How craft is good for our health

a post by Susan Luckman for the Big Think blog


Image credit: rawpixel via unsplash

At a time when many of us feel overwhelmed by the 24/7 demands of the digital world, craft practices, alongside other activities such as colouring books for grown-ups and the up-surge of interest in cooking from scratch and productive home gardens, are being looked to as something of an antidote to the stresses and pressures of modern living.

Crafts such as knitting, crochet, weaving, ceramics, needlework and woodwork focus on repetitive actions and a skill level that can always be improved upon. According to the famous psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi this allows us to enter a “flow” state, a perfect immersive state of balance between skill and challenge.

With what is increasingly referred to today as “mindfulness” being a much-desired quality for many people, it’s not surprising crafts are being sought out for their mental and even physical benefits.

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The author mentions that most people tend to think of crafting as something done by women.
Unfortunately for those of you who come to meetups I organise I am a woman. The crafts I bring with me are, therefore, of a more gentle nature so no woodworking, bicycle repair or anything like that.
And nothing messy like painting or gluing because we meet in a public place.

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How Creativity Creates Mindfulness, Happiness, and Peace

a post by Kathy Rausch for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Mindful and creative, a child who has neither a past, nor examples to follow, nor value judgments, simply lives, speaks and plays in freedom.” ~Arnaud Desjardins

No human being lives without experiencing the duality of life.

Good and bad. Love and hate. Life and death. Acceptance and rejection. Success and failure. Joy and jealousy. Compassion and judgment.

So why do we spend so much time trying to pretend that it’s bad to experience all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly?

Even our weather men and women tell us it’s a going to be a bad day because it’s raining or snowing. I mean, come on! The earth rejoices when it rains; snow is a natural part of our eco-system.

Why do we try so hard to suppress the difficult feelings and experiences in our lives? Because our brains are wired that way? Because we were traumatized? Because our parents, teachers, and God knows who else told us to?

Does it really matter, as we heal, who, where, and why?

I remember the first time I heard the quote “Thoughts are things”.

I knew instantly that if that was true, I was in trouble because I had a lot of thoughts I wasn’t proud of and never voiced out loud. I was taught at a very young age not to “rock the boat” or be “too dramatic” and the worst, “Your mom is unhappy because of you kids”. Yikes!

So, when things got bad at home or at school or at church, they got stuffed. In me. In my heart. In my gut and in my head.

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I've seen that image, or one very similar, before together with a video showing how to create the layers. The highest points may have as many as ten layers of paint on them. I have not tried this myself but it looks complex enough to be absorbing.

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