Coloring for Clarity-Removing Desire/Vote for Next!

Welcome back to another installment of #coloringforclarity. I had a small break from social media, including steemit, to focus on some day-job hunting. I had been looking to remove myself a bit from directly treating patients and take on a more education/counseling position and I stumbled across an opportunity with a wellness coaching company. While I do not have a degree for providing counseling broadly, it is certainly in my job description as a speech-language pathologist to counsel people for their feelings about changes in their speaking, thinking or swallowing functions. To do research for the position, I rented the book that was associated with the corporate coaching program.

The "lifelong habit of wellbeing" is a goal that I have been working toward independently and I am so grateful that I came across such a fantastic tool! Along with a combination of current scientific research, ancient and modern philosophies from Aristotle and Epictetus, the authors have developed a training system with daily habit routines that introduce meaningful practice of the most impactful ideas.

@kristyglas had ran a contest in the past month involving coloring and had asked for a design from the Brain-Science book by Dr. Stan Rodski, and I selected a fairly geometric design for participants to color.

There were several digital drawings submitted (check the post out here) allowing for really cool moving effects and patterns/gradients. There was even a hand colored entry and I wanted to participate too. And then life happened.

I returned to that design when I opted to use coloring as a model of meditation the other day and I grabbed my crayons and got busy. I loved the extra patterns that I was adding to the design and then I had an idea...marker ink won't cover crayon wax. I had learned of the art of batiking (an art form that I plan to explore in a future post) that used the same concept: wax to create negative space when applying dye/ink, and I wanted to try to emulate that style. Then that darn life showed up again.

After the crayon application, I tried using a marker over top and...it didn't block the ink... honestly I think it just gunked up my marker and made it hard to use after. (The blue triangles on either end did work out when I used the white crayon, but still messed with the marker) I found myself feeling frustrated with the smear of color that muddied up my design. I was wanting to be able to create crisper lines with my crayons, but they were unsharpened. I found myself desiring a lot of things I could no longer change. I noticed my negative feelings, I shifted my mind to the peace that coloring had been giving me, allowing myself engagement and calm, I rewired my brain to celebrate these small shifts from the positive to the negative. I started attached to the goal of a perfect design, but the growth happened when I embraced the imperfect.

I started creating patterns using lines and circles in the leftover spaces and was really enjoying that creative process. I used my favorite color without worrying about color theory, I played with size and shape and I had fun. I am grateful I have made time for meditation practice in my life and know that color can become a great setting for tackling anxiety, perfectionism, brain fog...so please join me in #coloring for clarity!

Still hoping for a bit of participation on selecting my next design. I have some ideas for some non-traditional coloring mediums, but am always open to hearing about new options! Let me know about your favorite medium and I will feature your work in a future post. Thanks for reading!

And remember, the STEEM work makes the dream work! ;*