Kill Your Anxiety with a Creative Practice

Author - Douglas Paul Smith

Douglas Paul Smith is the founder of House of Flow and an experienced artist coach who has spent over 15 years empowering artists to unlock their creative potential. With a deep background in visual arts, meditation. and contemplative arts practices, he helps artists overcome creative blocks and transform emotional challenges through the creative process. Douglas is the author of The Infinite Artist and has taught courses on creativity, flow, and overcoming anxiety. His experience as a visual artist includes exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, and his unique approach blends Eastern philosophy with modern artistic practices to guide artists on a journey of self-discovery and growth.

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Advice for Creatives | Transforming Fear Anxiety and Depression

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June 29, 2020

Table of Contents

Anxiety’s Many Causes and Manifestations

Anxiety, in all its varied forms, affects millions worldwide, manifesting in phobias, panic disorders, separation anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, or even the nebulously termed ‘generalized anxiety disorder.’ With a medical model that attributes anxiety to an array of causes – from genetics to traumatic events, from brain chemistry to diet – understanding and managing this condition can seem overwhelmingly complex.

If you’ve grappled with anxiety, you might have found yourself sifting through a maze of medical opinions, each suggesting treatments that often amount to temporary symptom suppression rather than a cure. Medications prescribed by doctors or psychiatrists are frequently the go-to solution, aimed at alleviating immediate symptoms but not necessarily addressing the root cause of your anxiety disorder. This approach can leave you feeling like you’re merely managing your anxious feelings rather than overcoming them.

Can’t We Simplify the Problem?

So, why does anxiety have to be such an intricate problem? Can we not simplify anxiety down to a singular cause and a universally applicable remedy? The traditional paths – expensive medications or years of potentially ineffective talk therapy – leave many seeking a more straightforward, cost-effective, and fundamentally effective stress reduction method.

Here’s where the simplicity lies: the principal cause of any form of anxiety is our thinking mind. Our human ability for imaginative thought projection – where we take an experience, record it, and then project it into potential future scenarios – is both a survival mechanism and a double-edged sword. This process, akin to fire, can be harnessed for growth or lead to self-harm when not understood. We often attach to these projections as absolute truths, spiraling into panic attacks or anxious states over scenarios that may never occur, escalating to what feels like an insurmountable mountain of fear.

Anxiety is Just Thoughts

But there’s a transformative power in recognizing that these projections are just thoughts – not certainties or probabilities. When we understand that life rarely unfolds as we predict, we can begin to manage anxiety by letting go of the illusion of control over future outcomes. This realization is where creative practices for stress relief step in, offering a way to bypass the thinking mind’s havoc.

Creative therapy for anxiety isn’t just an alternative; it’s a profound method to reduce anxiety with creativity. Engaging in art, writing, or any form of creative expression allows you to enter a state of Flow, a mental state where you’re completely absorbed in an activity, which naturally counters the anxiety-causing monkey-mind. This state not only diminishes anxiety symptoms but also triggers the release of dopamine, acting as a natural antidepressant and soothing the nervous system.

In a world where the news can amplify our anxious feelings, creative practices offer a way to reclaim mental peace. By stopping the intake of negative information and starting a creative practice, you can witness a shift from anxiety to calmness. For instance, during the recent global health crises, many found solace in art therapy for anxiety, realizing that the source of their stress was often their own thought patterns influenced by external inputs like media.

Simple Daily Exercises to Kill Your Anxiety

How to manage anxiety creatively involves simple, daily exercises. Whether it’s a 5-minute sketch to divert your mind from worry or journaling for stress relief to process emotions, these quick creative exercises for anxiety can serve as immediate, practical tools. The beauty of creativity in anxiety relief lies in its accessibility and adaptability to anyone’s lifestyle, making it a potent form of mental health maintenance.

We can learn to harness the power of creativity to not only cope with but potentially transform our relationship with anxiety. By integrating creative practices into your daily routine, you’re not just seeking temporary relief; you’re building a foundation for emotional wellness and well-being. Let’s delve into how you can use these methods to not just survive but thrive amidst anxiety, offering both immediate and long-term benefits through the art of creative flow.

Kill Your Anxiety

Imagination and Anxiety

Imaginations are creating all of the time. Yet most of the time they are creating without our knowing, and much of the time, they create things which cause us to suffer — without a doubt, negative thinking leads to negative outcomes. Yet if we become privy to this process – if we are somehow convinced that the thoughts we’re so powerfully projecting are mere thoughts – that they’re not true (meaning certain, or even probable), then they lose that power over us instantaneously.

And also, if we know that things rarely ever pan out the way we think they will, then it’s much easier to relax and go on about our day, enjoying ourselves and letting things happen – letting the pieces fall where they may.

As well, if we discover that control over our present reality is an illusion, an appearance – that we are not, in fact, not so much in control of the outcomes of our actions – then it becomes very easy to just let things be as they are. We can let go of worrying about future circumstances that are not within our power to control anyway. But this requires a visceral kind of knowledge, and perhaps a bit of meditation and Self-inquiry.

An Anxious Scenario

In a pandemic situation like the Covid-19 situation we’re in now, you could be locked in your home having bouts of some type of anxiety – from watching the news on T.V. or on your computer and thinking about the possibilities of future events presented by that. You might just feel anxious for a few days, and then because you read an article about how to kill your anxiety on a blog, you realize that the anxiety you’re experiencing is caused by the negative ideas you put into your mind.

So you decide to stop watching the news, and for the most part it goes away. You realized the anxious feelings came from negative thoughts that were running laps in your head – which came from watching pessimistic and fatalistic mental input, a.k.a., the ‘news.’

(A general rule to go by is: what you put into your mind will eventually come out. The thoughts we install in our heads affect how our lives play out – not just how we react to situations, but the manner in which we go about our day, the tone of our experience. Watching the ‘news’ may be an important part of your day. But if so, ask yourself if solving your anxiety issue is not more important.)

Moreover, you realize, after reading about how the thinking mind causes anxiety, you decide to take up a meditation practice. For half an hour or more a day, you sit comfortably with your back straight in a quiet room or in a park down the street. You focus your attention on the body, and merge with the sense of beingness and wholeness that you feel while placing your attention there. Within a few weeks you realize that your day to day default way of being has shifted. You are beginning to become more centered, more aligned with a deeper sense of yourself. You feel more peaceful, and when thoughts come and go in the mind, you don’t get caught up in them as much as you used to.

One day you find yourself thinking, remembering when you used to have so much stress, so much anxiety. But somehow those days have faded, and you’re not really affected by it anymore. You are like a new person, much freer than before, much more flexible and open to possibility. Much more alive.

Kill Your Anxiety 2

A Method to Kill Your Anxiety

The are different methods to kill your anxiety. The ones I use in my coaching and teaching are highly effective, and give immediate as well as long-term results. They are meditations, creative practices, and also art-as-meditation practices.

As the basis for these practices, I use a very simple method for getting into creative Flow. The creative Flow state is a panacea for any kind of anxiety, and many other negative conditions we experience, such as depression or other negative emotional states. It works because, as we move into Flow, we automatically move out of the thinking-mind / monkey-mind mode, which is the fundamental cause of all anxiety. As well, being in Flow effectively releases dopamine in the brain, which is a natural antidepressant and has the effect of temporarily soothing your nerves and helping you feel more relaxed and generally at peace.

How to Trigger Flow

Triggering our Flow is remarkably simple and easy to practice, even without having a creative practice. However using a creative practice to achieve Flow works better for most people, for a few reasons – especially because it’s fun to do, and so makes the process that much easier and more repeatable. (For more information on Courses on using a creative practice to treat anxiety, go here.)

With any practice, it may take some time to adapt to being in the Flow state, but when you practice, you will see results. And the more you do it, the more positive and blissful the results will be.

The Ground of Being Meditation to Kill Your Anxiety

This practice is the basis for all of my courses on creative Flow.

Sit in a quiet room with your back straight, or lying down if you’re able to stay awake. Take a deep breath and release it while letting go of any tension in the body.
Close your eyes and feel your whole body at once. Feel the wholeness, the completeness of the body being wrapped in your awareness.
Notice thoughts as they come up, and gently let them go, and go back to feeling the body.
Stay there for 5 – 10 minutes, or as long as you like.
Practice in the morning before getting out of bed, and you can also practice this for 20 – 30 seconds at a time throughout your day, whenever you remember it. (15 times a day for 30 seconds would be very good)

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t do this practice while driving a car or operating heavy machinery. Make sure you are safely sitting, wherever you choose to practice.

If you do this practice once you may see immediate benefits. But the real benefits come from repetition. It has a cumulative effect, so when you keep up a regular daily practice, getting better and better at doing it, it will in turn become easier and feel better and better.

Eventually it will become very blissful, and you won’t have to try too hard to practice. It will just happen automatically, when you’re standing in line at the grocery store, or when you’re sitting in your car waiting for someone to come out of the grocery store. When you get really good at it, you can stay in Flow while walking around inside the grocery store, and you will see things you’ve never seen before in a grocery store. You will have a whole new, completely fresh experience of the grocery store.

Try this Meditation with a Creative Practice

Use this meditation before starting any creative project – drawing, music, dance, or whatever you like to do, and it will enhance its anxiety-killing abilities. It will get you into your Flow much faster, and it will help you maintain it without getting caught up in thoughts about the end product that you’re working to create, or other thoughts that may come up.

For more info, check out a more general view on dissolving negative emotions.

If you want more instruction on how to get into Flow or how to combine it with a creative practice to kill your anxiety, sign up for our monthly newsletter to hear about upcoming courses, or go here for personal creative coaching inquiries.