You might be wondering what it takes to “visualize imagery” and worry that you won’t be able to “see” anything to draw. Don’t worry – the process is actually more simple than you might imagine!
It’s important to understand that people experience inner imagery in different ways. Some see a very clear picture, other people merely sense an image with no clear picture, and still others have a shape or color flash through their mind as a thought or impression. Try this activity to get an idea of how you experience your own inner imagery: · Gather your visual journaling materials and, with marker/crayon/pastel in hand, close your eyes and take several deep breaths. Now, imagine a sailboat. Finally, open your eyes and draw that sailboat. Remember that your image is YOUR image, so there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to draw the sailboat. For every thought of “Can I draw it like…”, the answer is “YES!” and for every thought of “Does it have to be…”, the answer is “NO!” When you have finished your sailboat drawing, answer these questions: 1. Did the sailboat present itself to your inner eye as a kind of flash image or picture? 2. Did you only sense what it looked like? 3. Did you just begin to draw, having no idea what the final drawing would look like? The most important part of expressing your inner imagery is to learn to trust your own way of accessing it. If you close your eyes and nothing happens, don’t give up! Just start making marks on the paper and eventually an image will appear. The more you practice this “art”, the stronger your connection to your inner imagery will become! Feel free to post a picture of your first expression of visual imagery! (And remember, judging or comparing yourself to others is not allowed!) · Adapted from Visual Journaling : Going Deeper than Words, by Ganim & Fox
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Whether your kids are counting down the days, or they're groaning at the thought of studying the 3 Rs again -- summer is quickly slipping away, and now is the perfect time to begin to plan for the upcoming school year. Here are 3 tips to ease into the back-to-school routine:
-- Yolanda Harper, MSW, ISW 6261 Parenting Support, Counselor Life Renewal Counseling 813.434.3639 ** Important dates to remember: 8/3/2012 – 8/5/2012 : Sales Tax Holiday 8/20/2012 : Pasco School Begins 8/21/2012 : Hillsborough School Begins to Go Back to School Have you ever tried journaling and found that you couldn’t stick with it? Are there certain events going on in your life that spur emotions that you have a hard time putting into words (like what it feels like to fall in love!)?
Like verbal journaling, visual journaling allows you to record and process life events, but it uses a person’s inner vision to imagine what a thought, feeling, or emotional reaction would look like if it were expressed as a color, shape, or image. By combining the image and verbal thoughts, you are able to integrate the functions of your visual, feeling-centered right brain with your verbal, logical, thought-centered left brain. Simply put, visual journaling helps your left and right brain communicate more effectively and bring greater insight to a situation. Are you ready to try something new? Join us in learning about the process of visual journaling and how you might put it to use. · Adapted from Visual Journaling : Going Deeper than Words, by Ganim & Fox I love this quote from The Art of Extreme Self-Care, by Cheryl Richardson:
"To practice Extreme Self-Care, you must learn to love yourself unconditionally, accept your imperfections, and embrace your vulnerabilities. From a spiritual perspective, it's about recognizing that you're a soul in a physical body who's here to learn to be more of who you really are. When you treat and view yourself with the respect you deserve, you experience the peace that comes from being present to yourself. The reason it's so hard to look deeply into your own eyes is because it forces the ego to step aside as you experience a moment of seeing your true nature: a spiritual being housed in a physical shell." -- Adapted from The Art of Extreme Self-Care by Cheryl Richardson www.LifeRenewalCounseling.org "Awareness is a powerful catalyst for positive change".
Become aware of the areas in your life that you feel drained and the ways in which you deprive yourself of what you need (sleep, exercise, "down" time). What do you need more of right now? What do you need less of? Who or what is causing you to feel resentful and why? Taking the time to answer these questions will help you gain greater clarity about what your soul needs most for care and restoration. -- Adapted from The Art of Extreme Self-Care by Cheryl Richardson Instead of viewing self-care as being selfish, consider the pre-flight instruction a stewardess gives that tells adults to put on their own oxygen mask before that of their child.
When we care for ourselves in a deliberate manner, we begin to care for others in a healthier and more effective way. We become more conscious and conscientious. We make choices out of love and compassion instead of guilt and obligation. (And what a wonderful example to set for those we care about!) Does the idea of self-care make you feel guilty and selfish? How will you challenge these feelings today? -- Adapted from The Art of Extreme Self-Care by Cheryl Richardson * Surrounding yourself with people who are only interested in a two-way relationship.
* Eliminating clutter from your life. * Creating and maintaining a soul-nourishing work and home environment. * Not making any commitments whatsoever out of guilt or obligation. * Making pleasure a regular priority (ie, taking an afternoon break from work to take a short walk, enjoying a massage, listening to music, drinking your favorite tea, ordering fresh flowers for your office). Your assignment for today is to take an action step in any of the above areas. You can do it! -- Adapted from The Art of Extreme Self-Care by Cheryl Richardson To conclude this month's focus on Hal Runkel's new book, Scream-Free Marriage: Calming Down, Growing Up, and Getting Closer, we look at a third truth: If You're Not Part of the Solution, Then You're Still Part of the Problem.
This truth reminds me of the mantra a friend has with the children she works with at church: If You're Not Helping, You're Hurting. However you word it, the idea is that of self-responsibility. Runkel labels this self-responsibility in the context of marriage relationship "Authentic Self-Representation", achieved by Calming Down, Growing Up, Getting Closer, and Repeating. 1. Calm Down- First, create a pause for yourself so you don't "lose it". Look back at past situations where you didn't "lose it" and try to determine what helped you keep your calm in that circumstance. Then, "Go to the Balcony", as Runkel says. After you've pressed the pause button, try to seek clarity about the situation by "taking it upstairs", away from emotions to a more analytic and cognitive perspective. This can be challenging during the heat of an argument; however, the more you practice, the easier it gets. Throughout this process, try to remember that when you are focused on your own behavior - and not your spouse's - your spouse is forced to look at his/her behavior himself/herself. 2. Grow Up- with this new perspective, you can challenge yourself to "Spot Your Pattern" and realize how you contribute to the situation. Remember that marital problems usually have patterns, and these patterns always have partners. This is a dance that both you and your partner participate in, often stepping on each other's toes. After you have realized your contribution to the problem pattern, you can "Step on the Scales" and really examine yourself in a discerning and accurate way. This allows you to understand why your part in the pattern means so much to you and prioritize what is most important to you in your relationship. These steps can be some of the most challenging when working on your relationship, and you might benefit from seeing a therapist to help you see things objectively. 3. Get Closer- this is where the rubber meets the road -- where you move from theory to reality in your interactions with your spouse. The first step is to "Show Your Cards" and risk revealing your true self and needs to your spouse, in spite of the fear that this revelation might not be well-recieved. Be aware that this is not an attempt to manipulate your spouse into the same action. This is simply a step to make yourself known to your spouse. In the process of "Showing Your Cards", however, you can "Champion Your Spouse" by welcoming and encouraging your spouse to do the same. In essence, the idea is that your spouse will be so drawn by your Authentic Self-Representation that he/she will want to do the same WITHOUT pressure from you to do so. 4. Repeat- because life is life, naturally full of stress and conflict, you'll have ample opportunity to continue this pattern of Authentic Self-Representation. Obviously, these posts merely touch the surface of Runkel's book. Runkel continues to address several aspects of marriage that can lead to conflict (Time Accountability, Extended Families, Household Management, and Sexuality). Like its predecessor, Scream-Free Parenting, Scream-Free Marriage is on my list of recommended reads. If you're ready to become "scream-free" in your marriage and/or parenting and would like some help, give Life Renewal a call today. As we continue on our Scream-Free Marriage journey, we learn another powerful truth about marriage: a good, solid, successful marriage isn't based on your commonalities. Although common interests are helpful in friendships, lasting marriages rely on "personal integrity in the midst of constant change", as Hal Runkel says. Let's explore this personal integrity:
As romantic as the idea is, and as popular as Hollywood has made it to be, our spouse is not meant to "complete" us. We can't rely on our spouse to fulfill our emotional needs any more that we can ask him/her to take care of our physical body. It's simply too much pressure to put on another person and, according to Runkel, "validation is only authentic and lasting when it comes from within". Yolanda's editorial -- true validation and self-worth come from an intimate relationship with creator God. Only He can give your life meaning and worth, and completely fill your Love Bucket so that you're free to pour out that love on your spouse without feeling desperate if he/she is unwilling or unable to give the same in return. That's true "love". Additionally, Runkel suggests that a feeling of trust and safety are not the most important aspects of a marriage. In fact, to the contrary, University of Michigan researchers found a direct link between boredom in marriage (which comes from too much "safety") and lessened marital satisfaction. Shocked? I know! But, if you think about it, no matter how much you might think that you trust your spouse, at some point you have to take a risk at revealing a little bit more of yourself to him/her. Perhaps it's the fact that it's not quite a turn-on when he nibbles your ear (and that you much prefer when he...) or that you've never really cared for her Thanksgiving stuffing (and find out she's never really liked her family's traditional recipe, either). It's this kind of risky self-representation -- without knowing quite how your spouse will respond -- that breathes life, mystery, and adventure into a marriage. Finally, marriage does not mean a oneness where two halves become an indistinguishable whole and where no boundaries are present. Instead, marriage is a union of two complete, whole people who come together to form something bigger than themselves BUT still hold to their separateness and individuality. As U2 so aptly says, "We're one, but we're not the same." As much as we might think that we'd like to be married to someone *just* *like* *us*-- someone who likes all the same things, hates all the same things, and who wants to be together every second of every day -- the reality is that it would suffocate us and bore us to tears. Although these thoughts challenge some of the ideas we might have had about marriage, they completely line up with the truth that we can only be responsible for ourselves in our marital relationship. Give it some thought... Next Week: Truth #3, If You're Not Part of the Solution, Then You're Still Part of the Problem. -- Yolanda In continuing our conversation about Hal Runkel's new book, Scream-Free Marriage : Calming Down, Growing Up, and Getting Closer, let's focus on what Runkel calls "some fundamental truths" about marriage.
Let's begin with the first "truth" -- If You're Not Under Control, You Cannot Be In Connection. This truth goes back to my first Scream-Free entry and has to do with emotional reactivity , or "allowing our worst fears or worries to drive our choices, instead of our highest principles" (See my last blog entry for more details about emotional reactivity, or "screaming"). This anxiety-driven reactivity usually results in the outcome we feared happening in the first place (disconnect, pain, accusations, etc.). Instead, Runkel suggests that we focus on ourselves- what drives our desires and fears, and what our contribution to any problems in the relationship might be. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Well, it is... but it's worth it. Many times, we want to focus on our spouse. That's the "easy" way out, but this leads to getting angry when we cannot "make" our spouse meet our emotional needs, getting angry when we cannot "make" our spouse happy (just to make our lives easier, because living with him/her in misery is making us, well, miserable), getting angry when we cannot "get" our spouse to make changes in the relationship, and/or getting angry when we cannot "make" our spouse take on more responsibility around the house. The problem is, we cannot really "make" anyone else do anything. We can only be responsible for ourselves. Besides, deep down we don't really want to "make" our spouse do anything. We want our spouse to want to make changes of his/her own free-will. The solution to becoming more under control is to become more self-centered; that is, to focus on yourself during an intense situation and remain calm so that you can create the space that you need to interact with your spouse from your own deepest love and convictions, NOT out of your emotional reactivity (or "screaming"). The good news is that creating this space (or pause, calm, inner peace...) invites your spouse to do the same. As difficult as it might be in the beginning, after putting this self-pause into practice a few times, you begin to relate with your spouse in an entirely different way. It takes ONE person making that FIRST STEP. It's not easy, but few things in life that are really worth it are. Obviously, this is an abbreviated version of the concept. I really would recommend getting the book and following along through this series. Feel free to post any questions or comments you might have. Next week... Truth #2, It's Not What You Have in Common, It's What You Have Inside. Until then, Yolanda |
AuthorsThe author of Life Renewal Counseling's Blog is Jennifer Street, LCSW. Earlier posts are credited to our former counselor, Yolanda Harper, LCSW. For more information on Jennifer please visit the "About Us" section of our website. Archives
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