Spontaneous art and writing offer a mirror of your inner world and can help you to express, release, see, and heal your emotional pain. For self-healing expressive art and writing classes, I invite you to visit my online classroom HERE
For a free tour of 100 of my free resources, I welcome you to sign up for my Expressive Arts Learning Library.
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The 30 Day Inner Child Challenge
Inner child drawings are a profound way to access aspects of your psyche that you may not normally pay attention to.
Inner child drawings are a profound way to access aspects of your psyche that you may not normally pay attention to.
Inner child drawings are typically done with your non-dominant hand. Buy yourself a box of kid's crayons to support your process.
Artist Heather Williams, author of Drawing as a Sacred Activity has an excellent exercise to help access your inner child that I will share with you here. I invite you to try this process for 30 days.
Daily Inner Child Exercise
1.Relax and breathe with your paper and crayons in front of you.
2. Close your eyes and see or feel a child near you. Notice the color or her/his hair, notice the height, posture, clothing. Open your heart and feel yourself accepting this child exactly as she/he is, even if the chid is angry sad or frightened.
3. Ask the child to play a game with you. The adult in you will ask the child these questions: What is your name? How old are you? What are you feeling right now? What can I do to help you feel really good? Write the questions on the top or bottom of your drawing in your dominant hand.
4. Let the child draw a picture of itself for you and answer the questions using crayons. Draw and answer the questions with your non-dominant hand.
5. Thank the child for sharing with you.
Be aware that as you draw for 30 days in a row, many inner children may want to come up into your adult, witnessing attention. Some inner children will be happy, some will be sad, some will be angry. Some may have even died, or have been buried, or are just barely alive for lack of attention. All will need to be kindly allowed to have their full expression no matter how immature they may seem.
Be prepared for fear and buried feelings to come up in this process, as well as a great sense of inner excitement and enjoyment. The younger, more irrational, exiled parts of our personality long to speak, and will gladly share the uncensored awkwardness of your non-dominant hand.
For more 30 day drawing challenges visit Expressive Art Workshops.
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Seeing the Deeper Nuances
Keeping a daily log of the inner and outer movements of your life can be a profoundly deepening experience. Whatever you strongly notice in your outer life will tell you something about your inner life. As you start to take note of what feels meaningful to you each day, you bring the edges of your unconscious mind into conscious awareness.
Detailed in the classic book, At A Journal Workshop by Ira Progroff, I offer you a few suggestions for keeping a daily log of the meaningful inner and outer movements of your life.
Depth Journaling Process
"To follow the movement of our emotions allows us to retrace the formation of our lives from the inside. Thus you will begin to recognize how your day unfolded from within yourself."
~ Ira Progoff
1. Before bed, sit in stillness and contemplate your day. Contemplate the emotional movements of your day. With your eyes closed, also revisit the outer events of your day. What details stand out most in your memory?
2. Start by remembering the beginning of your day. How did you feel upon awakening? Recording the earliest fragments of your dreams will help you to see how themes of your night moved into your day-time themes.
3. When you began your day, what emotions, desires, anxieties, hopes and plans coloured your morning? As you began the tasks of the day, what thoughts came to your mind? What feelings, memories, and emotions moved through you?
4. What kinds of relationships did you encounter in the course of your day? Were your relationships loving or frustrating? What emotions did you feel as you encountered people throughout your day?
5. Do not censor or edit the content of your day. Do not exclude the things that you feel ashamed of, or emphasize the things you feel proud of. It is important to stay neutrally curious as you record your day.
5. Let your words flow with no editing or censorship. As you record each 24-hour block of your life experience, you will start to sense how the movement of each day feeds into the larger themes of your life.
6. Once you have finished writing, close your eyes, breathe deeply and let your whole being absorb your day. Write any additional thoughts that come to you. Let yourself integrate the movement of your day as an integral piece of the larger theme of your life.
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