Firstly, love to all who interacts with this blog! I know my last post was kind of tough with the depression and all, but I see that in many others here and like to throw my experiences in to make people feel less alone in what can feel like a desperately lonesome crisis. Thanks to all who interact with me❤
Since my hospital stay, though I fight with depression and anxiety every day, especially at night, things have been on the good side. A friend I met during my hospital stay last year who is a yoga teacher got back in touch with me and shared some of her best advice, and I want to echo this advice here:
I can take up meditation again; with practice, it's a great way to cope with a mind of troublesome thoughts. There's a free app called Insight Timer that has access to thousands of guided meditations, and one can meditate with others around the world.
One form of meditation that my teacher friend found very helpful is called yoga nidra. It's a longer session that ranges from 30 minutes to an hour where you lie on your back and let your mind and body drift to a near-sleep state. I remember doing that before and it was extremely calming.Another practice I've seemed to have drifted away from is drinking tea. Tea is full of antioxidants that are really good for your body. The warmth of tea is excellent in cooler weather as we approach the autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. Breakfast teas can help get one going in the mornings, while there are teas to help one relax in the evenings. I have a hard diet soda habit to crack, and tea could really help.
Mindfulness, once a Buddhist practice that has now become popular in modern psychotherapy, can really help one ground themselves. The idea of mindfulness is to engage one's senses to keep one's presence in the very present moment. It is an excellent way to drop troublesome thinking about past failures and traumas, as well as worry and anxiety about the future. One can simply pay attention to their surroundings, taking note of what they see, the details of that scenery, sounds they hear, smells in the air, any feeling on the skin like breezes.
One thing I do often is to turn down the light in the bathroom and sit in the bathtub and run the shower, feeling the water on my skin and zoning out to the sound of the water. This is so stress-relieving.
Next, as for drawings, I am now at a turning point. My story is done for now, but I've come up with a few ideas on what to do next:
I can attempt some more challenging character drawing, from perspectives I am not used to, or with poses that are unusual or action-oriented. With my new couple in the story, I could draw them interacting in different ways; drawing a convincing interaction is a good challenge.
I could create new character concepts and try to draw Pokémon I haven't drawn before.
I could revisit old drawings and redraw them to see how much I have improved.
In addition to revisiting old drawings, I could go on the written narratives of my older drawings and sketch out full comic/graphic novel panel pages with dialogue for my chapters. That's a whole new project I could start while waiting to create a new story arc.
Thanks for sticking with me as I go on this wild journey that is life. Stay happy, stay different, never give a fuck what others think about you, and follow your dreams!
J
