More Magic, Less Stress
Stress
Since the dawn of humanity, stress is something we have dealt with on a constant daily basis.
All of the things we want, like love, romance, success, abundance, money, health, friends, happiness, and peace all come to us more easily when our stress levels are managed.
Stress is the leading cause of disease and precursor to death. There are many books, programs, and websites dedicated to helping us all be “stress-free”.
Articles about ways to eliminate stress from your life come up readily in any Google search about stress.
I’m not completely convinced that I will ever get to the point where I can say my life is “stress-free”, but I do believe that there are many tools available to help us manage stress successfully if we will just use them.
Many of us, maybe most of us, live very high stress lives and often we expect to relieve ourselves from months or even years worth of stress in a weekend at the beach.
But our attempts to manage stress will be much more successful if they happen on a daily (or at least weekly) basis.
Because money, and time, (or the perceived lack of it) are two big stressors, these are the two biggest excuses people use for not doing something:
- “I don’t have the money” and
- “I don’t have time”
Choosing an inexpensive and relatively quick stress relieving activity is important here.
Likewise, doing something you enjoy will be much easier to habitualize than something you don’t. (Thank you, Captain Obvious).
Don’t we all want to push the easy button?
So, I’m going to suggest…(drumroll please)… drawing. For several reasons. Here are 5 of them:
1. It’s cheap. Cheap as in inexpensive. You can pick up a decent pen and a small sketchbook for less than $10. Even if you were to draw on a page or two every single day it should still last you for several weeks, possibly months. (So, no big money stress going on here.)
2. It’s quick, and portable. You can take your sketchbook with you and spend as much or as little time as you like. Sketch on the subway, in the waiting room, whenever, wherever.
3. Anyone can do it. Often when people find out that I am a visual artist the first thing they say is “I can’t draw.” Well, I want to let you know that anyone can draw. It is a learned skill, and once you fill up the first sketchbook you will realize that you too, can draw. And besides that, who cares!? This is one place where process trumps product. We are practicing relieving stress, not creating something to sell or show. There is no “right” way to do it here.
4. It could save your life. Danny Gregory attributes life saving properties to it. His book Everyday Matters
5. My personal endorsement! I have personal experience with sketching and can vouch for it’s stress reducing ability. (and if you are interested you can view my catalogued sketchbook in the Brooklyn Art Library here).
Less stress equals better health, and more magic in your life.
If you recognize that you want more magic, more love, more money, more abundance, more success, more peace, more happiness, more joy, and LESS STRESS in your life, show some love and comment below! Tell me how YOU reduce stress (or how you plan on reducing stress levels starting now!!)
And if you decide to take up sketching, I’d love to know..!
Love & Magic,
Cindie
Thank you so much for your response. It’s so funny that recently I decided to become a writer and your stress reducing practice involves pen and paper. At first I was writing for fun and lately I thought maybe I can do for a living, because I love it so much!
Thank you again on your reply
Hi Tiffany,
Thank you for reading and for your great comment! In my experience when allow ourselves to do the things we love we start experiencing more synchronicity (like this post!! – pen & paper!) and ease in our life.
Good for you for listening to yourself and recognizing what you love, and doing it!
All the best to you in your writing endeavours!
Cindie