I've been watching the live transmissions that my favorite couple therapist Esther Perel had made on her Youtube channel. Due to this virus, a lot of people feel the need to talk with someone who presents authority. Or at least who is good in remaining calm and supportive. I have found it very interesting , being able to see how a lot of people are going through difficult times now due to the fact that they are no longer in control of their minds because of anxiety, stress, uncertainty. She talked about different methods to cope with all this prolonged anxiety and uncertainty: make video calls with your family if they are far away, talk with a friend more often, have meaningful conversations, invest time in your hobbies, set a boundary in the house so you can have a bit of space, stop making critiques and make decent requests.
It's quite easy to pour personal frustration on the person sitting next to you, it's even harder not to notice they are not responsable for these difficult times. She made a good point in seing this as a survival challenge and to let this be the glue that helps families, couples to stick together although many end up hating each other's presence. A wise thing she said is not to make tough decisions now and to support communication.A lot of people don't communicate anymore and that is the source of the conflict.
I have though about a drawing I have made and I was thinking about the thing a lot of us need now. Caring. The feeling that someone has your back, that you have someone to listen to you, to give you advice, to keep you calm and balanced. Sometimes you can't get that from family or even from a partner. So you return to yourself. Finding inner peace is important now more than ever. Finding connection and educating yourself more in the language of love is important.
In this drawing called "Interaction" I wanted to show the feeling of love, caring between people. As you can see , the hands that touch each other have little people with hearts on the fingers. As long as you're on the hands you're good. The little humans left outside the touching hands, in the white space, are falling, are having halfs of hearts or heartbreaks. Their heart is not complete, their heart is aching. I thought about drawing each hand with a different pattern in order to show how each of us has an entire micro universe of emotions inside and how interaction with other people in a meaningful way changes us. It brings us to the same level of caring and support: all people holding hands and hearts are the same, their unity speaks visually.
Love grows when we show that we care. I represented that with little hearts between the fingers or at the top of them. How can we show that we care? First of all we articulate it verbally. We can say what we need in order to feel someone is caring. Maybe for some reading a book about couples can show the partner that they care about improving themselves and educating their behaviour inside the couple. Maybe for some is cooking, food is their love language. Maybe for others is doing the cleaning or paying the bills. For some keeping promises is an act of love. Our love language is different and we have to put effort daily to understand our own and of others. The mission of being a better partner/person never ends. It's constant dedication and self introspection. And it starts with you.
All of this is done with markers and that is the shape of my hands. I wanted to draw some artsy hands, but I figured why not use my own, in this way, the drawing would be more personal:)
If you would think about a person who cares 100% about you and to whom you get back mentally every time you feel the need to know you are important to someone, who would that person be? My person is my grandmother. She raised and educated me. I am who I am because she cared about the person I will become since I was little. She means the world for me and I am very grateful to have had her during times when the alternative would have been less fortunate. She is 85 and she is going to have a heart intervention at the end of the month. She had a little apparatus helping her heart to function better and now it has to be changed. My heart is cringing. I'm far away from her and I hope the surgery will go well. She is not allowed to not reach 100, I tell her that every time:)
Have a great day and hold on tight, this bumpy virus ride will be over:) Toodle loo!