Any art or other creative work that you practice can be an excellent tool to fight depression.
We live in interesting times. This can – and for many people does – feel like a curse.
To quote Wash’s definition of “interesting” from Serenity:
“Oh god oh god, we’re all gonna die?”
The level of anxiety and uncertainty permeating every segment of our lives currently is unprecedented. Nobody I know has ever in their lifetime experienced a situation such as this.
What can we do? Where are we going? How will this all turn out?
In the meantime, while chewing on such big-picture questions and issues, depression has been settling in on many people. Many of the traditional ways to cope with such matters – such as one-on-one therapy – aren’t practical or presently viable.
One way to deal with depression is by doing some type of creative work or other.
Creative work takes many forms
Creativity is not simply about art. It’s not just writing, painting, sculpting, and so on. It can be uber-simple and easy.
For example, cleaning and/or rearranging a room helps. Twice I have, during this self-quarantine period, done a fairly massive cleaning of my home office. First, I removed Boxhenge – the lovely collection of all my vintage Star Wars stuff I recently had to reclaim. Then I removed a pile of my reenactment materials that had been occupying too much floor space.
This was creative in multiple ways. It made my office space feel more inviting, which made it a lot easier to work in here. Also, it helped to declutter my headspace, too.
Cleaning is creative. It opens channels and pathways on multiple levels. That can be super useful for getting things done and being creative in other ways.
Cooking is creative. My wife loves to bake things to clear her head. When we cook together, we tend to use recipes as “guidelines” and then go from there.
Creative work takes a lot of different forms. But it is a force not just for positivity – but to help you get into a better headspace.
Creativity to combat depression
Times are tough. You may be feeling extra-sensitive, or otherwise exposed. You have likely never experienced this level of uncertainty, discomfort, fear, distress, and negativity.
I haven’t met anyone who isn’t feeling it. Even the least empathic people I know are struggling in various ways. You are not alone. And though we’re on our own separate boats, we are weathering the same storm and stormy seas together.
Creative work is a good way to fight depression. It allows you to redirect your mindset and to alter thoughts, feelings, and actions. That is a practice of practical mindfulness – which can do a lot of good on multiple levels.
Depression is different for everyone. How you feel it varies – sometimes on a day-to-day or even hour-to-hour basis. That being said, combating depression with creative work will take different forms for different people.
Writing can be helpful. Creative or journaling, writing can take things from your head and move them to the page or screen and help release them. Painting, sculpting, woodworking, graphic design, and other visual arts can move you to a better headspace. Cooking, singing, and any other creative things that you can do can help you pull yourself into the here-and-now.
When you are in the present you become better able to handle depression and all other negative emotions.
You are empowered to change your headspace and mindset
Everybody has bad days. Anyone who is happy all the time is most likely putting up a façade because it is human nature to experience both the good and the bad. You may be feeling very alone – but you are not.
However, when you do experience things that make you feel negative, you get to choose how long to hold onto them. All feelings are yours to feel. You get to decide – if the feelings are bad – how long you will hold onto them.
It is possible that releasing them will be temporary. Some emotions have deep roots and are harder to release. Grief, for example.
Grieving is unique to everyone – and some people find it harder than others to let it go.
Things will bring it back. Something innocuous may stir a memory and rekindle your grief. That’s normal. But you get to choose if and for how long that feeling will dominate and/or direct you.
You have the power to move past and through depression. It may not be permanent (because pretty much NOTHING is permanent) but any moment in time when you can take control over your psyche is powerful. That’s why creative work and how it can put you utterly in the here-and-now is so incredible.
Any art or other creative work that you practice can be an excellent tool to fight depression.
What tools have YOU got in your toolbox to employ for this?
Thank you for taking part in my ongoing journey. Thank you for joining me, and for inspiring me and my art.
This is the fifty-seventh article exploring the creative process. Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published works, which can be found here.
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