STRESSED ....

I don't know about you, but my art journalling is how I work things out ... and often the process of making a page brings me peace on the subject.  Perhaps its being able to acknowledge the stress which allows you to let something go, or at least the bad feelings associated with it?  Maybe its also about not wasting your precious energy on keeping down the negative emotions you daren't let out.  Whatever and however, it works for me ....

So this page began with lots of orange and yellow - sometimes happy colours for me, but not quite in this case.  Perhaps I associate it with intense emotions, good or bad?  I think in some way I needed to contain those feelings before they could overwhelm me, and that's why this page HAD to have a border around it!

I've used these jazzy stamps before - they're big and black, strong and powerful, which I like a lot.  Actually they were a complete bargain because they were an Ebay purchase, very inexpensive, and are really intended for marking clay.  I cut them up and made border stamps - and I've used them in the post below as well .... strong feelings again!

As so often, I just wrote on the page what I was feeling, in this case "I feel stressed".  Writing around in a circle reflected my state of mind too - I felt as if I was going round and round in circles.  Having written like that, I realised what I was doing was pointless - that I might be beating myself to death against something I was more or less powerless to change.  Maybe you know that feeling?

It seemed to me that I had some choices - to waste energy stressing about the things I couldn't change, or to decide to calmly accept.  Not easy, but I'm working on it.  What I can do is gradually enact small changes which make my life a little bit easier in the meantime, and I'm working on that.

The "hope" part - another cheapy stamp found in a bargain box - is perhaps the key word here. You have to have hope that somewhere, somehow things will change/improve, as it may be the only lifeline you have.   The Brave Girls Club of whom I'm an enthusiastic and grateful member, tell us to  "go where the peace is", and that we can choose to find that place.  My peaceful place is in the knowledge that the situation we're in won't last for ever ....

If you're another Brave Girl feeling stressed out about something, write it down to work it out!  Then draw and/or paint all over it and through that process find your peace - it works, I promise!