Why I Teach Painting for Mindfulness - Pulling Back the Curtains
NO LONGER ABLE TO CONTROL HER MIND
“I used to control my mind. But now my mind controls me,” my mother responded as if it’s the most obvious answer to the inpatient psychiatrist.
All 80 or so pounds of the once spitfire immigrant woman lay fearfully in the hospital bed, her tiny body engulfed in the children’s hospital gown because that was the best fitting gown the nurse could find for her. It was nearly comical - my frail, elderly Asian mom with thin wisps of grey hair and deep lines of internal torment texturing her face enveloped in cheerful colored fabric.
She was admitted on suicide watch.
MEDICATION AND MEDITATION
Despite her broken English, my tiny mother made it clear she refused all antidepressant or antianxiety meds. “I am scared of medicine,” she sobbed. A heavy sigh escaped me as I internally reeled at the irony. Because drugs were my specialty. The legal drug dealing kind (don’t respond “legal drug dealer” though when answering border customs what your occupation is…unless you tend to have foot-in-mouth moments like me). A large part of why I ended up as a clinical pharmacist was thanks to both the pressures and sacrifices of my immigrant parents, and now, what I was able to professionally offer failed to serve my mom.
The psychiatrist shifted in her seat. Her facial expression was perfectly empathetic as she nodded and jotted down some notes. A dance of listening and charting.
“What about meditation?” she offered. Meditation was listed somewhere in my mom’s chart. Among a list of other past medical history and social history of a mom who has seemed to disappear in less than a year. Calm, resilient, matriarch of the family, optimistic, joyous, socially active, avid meditator…these were all erased and replaced with just one word on the board: dementia.
A FULL CIRCLE TO UPLIFT ONE ANOTHER
The gentle, warm breeze caressed our skins. The soft, ambient musical notes playing from my bluetooth speaker seemed to dance their way up into the bright, pastel summer sky. Spread out on the back patio table were a hodgepodge of paintbrushes, water cups, paints, paper, Ensure.
“Just watch how the paint moves on the paper, mom,” I had pre-poured out the paint and dipped the brush before gently handing it to my mom. Her frail, wrinkled hands gripped the brush shakily as she dropped paint onto paper.
“Observe how it flows. Go ahead and dip the brush straight down again and watch how the paint spreads,” I encouraged. My mother’s eyes fixed on the movement of watercolor she had just created. Mines were fixed on the ivory colored butterfly that just visited our backyard. Its wings fluttered rapidly as it pirouetted from one flower to another. My mom’s name means “butterfly” in Vietnamese. Does she feel as unencumbered as this butterfly in this moment?
We had begun this impromptu summer session with her body stiff and worried that she did not know how to paint. “I’m not an artist.” But as she painted and observed the paint flow like magic on paper, her body seemed to relax, her energy lighten, her mind finally quieting.
It felt full circle that warm, summer morning. Where medication has stopped short to help my mom as much more research is needed to better understand and treat dementia, I felt gratitude to be able to use mindfulness - something my mom had modeled to me my entire life - and art to help uplift her.
Want to try to practice creative mindfulness but don’t know where to start?
Start with this FREE Painting for Mindfulness STARTER GUIDE.
Love to learn painting for mindfulness with gentle guidance?
Sign up to be invited to live workshops and digital courses when they’re available!
