*August therapeutic arts theme: Softening*

In this month’s therapeutic arts theme deep-dive, we’re exploring Softening: What is means, why we need it for our own wellbeing, how to create space for it, and how creativity can assist cultivating softness for self-care 💛🩵💫

What Does it Mean to Soften? Why Our Nervous System Needs Moments of Reprieve

In times when life feels overwhelming or challenging (which can be a lot of the time if you’re neurodivergent or sensitive!), it can be hard for our mind and body to soften enough to let our systems regenerate.

When we’re always ‘on’, it becomes imperative to experience moments of reprieve, much like our seasons naturally do, as life slows down in Winter.

By the time we reach peri/menopause in our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, societal expectations of ‘pushing through’, while often being caretakers of others (both personally and professionally), can mean that we rarely have time or space to slow down enough to meet or identify our own needs.

That’s why Softening is so important, to create conditions for our systems to slow down and choose with more agency.

How Do We Know When We Need To Cultivate Softening?

Every-body’s experience and durational needs for softening will be different, depending on your unique brain and nervous system wiring, combined with external input we receive from culture, race, class and societal expectations.

For me, the need for Softening becomes known via my bodily experience, often in the when I notice it’s opposites: hardness, stiffness, dis-ease. For example:

Hardening my heart to avoid pain and disappointment
Clenching my jaw while I think
Noticing stiffening my shoulders
High, shallow breathing,
Wringing in my gut
Tightness and chronic pain in my lower back.

My whole body often mirrors when I chronically brace against the world around me, to keep myself safe and going.

And rather than our bodies being wrong, it’s often a sign of our times. Meeting expectations of those in hierarchal positions - from bosses, to teachers, parents, social class and more has meant we may equate our worth to productivity. In truth, our bodies have their own inner clock and it it can take a great deal of support, privilege, awareness, money and courage to soften within oppressive environments.

In fact, our bodies are responding perfectly to the situation of the world right now. So it’s important that we choose safe spaces where we can soften and regulate.

*Enjoying physical softness at home: Soft kitty, soft pyjamas, soft couch 🛋️*

softening Amidst the Chaos

As much as we all have roles, responsibilities and expectations in life, we also need times of softness and regeneration. Why? If our own nervous system needs are not intentionally addressed, we will likely default to the constant outpouring of our energy expected by our culture, which will likely lead to burn out (and I know this well myself!)

I completely understand how privileged softening can appear. It can feel almost impossible to soften into self-care or regeneration, when our inner tank feels empty, we have limited support, and limited relief on the horizon.

This is where tiny baby steps can help us make individual and collective shifts.

When we begin pivoting into intentional moments of Softness, our chronically ‘on’ brains and nervous systems may detect the slower pace as a threat, uncaring, or even boring (hello, ADHD brains!)

Softness may initially feel like a new and foreign pace, that requires a gentle approach, time, and small steps to cultivate.

That’s why creative experiences can be such powerful therapeutic allies - we can naturally soothe our nervous system with gentle, repetitive movement of our hands, whilst bringing in glimmers of colour, form, beauty, and the joy of bringing something new come to life.

This way, we can still participate in our roles and responsibilities, AND have a buffer of creative inspiration to help nudge us along. It doesn’t have to be one or the other: Selfish or Selfless. We can meet in the middle.

With creative rituals and practices, baby steps, and small, regenerative moments that enable us to reframe our experiences in new ways, we can create lasting change in our own nervous system, and impact society at large. It’s not easy, but it can be simple.

Here are a few creative inspiration ideas:

*Hanging in my studio: Mobile reminders of Softening*

*In the kitchen: Soft, hearty, homemade and wholesome chicken soup*

*In nature: Capturing soft imagery and exploring soft backgrounds*

If you’d love to deepen into your own softness, I’d love to be your guide. Join me in August for my upcoming online Peri-Women-Pause therapeutic arts workshop on Softening.

I’ll be sharing some softening hacks and a guided creative workshop that will help you lean into ways to cultivate softness from where you’re at.

You can join as a monthly member for regular creative nervous system nourishment, or come along casually.

LEARN MORE HERE

With care and creativity,

Chrissy 💐