Creative and Somatic Gratitude Practices to Honor your Body
In my work as an Art Therapist, I support clients to find ways to connect with their body using the creative process and mindfulness through somatic healing. Many of us are often not taught how to listen to or honor our body’s needs - usually resulting in sickness, mental health challenges or physical ailments that we don’t know what to do with. Through the process of connecting and listening to our body, we are able to tap into all of the wisdom that the body holds.
The month of November is all about the theme of gratitude: an opportunity to take a step back, to notice and name all that we feel thankful for. While gratitude is often presented as a practice where we list what we are grateful for (and it certainly can be!), I have found that connecting more with my body and supporting other’s to do the same has helped me truly feel into the experience of gratitude. In this blog, I wanted to share some of that wisdom with you.
Somatic Practice for Gratitude
Take a moment to find a comfortable space where you can either sit or lay down - whichever is more comfortable for you.
Give yourself some time to ground into your physical body as you feel your feet on the floor beneath you, the weight of your body either on the floor or chair you are sitting on and allow yourself to deepen your breath.
Once you feel settled and grounded into your physical body, start to think of a color that you associate with the experience of gratitude - trying not to worry about why that color reminds you of the theme - but allow yourself to lean into it.
Then, imagine a bright ball of this color in the center of your body - right where your belly button is and spend some time with the visualization.
As you have spent some time with it and with each breath, allow for this ball to expand outward, starting to fill up more of your body to what can eventually become this color all around you.
Try not to rush the process but rather remain present to the experience. Give your body this gift of truly feeling into gratitude in your physical body.
Creative Practice for Gratitude
Grab some art materials you have around accessible and would want to use. This can be paint, colored pencils, pastels, etc.
Using these materials, create an image of the above visualization. You can draw the ball of color that you imagined or any other associations or images that came to mind in your experience. You can even draw an image to describe how your body felt.
The purpose of the creative practice is to help you remember the experience you felt in your body. You can keep and display your art as an anchor and reminder of the sensations you felt in your body as you tapped into this experience of gratitude.
Gratitude is a state of being and experience we can always come back to - especially as life gets chaotic, stressful and our anxiety may start to creep up around the holiday season. These two practices are ones you can continue to use in your process and even notice how they may evolve over time. If you find yourself needing more support in this season and time of year, contact me here to see how I can support you.
