When I first started painting, I had no idea where it would go, I didn’t even realize what I was doing with it until much later when it had transformed my life & I had started using my experience to help others.  

Looking back, I can see the signs so clearly, but back then, all I knew was the situations I was in.

Since that time, both in my own life and in my clients’ lives, I have noticed that there are a few signs that can be indicators that a therapeutic art practice is something that would help and specifically how. 

Hence below you will find 6 situations or experiences you may be having (or could totally see happening, maybe they have happened before, and you’d rather find a solution to implement before having to experience the same thing again) and how a therapeutic art practice can help. 

1. You find yourself overflowing with emotions at least 3 times a week.  

This overflow can look like a burst of tears, anger coming out sideways at someone, feeling emotions welling up and trying to push it back down or realizing you’re having some and think to yourself “not today”, ignoring them for the time being.  

When you think about your current circumstances, it all seems like too much to handle, with the capacity you have right now. 

You just want a way to work through it so you can figure out how to get into a more sustainable place internally even if your outer circumstances aren’t ideal.  

A therapeutic art practice can help you because it is designed to help you shift out of overwhelm, be able to unpack why the overwhelm, and/or whatever other emotions are happening and why, as well as what you can do to release it and move in a different direction.

2. You don’t feel.  

This means you don’t feel when something is exciting or sad, with a loss, like after a death, such as at a funeral, or in times of celebration, like when someone graduates or gets married.  

This is happening because you are cut-off from your emotions, the ones you want and the ones you may have tried to avoid in the past because the idea of feeling emotions sounds hard, and it may be something you dread.  

A therapeutic art practice can help you reset your relationship with emotions, tapping into them in a gentler and more enjoyable way.  

3. You can’t find the words.  

You go to describe something and either you don’t have any words to describe it, your mind goes blank or you start explaining it, and realize they aren’t the right words, but you can’t think of what the words you are searching for actually are.  

A therapeutic art practice can help you find the words as you are painting about a particular topic.

4. You are burnt out.  

You have reached your limit and have no more capacity.  

Whatever self-care practice you normally do is either not effective or not happening at the frequency you need.  

The creation aspect of a therapeutic art practice can help balance out the consuming effect of a lot of traditional self-care practices.   

A therapeutic art practice can energize you, increase your productivity, tap into your creativity and art creation as you paint.

5. You are constantly thinking about your project, the to-do list or whatever else you need to get done.  

This constant focus on getting things done or making sure things get done has helped you succeed in your career, but shows up as mental distraction during your conversations with others.  

While you may think you are juggling it all well, because you are thinking about something besides the conversation at hand, you are getting catty comments from other people – be it your spouse, kids, significant other, friends, co-workers, at least 1-2x per week.  

You know what it takes to succeed, but you aren’t sure how to do it without the constant focus. 

Maybe you’ve tried focusing on the conversation at hand, but then you find yourself not juggling everything so well.  

A therapeutic art practice can help you take a pause from your back-of-mind thought scroll, helping you to get present while painting and bring that presence capacity into your conversations, and increase your quality of work and productivity, so the time you spent painting and being present in those conversations doesn’t affect your career.  

Because you want both: relationship AND work success.

6. You are achieving goals that don’t satisfy you.  

You may think it is because they are too small, you make each goal larger and larger hoping it will help.  

So far it hasn’t, but at least constantly working towards goals feels like progress, but you wonder what will satisfy.  

This may be happening because you have misaligned beliefs or values, are working in conflict with your beliefs or values, have goals that aren’t connected to your beliefs or values, or you are cut-off from your emotions.  

A therapeutic art practice can help you uncover why these goals aren’t satisfying and what you can do to have more satisfaction when you do achieve your goals.

Which of these signs resonate for you?  If one or more of these signs is happening in your life, a therapeutic art practice can help!