My Emotion Is So Big, I Don’t Know Where To Start!

I am an art therapist. I know how to use image to identify and process emotion. Well, I would hope so, since that’s what I teach other people to do!

During this process I am often able to identify the thoughts that have created my emotion (sometimes … ok, often these days, I laugh at those thoughts once I realise what they are).

More often than not, I can see that my nervous system is walking a fine line between one emotion and another and I can get it sorted through choosing colours, drawing a shitty image and doing some breathing at the same time.

I’ve practiced this a lot. And I practice it with other people. Double practice!

But sometimes, sometimes, my emotions are so intertwined that they are like a big ball of messy wool. The kind a 10-year-old has attempted to knit something with, and the cat has also had a go at. The tags are lost. God only knows what I’m dealing with now. The worst! It could even be acrylic!

Right – I’m getting lost in the metaphor. Refocus.

This horrid, emotional wool-ball experience happened to me recently when the government pulled the rug out from under the school I work at as an art therapist, and the entire educational program the school was running on had to change significantly.

That included me and my art therapy program.

It meant that, instead of seeing a few individual children and several small groups of children who I had spent more than a year building relationships with, instead of diving deeper into some common issues, I had to start all over again with a slightly different scaffold.

I do have a teaching degree, and though I don’t really use it officially anymore, it would have been easy for the school to ask me to do so. Instead they very keen that I stick to art therapy.

Don't misunderstand me! There were many ‘ups’ to this new, governmentally imposed, unexpected plan, but due to my various life experiences with change and stress and chronic illness, my hypothalamus held up some very unhelpful images for my nervous system to prepare me for.

This is not unexpected. This is what our hypothalamus is supposed to do.

I spent the few moments after receiving the news, shapeshifting between being a volcano melting down and a buddah in a calm garden.  My pendulum conversation with myself went something like this:

“That’s it, I’m done for! I can’t do this anymore!! I QUIT!”

and

“Ah well, it’s not their fault, we’ve all got to just roll with the punches (breathe, breathe, breathe).

Eventually I just went numb from the swinging.

Poor old hypothalamus – it’s just doing it’s best.

“Lucky for me,” I said to my cup of tea as I sat on the floor in caffeine-drenched despair, “I am an art therapist, and I know where some paints are.”

I pulled my numb bum off the floor and collected my materials, determined to work through this internal shit show. But what I discovered was disconcerting to say the least.

I found myself staring at the blank page, unable to even lift my hand to make a mark because ‘where do I even start?’ The paints are at the ready, but all I can identify is that I feel  … ‘everything’ and ‘nothing’ (to quote one of my clients).

What would ‘everything and nothing’ even look like? What shape would it be? What colour, what size?!

In hindsight, I would have drawn a big brown poo. I realise now that my predominant feeling was disappointment at loosing what had been built. But at the time, at the time, that disappointment was so surrounded by so many other narratives and emotions that it didn’t even get a look in.

But lucky for me ... I am an art therapist (don’t roll your eyes at me – our brains believe what we repeat, ok?). And I knew what to do, even then. And now you will too.

What do we do?Take away the choice.

When the brain and heart are already in turmoil and the overwhelm is unhelpfully glassy, more choice is not your friend.

What colour is it? Too much choice. There are so many colours to choose from! Just take the closest pencil.

How big is it? Even within this simple question, there is too much choice for the overwhelmed brain. Ten centimetres – that’s how big. Just pick the first number that comes to mind, it doesn’t matter in this situation.

What shape is it? Too much choice. There are a myriad of shapes this emotion could be. I mean … emotions are not really shapes, are they? That’s totally made up! So this time, you only use one line.

One line?! What can I do with one line?

Quite a lot actually. But better than that, our one line frees up space in our brain.

That one, boring, choiceless line gives our brain some wiggle room (very technical terms we use here …).

Then and only then (when I have some wiggle room) I can ask myself some questions.

Some liney questions (hee hee):

How thick is this feeling in my body? Then I draw it, using only a line. If the line is too thick for the pen I ended up with, I simply draw two lines and colour in the middle to make one thick one.

How much movement does this feeling have in my body? Is it a flatline feeling or a runny-aroundy feeling? Then I draw it, using only a line.

By the time I have done this, I personally find that my brain has usually relaxed enough to have some more ideas pop up.

“Oh! This emotion is actually worry. I think that should be this colour today [reaches for colour pencils]. Ah! I see now that disappointment is here – I shall add a big pile of poo to my image.”  

Sometimes the overwhelm is such that I simply stick with lines and remember to breathe and relax muscles.

Why don’t you give it a go, even if you’re not particularly overwhelmed at this time? After all, practicing an exercise like this before you need it is always handy. Head on over to the newsletter for an activity that gives you a step-by-step line drawing activity.