Hello and welcome to h e r e . Art Therapy.
Every year on New Year’s Eve, it is a tradition in my family to pick an Angel Card. You can pick just one card for yourself or you can pick a card to represent different elements in your life such as home, career and family. This year, many of us will be spending New Year’s Eve without (many) friends and family around due to the ongoing pandemic and the social distancing restrictions in place. It is therefore perhaps more important than ever to symbolically include all the important people in your life. You can pick a card for each of these people while dedicating a moment’s thought to them.
As a group Art Therapy exercise, the participants each decorated a box and selected approximately 24 Angel Card words to put in their boxes. The idea is simply to pick a word each morning and ponder upon it throughout the day. This could be thinking about how the word does or doesn’t resonate with you, perhaps how you could increase a sentiment like joy in your life or allow more adventure into your life, or bring in more peace.
Tonight is New Year’s Eve and so I have picked an Angel Card from the box that I decorated in this workshop. And the word that I picked was…. intimacy.
Well I must admit that this word completely threw me. I went out and did some gardening alone and then I went for a run alone, all the while pondering why this word, of all words, had come up for me today. I will admit that it is probably the one sentiment that I least want to address in my life right now. That is probably exactly why my hand picked it out of the box. I have something to learn from it.
Much as I wanted to reject this word, I worked with it and realised, as the day progressed, that this word has so many layers. My first thoughts were that intimacy seems to come hand in hand with feelings of vulnerability, then hurt and then anger…. and then feeling of mistrust towards any paths potentially leading to needing to address intimacy again. It is a wicked cycle that builds many layers of protection in an attempt to keep any vulnerability well and truly inaccessible.
Then my second thought was, in order to reclaim intimacy into my life, I need to also bring forgiveness into my life. And in order to really forgive, I need to bring love, acceptance and gratitude into my life. And suddenly I was gifted with many positive sentiments that I want to welcome into my life, and so intimacy has its place. I am not rejecting it! I went and bought myself some flowers to mark the moment.
As I think of the year that we have all had, it is not only me who is alone. We have all had our social connections restricted due to the pandemic. We have all probably had far fewer hugs and far fewer social gatherings. We have all probably dealt with a lot of emotions, anxieties and worries without the intimacy that our usual support networks would have provided. We have been forced to be apart from loved ones for so much of this year that I now feel like I would like to gift every one of you intimacy for the coming year. May there be hugs, may there be huge feasts, may there be birthday celebrations, weddings, gigs and festivals. May we dance together again, and sing if that’s your thing ;)
Now take a quiet moment before the clock strikes midnight, think about the year 2020 and pick an Angel Card to bring you into the year 2021.
Happy New Year everyone.
Kirsten
Some Angel Card words to choose from:
optimism - prosperity - laughter - contentment - nurturance - peace - focus - abundance courage - friendship - confidence - adventure - celebration - joy - acceptance harmony - trust - love - playfulness - intimacy - forgiveness - gratitude - strength - release