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This Is Soul Therapy
Through grounded conversations, gentle reflection, and intuitive storytelling, This Is Soul Therapy explores how creativity, nervous system work, spirituality, and self-reclamation help us build lives that actually feel like us.
This isn't just about healing, it's about deep personal excavation and creating safety to shift how you think, remember who you are and create a reality that resonates at the soul level.
Whether you’re reconnecting with your creativity, navigating a transition, or redefining your path, this is a space to come home to yourself, fully, with power and intention.
This Is Soul Therapy
11. Soothing Your Highly Sensitive Mind: Harnessing Intuitive Art and Meditation for Sensory Overload
Join me on this episode of This Is Soul Therapy as we explore the transformative power of therapeutic art practices for highly sensitive individuals. As an empath coach, and a highly sensitive, creative empath myself I've discovered the sanctuary of doodling as a way to navigate life's overwhelming demands.
In this episode, I'll guide you through a simple technique to combat sensory overload and soothe your highly sensitive mind as I guide you through my go to process. I'll share stories of how simple breath work, meditation, and the sanctity of noise-canceling headphones have become my allies against sensory overload, and how they can help you too.
In this episode we will engage in a body scan meditation, tuning into the very essence of our being before letting our thoughts and feelings move through our bodies and onto the page. There's no judgment here, only the freedom of expression and the rhythm of music to lead the way. After we've poured our energy into creation, we'll take time to sit in stillness, absorbing the experience rather than critiquing the outcome.
If you'd love an mp3 copy of the guided therapeutic art meditation you can click on freebies here: www.jenniferhulley.com/links
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Mind, body, spirit. This is Soul Therapy. I'm Jen Hully, your host and therapeutic arts practitioner, empowering empaths and highly sensitive souls through creative, intuitive and embodied practices. This week we're talking about how taking on an intuitive art practice can actually be the key to mental health, well-being and ditching sensory overload. Hello everybody, I'm recording this on Friday, december 22nd, at the end of what has felt like a cluster fuck week.
Speaker 1:I was just texting a friend yesterday and being like it is a really, really shitty combo to have, like mercury retrograde occurring during the last week of school leading up to a major holiday, all while dealing with a whole bunch of other crap that's going on and it has not been pretty. It has not been pretty. I'm not if I like I'm not lying when I say that I've been listening to white noise and using my noise-canceling headphones on the daily and sticking with my breath work and my meditation in the morning. Thank God that's keeping me going, but it has been a struggle. If you're highly sensitive and empathic, we pick up on other people's crap right, as well as the crap that's in the environment around us. And it is busy and it is frantic and just like I had to run out to one store yesterday and I've never seen so many people in my life and, yes, maybe I shouldn't be shopping on like the 21st, but I needed stuff. And I came home so fucking frazzled Like I can't even. I'm sure you're here with me being like, yeah, it's an absolute, like it's batshit crazy right now. And that's why this week we're talking about chilling the fuck out, and I'm talking about chilling the fuck out through intuitive art and using art as a meditation practice. And you don't have to be an artist. You don't need to draw for shit. Literally. You don't have to have anything other than paper and some pens or markers or like, go steal your kids crayons. You need that, and I would recommend a set of noise-canceling headphones, because noise-canceling headphones are a sensitive person's best friend. We can cut out all the other you know noises that feel like they're scratching at our brain and just dive into a practice that's going to help you to feel regulated and calm and grounded.
Speaker 1:We're talking about a strategy that you can employ to help you regulate when you're dysregulated, meaning like you're totally overwhelmed, sensory overload mode. It's a strategy that you can put into place to help calm your mind, to help regulate your nervous system, to just help you find some zen and some chill in a busy, hectic day. It is something that kids can do. It's something that adults can do. It's something that you can do, like in the moment when you desperately need some help to bring you down, and you can do it as a preventative strategy for your wellness. It's also good to do this just to help boost your creativity.
Speaker 1:It's a strategy called intuitive art making, and intuitive art making means you're creating without a product in mind, Like you're not trying to make a dog, you're not trying to sculpt a little house, like there's no actual end product. It looks like scribbles, to be honest, like remember when you're in kindergarten, you would just take that paintbrush and you would just like have at it. You're like I am going, I don't know what I'm making. It's kind of like that. It's making marks on the paper freely, without worrying about what's going to come at the end. And when you pair intuitive art and intuitive mark making with a process that is like meditation, to get something called intuitive art meditation, which we're going to dive into today, you end up with a system that you can put into place to help you sort of shut out all your sensory stimulation because you're going to do it with your eyes closed. You're going to really get inward, go inward into your body and experience the music and the auditory track that you're listening to and express what you're feeling through your arm movements. It's a really, really interesting process and I hope that you all take time to try this and let me know how it went, let me know what your experience was with it.
Speaker 1:I've heard from a lot of people who say that they can't meditate or meditation doesn't work for them, for whatever reason, that engaging in a meditative, intuitive art experience is like the only thing that has worked for them. I posted some videos on TikTok about this and I did a couple Instagram reels and I had people in my DM saying like, oh my god, that is the first time I've ever been able to drop into something, or like I feel so chill after that and I just I believe firmly in different ways of accomplishing the same end result. Right, meditating, sitting down, if you think even about meditation. Right Like? There's multiple ways to do meditation. There's mantra meditation, there's guided meditation. Why not have one that includes art? There's different modalities, different ways of doing things, work differently for different brains and also it works for the same brains on different days. So this is just like another tool that you can put in your toolkit to help you when you're stressed, like I said, when you're dysregulated and overstimulated or when you just want to like flex that creativity muscle, because even if you're not overwhelmed and you're not dysregulated and you're not having like a meltdown, you can still do this to help you get your brain into that flow state of making something intuitively and dropping into the moment and get into like what they call flow. So this episode is for you. If you are one of those things like if you're looking for a different way to use your creative outlets to build a wellness habit, or if you're looking for a strategy to stretch your creativity muscle. This can be something to do when you're like getting ready to do a project and you've just fallen in a funk and you're like I haven't been making anything in a long time and you need to sort of hold your hand and guide yourself back into the making and, like I said, it's a great thing to do when you just had a really hard day or if everything is really really loud.
Speaker 1:I use it a lot when I'm having auditory like overload and I suffer from that a lot. I am very sound sensitive. I'm a highly sensitive person and the big one for me is noise. I can get overstimulated very quickly by noise and I love to do this. When I feel like I can't take another sound in my brain or I'm gonna explode because it takes my noise. Canceling headphones, I pop them in my ears and I have to focus so intently on the track that's in there you sort of shut everything else out, but it also moves you out of that loop in your brain, from being like this is so noisy, it's so noisy. It's so noisy, it's so noisy, excuse me into your body and moving, because you're gonna start using your arms and your hands to move your pen. So something to note before we go into the track here I do offer a free digital download of the guided portion of this audio.
Speaker 1:So if you like the 15 minute guided intuitive art meditation that we're gonna listen to today and you want it in an MP3 format that you can have on your phone or you can have it on your computer wherever, so you can just jump into it without having to listen to the preamble of the podcast or just keep forever or share with your friends. You can definitely get a copy of that. I have it set up on my website. There's a pop up where it just pops up and says get your 15 minute free guided intuitive art meditation. And you put your email in there and it will, just through the magic of the internet, send it to your inbox. There are links in the show notes to where you can get that. So if you'd love a copy, go drop your notes in there and I'll be back at the end of the meditation. All right, it's about 15 minutes long.
Speaker 1:Something to note this is not something to do while you're driving or walking. You do have to have your eyes closed and you need to be sitting in a comfortable position. So if you're listening to this podcast while you're, like at the gym, on the treadmill, just have a listen to what's happening. Don't do it, or maybe pause it and tap back in when you are in a space where you can sit and rest and really be present and be safe while doing it. All right, I'll be back at the end of the meditation. Hello and welcome to our guided intuitive art meditation.
Speaker 1:This audio is a non-traditional approach to mindfulness and meditation. While, yes, we're gonna be getting still and we're gonna be quieting our thoughts and going inward. We're also going to be stepping into a state of motion, a state of flow, as we move through a therapeutic arts activity known as intuitive mark making. To get started, you don't need much. You need a blank piece of paper, whether a loose piece of paper or in a notebook or a sketchbook. You need a marker or a pen and you need some headphones. But, most importantly, you need to find a quiet space where you will be undisturbed and you can sit safely with your eyes closed. So for that reason, this is not an appropriate activity to do while driving or walking or when your focus needs to be on something or someone else. When you're ready, grab a comfortable seat and let's begin.
Speaker 1:I invite you to first start by closing your eyes and settling into your body. Check in with yourself right now. How do you feel and where do you feel that in your body? Do you feel restless? Do you feel anticipation? Are you excited? And where are you feeling those sensations? Maybe it's in your fingers, the top of your head or in your tummy. And once you've taken a moment to check in with yourself and to ask yourself how do I feel?
Speaker 1:Today we're going to do a quick body scan just to continue to take our tuning into our senses a little bit further. So I want you to start at the top of your head. Can you check in with the feelings you have at the top of your head, your hair, your scalp? What sensations and feelings do you have there? Do you feel tightness? Do you feel nothing? Is there a message that your body might be trying to communicate with you? And once you've checked in with the top of your head, we're going to continue to scan lower, throughout our bodies, checking in as we go, asking ourselves what do I feel? What parts feel tense, what parts feel free and flowing? And it's important to know that. You don't need to know why or how this feeling happened. You just need to notice it and allow yourself to be okay with it.
Speaker 1:So let's start we're at the top of our head and move down to our face, checking in with what we feel, scanning now down to our shoulders and our upper arms, working our way down our torso, the back, the upper back and middle back, all the way down your spine, and you can wrap around through your abdomen and your stomach. What areas are communicating something with you and how are they trying to get that message through? Continue to scan down your lower back, around your hips, and through your legs into your upper thighs, not asking why or how, just creating a space to see what you can feel. Moving down now to your knees, your shins and your calves, asking your body. What feelings do you want me to notice? Take it even further down, through your ankles, across your feet, down to the tips of your toes. Do you feel tension? Do you feel openness? What's there for you today? Remembering again we don't need to know why or how, we don't need to think about what might have caused this. We just need to notice it and let it know that we see it and feel it.
Speaker 1:And now that we've settled into our bodies and our space, we're going to tune into our senses. Intuitive art and mark making is about turning inward and using your sense of sound to connect with your ability to move freely, without thinking. So we're going to prep ourselves for that by just creating a space for our minds and our bodies to connect with our larger sensory input as well as the smaller, subtle inputs that are around us right now. So I want you to take a moment and just tune into the sounds that you're hearing. Yes, you can hear my voice and you can hear this music, but is there anything else beyond the space of your headphones that is creating a sound that you can pick up on? And, if you can, what is the loudest sound that you can hear? And ask yourself what's the quietest sound that I can hear? And now we're going to do that with our sense of feeling touch.
Speaker 1:What is the strongest touch sensation that you have on your body right now? Maybe it's the feeling of you sitting in your chair, or it's something that's pulling at your clothing? What is the biggest sensory input that you can access right now for your sense of touch? And now I want you to shift that lens and try to check in with the absolute smallest sensory input that you have right now with your sense of touch, the most subtle, nuanced feeling. Maybe it's the feeling of you sitting in your chair, or it's the feeling of your breath going in and out of your nose, or the hair on the back of your neck. And lastly, we'll do it with smell. What can you smell right now? What is the largest, most potent, most in your nose smell that you've got, and is there anything more subtle Something maybe further away?
Speaker 1:And take this last moment to just check in with your body, make sure that you're comfortable, because we're going to get ready to move into the intuitive drawing portion. And for this next phase, I invite you to keep your eyes closed, really connect with the music, my voice, and just allow your body to move freely. Don't think about where your pen is going or how it's going to look at the end. Just allow yourself to let go of expectations, release intended results and step into this moment as an experiment in experiencing your senses in a different way and allowing yourself to receive what you're processing to move through you in a different manner. I will still be here with my voice to prompt you with gentle reminders and prompts now and then, but there will also be a lot of stillness and space for you to just experience the music and let it move through you. And now I'm going to queue up our music for our intuitive drawing experience and we will work through it together.
Speaker 1:Before we do, take a deep breath in and hold at the top and slowly sigh it out, release your shoulders, release that tension and limber up those arms. We're going to move those arms and here we go. You'll notice that the music will change here as we step into this intuitive mark making experience. So, with your eyes closed, I invite you to hold your marker or your pen. Remember, let go of your intended expectations and let's just listen to the music for a moment and ask yourself what does it feel like? And notice if you're already starting to move. Maybe you're swaying or rocking. We're going to take that movement and channel it through our arms with our marker or our pen. So place your pen on your paper and, as the music moves through you, move your arm in whatever manner you're being called to do. Maybe this music inspires you to make large looping movements. Maybe it's smaller waves. Maybe you find you're doing cascading loops of up and down. Whatever it is, it's right and it's true because it's how the music is moving through you. And as we listen to the music, we keep our marker on the paper. If we need to pause because we feel a sense of pause in the music, that's okay.
Speaker 1:As our pencil moves, I am concerned about how much time and effort to get, whether we increase onion agora or fourth time. So you know what everybody looks at the picture. Move your hands freely, win in time with the music as you feel the music is expressing itself. Don't think about your movements, just feel them. Perhaps you find yourself in a repetitive motion or maybe it's changing, just being in the moment and moving how you feel compelled to move, intuitively, making marks on your paper, intuitively making marks on your paper and coming to a close, finishing off your last movement and allowing your marker to rest in stillness as you remove it from your page.
Speaker 1:And now that we have finished moving through the music and we've removed our pen from the page, I invite you to sit in stillness for just a moment longer and feel what it's like to resist this urge to open your eyes and immediately look at what you've made. I know you may be curious and there may be a lot of anticipation, excitement even. But really sit in this moment before the reveal, before you open your eyes and look at what you have created. Take this last moment to breathe deeply, maybe picture in your mind what you think you have created and then let it go, let it float away into the atmosphere, have it disappear, release that expectation one final time and when you are ready, you can open your eyes and have a look at your paper. Take a minute to really look at what you see in front of you without judgment.
Speaker 1:I invite you to ask yourself what do you notice about your creation? Do you notice any patterns, any specific shapes or use of line? How did your body move throughout the space of your paper? Did you move freely and go from corner to corner, or did you find that you hung out in one space? Specifically, when you look at your paper, what feelings does it evoke in you and is there anything in here that surprised you? If you want to extend this activity and take it a bit further, you can find some really calming, relaxing music to play in your ears as you sit and color in your doodle. You may find that there are spaces that are contained, like there are closed loops in different sections. You can grab some colors that speak to you, maybe some colors that you saw while sitting and listening to the music, and you can continue to sit in this space of intuitive art making by completing it, filling it in, adding some doodles, or perhaps it is complete as is and you're ready to close off Now.
Speaker 1:I love this process because A it's easy to do. B you can do it anywhere. C it doesn't require special talent or special materials. It's just easy and it works. It works because it connects our minds with our bodies, with our intuitive and innate drive to connect through the arts. We, like I said, we're connecting with art and music and movement from the minute we're born and we get further and further away from that as we get older. And having said that, this practice is something you can do with kids as well. You can do it with adults, you can do it on your own. You can do it with children, you can modify it if you're teaching a class, like I.
Speaker 1:When I was a teacher back in England, I worked with five and six year olds that were like cuckoo bananas. They were bonkers, to say, to put it loosely. It was a challenging, challenging group of students and they would come in from recess and they would just be like amp the fuck up and crazy. And we would do this process where I would put different types of music on for them and have them close their eyes and move their pen. And it was an interesting process to like change the music and to see how different types of music felt in our bodies and how different types of music moved our bodies and what that ended up looking like, and they loved coloring it in, like they would sit there so quietly and they would do it and then they want to color it forever and like I did this even with 15 year olds recently. Like I taught a couple classes last year with teenagers at an art school and we started doing therapeutic art just as a break from them, for them, from like they're so about like creating stuff to be beautiful, and I did a variation of it, not using music, but doing the same kind of doodle activity with them, and they were so into like the coloring it in and the you know, the finishing up of the product to do, you know, turn the doodle into something.
Speaker 1:And my whole point in sharing this story is that it's good for kids, it's good for teenagers, it's good for adults and I often find when there is something like that that works for young children but also works for adults, it's because it taps in to like a core need or core desire to express or a way of being that is like so tied to our soul and our human existence, but we get separated from it as an adult, right? So give it a whirl. Give it a whirl. If you've got kids home with you over the next few weeks and they're not in school, you can try it. Or you know, if you've got kids home with you for the next few weeks or not in school, you can try it while you hide in the closet from them. Whatever works, I hope you keep this in your creative and intuitive wellness toolkit. Like I said, you can download it as an MP3 if you would like. I've got it in the show notes or you can just go to JenniferHullycom slash links and all my links are there. It's under freebies and I hope you have a fantastic week. I hope you have had a semi restful December. Let's like be honest, it's not been restful, but I hope you're surviving and getting through it and the light is at the end of the tunnel. We are almost there, folks.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for everyone who has been tuning in and leaving me feedback about the podcast.
Speaker 1:It really does help. Building a podcast from the ground up is no joke and if you would like to give back some love to me and the podcast, the one thing I ask for is that you leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, and the reason for that is not vanity metrics, it's because search results and the algorithm is a thing, and it is a challenge to grow a new podcast from the ground up and to have people find you. And the thing that really, really, really helps is ratings and reviews, and if you don't have time to write a review, you could literally just next time you're listening right now you're listening Open it up, tap the stars, please. I really appreciate it. Like I said, it helps grow the podcast. It helps pop up in the search results, but also gets this in front of the ears of people that need to be connecting with it. All right, and that's it for this week. I hope you have a lovely week, get some rest, make something great, and I will talk to you soon.