used to play with so many of them in my pharmacy lab), but the elephant cannot see that… my life problems might be rationalized away and I can put all the plans and strategies in place to deal with them, they are not scary, at least to the rider… yet my subconscious mind, my elephant, is envisioning all the dramatic scenarios that it can possibly think of… My “elephant” is frightened! It is stuck… It panicked… And, it froze!
If this rider in the image just stopped for a while and embraced the dance of the mouse, maybe the elephant will realize how harmless this seemingly dangerous creature is… Embracing the chaos… the dance of life… the unexpected (or maybe expected but un-welcomed) interruptions and changes…
Breathe… Slow down… Flow with the whirls and twirls of life, and, eventually, the elephant will calm down; and, only then, you can direct him wherever you want him to go next.
I take it that the image in my journal that day was trying to warn me that I am stuck in a futile attempt to drag my “elephant”. And, my poor elephant is in full panic mode.
Lately, I have been putting so much pressure on myself to achieve more than I could bear. I was desperately trying to tie all loose ends and put all my ducks in a row. The drawing made it very clear how ridiculous my attempts were. I simply cannot drag an elephant! I needed to slow down… maybe have fun with that little mouse dancing in the corner. It’s a tiny harmless mouse (I used to play with so many of them in my pharmacy lab), but the elephant cannot see that… my life problems might be rationalized away and I can put all the plans and strategies in place to deal with them, they are not scary, at least to the rider… yet my subconscious mind, my elephant, is envisioning all the dramatic scenarios that it can possibly think of… My “elephant” is frightened! It is stuck… It panicked… And, it froze!
If this rider in the image just stopped for a while and embraced the dance of the mouse, maybe the elephant will realize how harmless this seemingly dangerous creature is… Embracing the chaos… the dance of life… the unexpected (or maybe expected but un-welcomed) interruptions and changes…
Breathe… Slow down… Flow with the whirls and twirls of life, and, eventually, the elephant will calm down; and, only then, you can direct him wherever you want him to go next.
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