30 Days of Anxiety, Scrolling Slower and Building Lockdown Community Online

Hello lovely humans

I am a big advocate for journaling, for writing more generally too. I find it to be a soothing practise and also one that truly aids me in becoming more aware of my own thought processes, emotions and triggers. 

I have taken on a practise of drawing what my anxiety looks like each day. A creature. The same little creature in many states of being. It is a peculiar practise to keep up in many ways. But I have learnt from it, hugely. 

To watch this you may believe that it appears I am incredibly anxious. I do not consider myself to be. Indeed, I am less anxious than I have been for a long time. However, when you pause each day to reflect on your inner world, on where you are at with what we may call ‘the emotional body’ or ‘the pain body’ – and if you connect to that, it is fascinating what emerges. In my case, quite a scrappy little creature who is somehow both adorable and terrifying at the same time.

30 DAYS OF BEASTS

I was reflecting yesterday, looking over my doodles, on if I would continue the practise for longer. I was sitting quietly, making my way through each little creature, when out of nowhere, having been most absorbed, I reached to pick up my phone. For no discernible reason at all. 

I noticed and thought ‘hmmm that’s not so good’ – and it gave me an idea. To journal, too,  thoughts that come to me as I scroll through my feeds on social media. ‘Perhaps they will show an interesting correlation to my doodle creature’, I thought. 

On beginning this, the first observation I made was that to be able to journal anything at all, to truly notice anything at all, I would need to slow down my scrolling. A lot. 

It’s not so much that I wasn’t at all aware of my thoughts as I scrolled but that not a single one was given the space to be acknowledged. Or to pass. Not unless it was triggering enough to make me stop entirely. 

I slowed down. And I noticed. And I didn’t really like what I noticed at all. In fact, it was quite shocking. To realise how I fed my negativity bias so readily so very many times a day. 

I am making a commitment, now, to being present to my use of social media. To choosing to notice how it makes me feel. And to make changes from there. I truly love Instagram, in particular. It’s been a source of huge joy and inspiration to me. But I truly love my mind too, now. If the two are to collide as regularly as I allow them right now, then to learn to watch their interactions is pretty important. Vital, in fact.

A Free Class Every Wednesday at 8:00am GMT

I am currently offering a free class every Wednesday morning to everyone who is signed up to my email newsletter. I will send out the link on a Tuesday evening.

This class, which is 60 minutes long, will focus on starting the day with the stress system entirely soothed and the mind as still as we can manage.

No experience is necessary and I aim to continue this free offering long term.

If you are not yet signed up to receive my email newsletter you can do that here:

This week I will also be teaching on Thursday evening at 7pm and Friday morning at 10am. For now, I am putting my Wednesday morning 10am class on hold as I need to be with my children at that time. But it will be back!

The following week I will only be teaching my free class as I am on a training course all week. I may add in a second free class that week but will send news of that next weekend.

Sending you all loads and loads of love

Sara-Jayne
xxx

Leave a Reply