How are you? What are you grateful for? What does your self care look like? What are your favourite ways to look after yourself? What soothes and nourishes you? What is important to you? How do you know when you need to take a break? What makes your soul sing?
These are a few of the questions Thortify invites you to ask yourself as you explore your own self care routine. We think self care is essential, but also highly subjective and personal. No two people have the same needs and we often need to try a few things out to figure out what works for us. We think creativity extends far beyond making art. We use creativity in all aspects of our lives often without realising it. It’s useful for finding solutions to life’s obstacles and building our confidence, which is hugely relevant to self care. The Art of Self Care project is about harnessing this creative power and using it to improve our own sense of wellbeing. Remember, your own self care is as unique and remarkable as you are.
Thortify are a group of creatives who are passionate about challenging the stigma surrounding mental ill health. We believe that everyone is creative and that creativity is a big part of what makes us human. Thortify aim to empower people to make positive, lifelong changes through creative methods, grounded in social science.
For us, creative self care is about learning to recognise when we aren’t okay and then doing what we need to do to feel better, before we reach tipping point. It’s a constant balancing act. Stress has a tendency to sneak up on us and sometimes we don’t recognise it until we are overwhelmed. It’s important to be gentle with yourself and remember that life is a constant learning curve.
Sometimes all we need is a lie in and a slow, restful morning. Other times we may need to show ourselves a little more focused care and attention to work through whatever is bothering us. Sometimes, we might need to seek professional help if our own coping mechanisms aren’t working for us. We have found that being consistent and prioritising self care is essential in maintaining our wellbeing.
We have created a range of supportive tools and ideas to support you on your journey. Here we will share the highlights of our Arts Council funded project and the other exciting things we have in store, including information about how you can get involved. We have recently launched two self care workbooks which can be downloaded for free from our website. You can print them at home or use the prompts to work in a notebook or sketchbook.
Our Reflective Journal invites you into a deeper state of self knowledge and understanding through reflective writing.
Ground Yourself is full of useful tools, soothing techniques and ideas to build your very own personalised grounding ritual.
Our website www.thortify.co.uk includes a range of activities, inspiring galleries and a blog with featured artist interviews and wellbeing articles. We are currently developing our Self Care Workbook which we expect to be launched in March 2023. This workbook will help you to explore what kind of self care is meaningful to you, based on well known social theory and current health and social care practice.
Getting involved is easy! We suggest that you start where feels right. Trust your intuition and let it guide you. We have plenty of activities and inspiration on our website to help you get started. Whatever you choose to do, be gentle with yourself and go at your own pace. Why not make yourself a warm drink and carve out a little time for creative play?
This year, we are honoured to be working with the wonderful community at Middle Street Resource Centre to create artwork exploring the rich heritage of the centre and it’s benefits for wellbeing. Look out for news of an exhibition at Beeston Library in April 2023. We will soon be announcing a fabulous community event in the coming weeks to mark the end of our first year and to celebrate all of the wonderful artwork we’ve created so far. We will be sharing the lessons we have learned and thanking all of the lovely people we have met along the way.
If you’d like to stay in touch with the project, or get involved, you can sign up to our quarterly mailing list or follow our Facebook or Instagram pages. You can also share your artwork with us to be featured in our online galleries.
Look after yourself, from everyone at Thortify
LH
