About the “Delight Is…” Therapeutic Creativity Series

“Delight is… growing a rainbow you can eat.”

Re-membering delight

A real Covid lockdown sanity-saver over the past few months has been a practice I’ve started of trying to be more mindful of moments that give me pleasure. I call it my “Delight Practice.” I’ve been carrying a little notebook with the words, “Delight is…” and whenever I notice something I find delight in, I jot it down in the little book.

At first I was rather shocked to realise how difficult I found this. It makes sense though. Twenty-twenty was stressful for us all, and 2021 has been no better. When we’re stressed, our brains’ default response is to focus our attention on risks, losses, and threats. With relentless stress, it can start to become really difficult to notice what’s safe and pleasurable.

As I’ve stuck with the practice, it’s become easier and easier. I’ve become more aware of moments of pleasure and, with that, I’m enjoying more moments and even some whole days of feeling relaxed, grateful, playful, and hopeful.

Growing delight

Art-making is a great way to enter a slower, more present and open state of mind where you can explore, savour, and even practice ways of being that you want more of, so I decided to start recording the little moments that bring me pleasure in the form of small, scrappy artworks. Above you can see the first one I made and here’s the full collection.

Though I’ve been enjoying the art I’ve made, this is mostly a therapeutic pursuit for me. The practice of carrying the question, “What is delightful?” is helping me to notice and slow down and appreciate what’s delightful in my life. It’s also giving me a map I can turn to for consciously building more of what delights me into my life.

A way of growing trust too

The art-making process I felt drawn to has been therapeutic too. I wanted the art-making to be quick, fun, playful, loose, and vital, so it didn’t feel like a chore. And I wanted to play with abstraction and seeing how little information one needs in order to know what you’re seeing.

This last idea feels exciting. I enjoy details. I also often feel like I need details in order to feel safe. I was always good at taking care of details, but in 2013, when holes grew in my retinas and I lost 80% of my vision, and some of my hearing too, I lost my ability to see and hear many details. And, though I’m not sure whether my vision loss, hearing loss, medical trauma, anxiety, transplant medications side effects, or the fog of the early years of parenting are the cause, my executive functioning has definitely taken a dive since 2013 and I’m no longer good with taking care of details. Yet I still often feel like I need details in order to feel safe – especially when things are stressful or uncertain.

I feel like these experiments in seeing how little information is actually necessary have been a wonderful practice of acknowledging my need for details and letting go of that need, and experiencing how good that can feel and how well things can turn out, even without details. And that sometimes it even turns out better because of the lack of details. This practice is  affirming for me that, even with 80% of my vision gone, I can still see enough, and I have so much resourcefulness in my other senses and skills too. And all of this is growing my trust in myself and in life in general.

Wanna share in the delight?

Pop over to see the full collection of my “Delight Is…” artworks.