This course is for anyone who has an interest in exploring mindfulness through art, and anyone seeking a way to help with anxiety through mindful art. We will be using art to make us more aware of how our thought cycles might impact our lives. We will encourage awareness through mindful focus.
No previous experience of art or mindfulness is needed.
- Tutors: Dr Gail Loudon, Kate Measham
- April 4, 11 and 18
- 10.00am – 1.00pm
- £110/course
- Mottisfont Village Hall, Between Stockbridge and Romsey, Hampshire
If you have a moment read this article, one of many extolling the virtues of drawing, painting, creativity and mindfulness
Finding Time for Creativity – Guardian article during the anxious Covid times of the early 2020s. Drawing, singing, writing, knitting… lose yourself in something creative to find inner calm. You might also come up with solutions to problems
Sharon Walker, The Guardian
What to Expect Art, Creativity and Mindfulness 2024
This course is about understanding and using mindfulness through art to unblock and support creativity.
Each session will look at ways to become aware of yourself, your thoughts, your anxieties, their physical, emotional and creative effects, and to help you find ways to choose a path that works for you.
Session 1: Connect with the body and breath and their wisdom.
Human minds are easily distracted, habitually examining past events and trying to anticipate the future. We are often miles away without knowing it, without being aware of it, and therefore not present in much of our lives. In this state we are more likely to have our buttons pressed. Or the story in our thoughts, the feelings or any bodily sensations that appear, can trigger habitual ways of feeling, thinking and behaviours that are often unhelpful and may lead to worsening mood or physical and emotional symptoms of stress. And we don’t notice these triggers as they occur.
Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to, and seeing clearly, whatever is happening in our lives in the present moment. It will not make life’s pressures disappear, but it can help us respond to them in a calmer manner that benefits ourselves psychologically, physically and emotionally.
Session 2: Connect with the mind.
By becoming aware of our bodily sensations, feelings and thoughts from moment to moment we give ourselves the possibility of choice with our next step and the freedom therefore not to play out old unhelpful patterns of reaction. We need to get in touch with these to start to be aware of how we are reacting to events in our lives, and to then decide if we want to respond differently.
Our automatic tendency to judge our experiences as or before they have happened takes us away from being fully present in them, of fully experiencing them as they are. We can then find it not quite right in some way, not what should be happening, not good enough or not what we expected, maybe wanted.
These judgements can lead us down paths of blame – of ourselves, those around us, of life.
Or maybe down paths of how things could or should be different.
In this way not only do we risk losing awareness of the moment but we may also lose the freedom to choose what action needs to be taken, or to decide none needs to be and to allow the situation to pass.
Session 3: Finding creative flow in the present with these connections
Pushing too hard at a problem can close down the mind and prevent us from thinking creatively, driving us around in ever-decreasing circles.
Experiments show how when conditioned with an adverse environment – negative or avoidance-orientated – our creativity is decreased but when conditioned with a positive, approach orientated environment we perform more creatively and flexibly. So if you are striving to achieve something through gritted teeth you will activate your mind’s aversion system and narrow your focus, be more anxious, less flexible and less creative.
The other option is to step outside the cycle, just watch it unfold.
So we have the potential to realise a reaction is an old automatic one by becoming fully aware of what the present experience is.
The practice we have been doing grants you the space to do that, to then decide whether to take the thoughts and reaction seriously or not.
With practice you can learn to notice them, acknowledge their presence, not get involved in their content and let them go.
Dr Gail Loudon – MBBS, BSc, DGM, MRCGP.
My first memory of being fascinated by the link between the mind and body was as a medical student in a Pharmacology lecture hearing about the placebo effect. I was possibly the only one there who wanted to know more about this than the medicines themselves! It became apparent to me at that early stage of my training that patient care should take into account all aspects of a patient’s health and life experience rather than just focusing on one set of symptoms.
My medical training was at the Westminster Hospital Medical School, London and included a BSc in Biochemistry. I trained as a GP, passing my membership examination to the Royal College of GP’s, and continued to work in Elderly Care as well. I particularly enjoy the holistic approach to patients that both specialities have. I also became a GP appraiser and the Clinical Lead for the Community and Hospital Falls Services. Balancing my various work roles and family commitments became more tricky and from 2009 I just worked in Elderly Care. I retired from the NHS in March 2022.
Along the way, I have also trained in Homeopathy and Reiki. I then came to mindfulness, having noticed the effect of my thoughts on my mood and experience of life. Having realised how I needed to be aware of this, I Googled “mindfulness”, was introduced to this wisdom and here I am! I did my Mindfulness foundation course in 2012, followed by my teacher training in 2013 at the Centre of Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP), Bangor University.
I started teaching in 2014 with courses for the general public, NHS staff and workshops for junior doctors, nurses and palliative care staff. My courses are taught as per the defined CMRP curriculum, and I continue with regular supervision as per Good Practice Guidelines. I do also bring a blend of my fascination in this ancient wisdom and how current neuroscience research is advancing our understanding of the effect of meditation and mindfulness on our brains.
This is a “way of being” in our lives, the understanding of which deepens as we continue practising. Along with my own regular practice, I attend updating courses and retreats.